Chapter 1

And Cinderella thought she had it so bad!

 

 

 

The alarm loudly beeps behind me, waking me from a restless sleep. Rather than turn it off, I toss the overly fluffy teal comforter over my head, wishing I could hide away. Stay safe and calm in my bubble of warmth. Where nothing can hurt and I can pretend that everything is perfect; okay, a small bit of perfect, in my world.

“Five more minutes, mom,” I grumble to myself because she really doesn’t care whether I stay in bed or not. Hell, I could leave for days and she’d never be the wiser.

She’s here, but she’s not really here. She checked out years ago and I’ve lost hope she’ll ever check back in. When my dad died, alongside him my mother did too, just not physically.

That was eight long years ago.

Tossing the comforter back from its cocoon of warmth, exposing myself to the world, I roll to my back and slap my hands down forcefully to my sides on the mattress; it does nothing but give a small poof of air. Blowing out a heavy breath, I think about turning the alarm off, but I don’t. Instead, I watch the white blades of my ceiling fan turn around and around. Continually on the same path and never stopping. Never changing.

Funny how I can relate my life to a damn fan.

Reaching over, I slide the plastic piece on the top of my old digital clock to shut the noise off. My dad’s alarm clock. The one that used to be in his office and the one I cherish. I was eight when he passed it on to me.

“Kenderly, you gotta take initiative. Remember, in life, it’s not about how far someone carries you but how far you take yourself.”

From that day on, like magic, I got myself up for school on my own, with my special clock. It continued on as I grew up and got a job. I’ve come to love the sound of that alarm and hate it all the same. Love it for the memories, hate it because I’m awake in my life again.

The sunlight peeks through my teal with gold chevron patterned curtains. I look to the clock, five pm blinks at me.

The day is wasting, or should I say the night. Everything is mixed up, upside down and twisted in knots. Since mom spiraled down, I’ve had to make some adjustments in life. My job at the bank only lasted so long after I had to call in sick so many days to care for her in the beginning. The only way to make everything fit for me and for her has been this overnight job at the gas station.

Night shift.

I used to sing the song with my dad, but I never thought I’d be working the graveyard shift at a gas station on an old back road that truckers use to park and sleep. I still feel the anxiety creep in before every shift. We live in a small town and really nothing horrible has ever happened. Still, can I be so safe all the time? I’m a twenty-seven-year-old woman working all alone, overnight, in a gas station out on an old highway. Not that I let that uncertainty stop me.

My little girl hopes and dreams were shattered the day my dad died. What feels like eons ago, I had a plan. I was young and in love with Dixon. He and I, we were going to make it. Together. We were going to get our own place. I was going to work during the day and take night classes. We were going to have it all. Only he chose a different lifestyle over love and it all crashed at my feet. In the midst of that undeniable heartache, I lost my dad and not long after, my first love. An exciting life on the wild side took Dixon from me. Sleep apnea, the doctors said, took my dad away.

I wish nothing more than to go back in time to that day we found my father and him wake up. Unfortunately, I can’t change a damn thing. Dixon is gone and my dad is too. Instead of taking night classes at the community college, I get my lessons in the school of hard knocks every minute I’m awake.

Sleep.

The ultimate illusion of safety. You close your eyes, your breathing slows, everything is calm and comfortable. Your body relaxes into a lullaby of its own making it. In and out you breathe, all the while you drift farther and farther away.

My father went to bed thinking he would awake like every day before. Only he didn’t. He never woke up again.

If I close my eyes and allow my mind to go there, I can still hear my mom’s shrieks. I felt like my ears were bleeding as much as my heart did, just moments later, when I realized why she was losing it. He was there. His body, laying out in their big bed, his eyes closed, and he looked at peace. Only, there was no steady rise and fall of his chest to signify life. There was an odd tint to his skin and a trickle of fluid came down his mouth and nose.

Helplessly, I stood in the doorway to their room and watched as my mother kept screaming into the phone. Fear held me in place. Deep inside me, even though I wanted to hope he could be saved, I knew when the ambulance came he was already gone.

Everything fell apart the moment when my mother and I woke up that day. Seeing his lifeless body is forever etched in my brain, no matter how many times I try to forget. It’s something no child should ever have to see because it settles in your gut and you see it in your nightmares.

Getting up, I stalk to the windows and pull back the curtains. Well, at least it isn’t raining or cold. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I go into the bathroom to do my business and brush my teeth. I have twenty minutes to get dressed, braid my long honey colored hair, and get out the door. The same as every other day and I have it down to a science.

I pad down the hallway taking a peek in my mother’s room. She’s curled in a ball on the bed with her back to me, sound asleep. She’s always asleep. She gets up only to do the necessities, like empty her bladder and eat when coaxed. Otherwise, it’s like this all day, all night; either staring into space or sleeping. I can’t say it’s better from the screams and the hysterics she went through after my father’s death, but it’s better than having her hurt herself. Not being able to afford a day nurse, I purchased a baby monitor that I use to listen to her while I sleep. Only a handful of times has she gotten me up before work.

She’s lost inside herself in a way that I can’t bring her back. Doctors, medicine, she ignores and refuses all of it.

“Goodnight, momma,” I whisper. “Aunt Ruth will be with you tonight while I work.” I pause, fighting back the tears because, just like always, I get nothing in return. “I love you, momma. See you for breakfast.”

I can only hope that she’ll have a dreamless sleep and wake up willing to leave her room for the table to eat with me. The chances are … she won’t.

Just as I finish making myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, there’s a knock at our front door before Aunt Ruth uses her key to unlock the knob and walks in. My mother’s sister, her best friend, and the only person I have left who will even tolerate the shut out my mother has given us. It has all been so much more than what I thought was possible from one human being.

“Hey Kenderly.” She greets with the same bright eyed smile she’s given me my whole life. The one where she tries to hide something.

“Hey, Aunt Ruth, how was your day?” I ask, noticing my aunt looks a little paler tonight and more fatigued than usual.

“It was a good day, dear,” she replies softly as she steps in to hug me.

“You seem tired. Everything okay?”

“Just gettin’ old, sweetie. I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. You go on to work and try to make the best of it. Maybe some handsome man will come to the store tonight and sweep you off your feet!” Aunt Ruth doesn’t try to mask her excitement or her belief that, somehow, I’ll find love at the gas station.

I find the whole concept of love absurd. I let a man have my heart once and he shredded it into a million pieces. Dixon James Cartwright and his metal machine rode into my world and rode right back out, taking a piece of me with him that I can’t get back; the bastard! It’s all nonsense. I get that now. Giving your all to someone only leaves you alone picking up the pieces. Seeing my mother fall apart after the loss of love, I think I’ll be just fine without that particular emotion in my life. Hell, she can’t put herself back together and like the children’s nursery rhyme about the dude falling off the wall, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, they can’t do shit here either. Yeah, love isn’t for me. Shaking my head, I smile, “You read too many romance novels,” I try to joke with her.

“You’ll see, Kenderly Marie Hanson. Aunt Ruth knows things.” She pats me on the shoulder ending the conversation.

“I gotta run. Mom’s asleep.”

“I’ll try to get her showered before morning and hopefully we can have a breakfast together when you get home.” There’s a longing in her voice. She still holds onto hope mom will somehow wake up one day and be her old self again. Part of me hopes too, but with each passing day a little more of that dies.

“I would like that, Aunt Ruth. I’d really like that,” I reply before darting from the house.

The old eighty-eight Honda Accord was my father’s car. We sold my mother’s and now rely on this almost twenty-year-old tin can. Yes, there’s rust forming along the tire well and on one of the doors, but it serves its purpose getting me from one place to another. The best part is no payment. These days I’ll take every scrap of help I can get and buying a new car isn’t in the cards. Things are tight, but we get by.

The Honda turns over like a champ. I remember my father saying they don’t make ‘em like they used to, but this one has held the test of time. Even if I wished, with every fiber in my being, that it would be my father driving it instead of me.

The ten-minute drive goes by in a blur because I crank up the music and get lost in it. I love music. It’s stayed constant in my life even as a child and I could always rely on it to pull me out of a shitty mood or help me let loose during the good ones.

The lights blare at me ahead bouncing off the gas pumps and reflecting off the windshields of the cars. Six pumps line the front, two with customers at them, ideally pumping their gas. We have two more pumps off to the side that are diesel for the truckers who swing in off the highway and a large parking lot in the back where they sometimes sleep.

Stacy stares out the window and her face lights up when she sees me, no doubt ready to get off her shift. The small store glows as I pull around to the back and park in one of the employee spots, get out and head inside.

“Thank goodness,” Stacy says as the bells over the door chimes.

“Ready to get the hell out of here?” I question, but don’t wait for a response. Instead, I move to the back break room, pull out my cell and stuff it in my back pocket and lock my purse up. After getting myself together, I meet Stacy at the counter.

“It’s been slow as molasses. If I don’t get the hell out of here, I’m going to drive myself crazy.” Her last word rolls around in my head. Crazy. There are so many ways to interpret that one little word. “The only fun was Travis came by with some of his buddies. I do love to flirt with the cute ones.”

She wasn’t wrong. Travis is all kinds of cute in the clean cut, never get a scratch on him kind of way. I bet he’s never changed a tire in his life or gotten his hands really dirty. Those types of men don’t appeal to me. Never have, but I can admire him.

“Did you get his number this time?” I chuckle at the look on her face. She’s been flirting with him forever and he still hasn’t taken the bait.

“No,” she grumbles and starts to make her way off to the back. “I’m outta here.”

Stacy and our small chit chat in passing is the only friendship I really have left, which is pretty sad. With so much going on with my mom, none of my friends from high school could understand why I couldn’t just go out freely. They called for a while, but when I repeatedly had to decline either because I had to take care of mom or work, they eventually stopped. I never put in the effort to tag them down either.

Once Stacy leaves, it’s just me and the night—along with whoever shows up in the dead of darkness. If Stacy thought her day was slow, my time is sure to be painful because it looks as if she’s already stocked everything and cleaned, since I smell citrus, leaving me with really nothing to do but stand and wait.

Flipping through the gossip magazine, nothing sparks my interest. I don’t care what Kardashian is making headlines for their stupid behavior. Nor does the latest fight between Angelina and Brad appeal to me. It’s a total and utter waste of time. Yes, I’m getting paid so I shouldn’t complain; but, at least at the bank I was busy and it made the hours fly by. Here, each tick of the clock seems like a lifetime.

The bell over the door chimes and Mrs. Shellsmith enters along with her two children who take off running through the small space. At least I’ll have something to clean when they leave. Little terrors.

Mrs. Shellsmith gives me only a glance as I say, “Hello,” and she doesn’t reply back with words. Small towns. I hate them. Everyone knows everyone else’s business and most of the time what they know is a big pile of shit, yet they take it as truth.

I try not to watch their movements through the store, but it’s the most excitement I’ve seen, which is pretty pathetic and can’t turn my eyes away.

Mrs. Shellsmith’s kids slide up to the counter tossing bags of chips, snacks, candy and drinks. Mrs. Shellsmith follows behind putting her purified water bottle next to her children’s items.

“Hello,” I greet cordially, again, then begin to ring up all the items. The kids start bickering back and forth all the while their mother says nothing, but I can feel her eyes on me as I work.

When I look up, I’m not wrong because her focus is solely on me and not her children who are now grappling on the floor.

“How’s your mother?”

The question sends a chill up my spine. Why? Because she really doesn’t care about how my mother is. No, she wants gossip that she can take back to the people in this town and talk about the woman who is mentally disturbed, as I heard one person call her. No. This isn’t happening.

“Great,” I lie.

She doesn’t give up. “I heard she’s still having a really hard time. It’s been years; don’t you think you should get her some help?” Mrs. Shellsmith asks and it comes out sickly sweet. I have the urge to throat punch her and smack the fake façade off of her.

The number of people in this town that have given me this advice is staggering, like I haven’t done everything I possibly can for my mother. I’ve taken her to doctors when I can force her out of bed. They’ve prescribed medication, but she refuses to take it and she barely eats so I can’t hide it in her food.

What pisses me off though, it’s no one’s fucking business. None of them. Even the ones that called themselves my mother’s friends don’t deserve to know a damn thing about her. They all abandoned her and left her to suffer alone. Never really checking in on her or coming by to try and see her. Nothing. Fuck them.

Since I’m at my job and I need this to pay the bills, I have to keep my cool.

“Thank you for your concern. That’ll be thirteen seventy-five, please.”

Mrs. Shellsmith shakes her head and digs into her oversized purse, that could probably carry a small child, pulling out some bills. She hands them to me and I turn my attention to the register.

“You’re her daughter. It’s a real shame she’s like she is. You need to help her.”

My blood begins to boil red hot. She has no idea what I go through with my mother on a daily basis. She has no idea the heartache I feel when she can’t even come to the table and have a meal with me. She has no idea the number of times I’ve begged her to get out of bed to make a doctor’s appointment that we ended up missing. She has no idea the tears that have been shed because I feel like I can’t seem to get it right with her. Mrs. Shellsmith has no fucking idea.

The register drawer slams shut from my force and my professional mask slips a bit. From the look on the woman’s face, she sees the change.

I hold out the coins and tentatively she puts her hand out for them.

“Do not come in here and tell me what I need to do. You keep your nose out of my personal business. It’s a shame that everyone in this town thinks they know what my life is and what I have or have not done for my mother,” I clip harshly, unable to contain my fury. Ever since my mother spiraled down, I’ve been shamed. Shamed for not doing more for my mother. Shamed for not putting her in a hospital. Shamed for not forcing her to get on with life. They don’t know, no one can force someone to do something when they are so low they can’t pick themselves up again. Screw them. They don’t know the way it wages a war inside me with my own emotions. They don’t know the helplessness that comes in watching someone you love disappear and you silently beg for even a sliver of who they once were to return.

She takes her change, giving me a disgusted look, calling her children and surprisingly leaves without a word. Bitch.

I clean up what her children decided to destroy and go back to flipping through a new magazine. Ever since the card readers were put in at the pumps, barely anyone comes into the actual store any more. That’s good and bad, as in no one to talk to and boring.

The rumble of motorcycles in the distance catches my attention and I turn to the window hoping like hell that I’m wrong. Hoping that my gut, which knots and twists, is a fat out liar. The noise grows closer until single headlights shine directly at me, then turn into the station. All together in one perfect uniform as if it’s breathing to them.

My eyes dart to every one of the Harley’s and my breath leaves me when I see the Ruthless Rebels MC. Shamus, Lurch, Clover, Oscar, Grinder and DJ, as he now goes by, Dixon James Cartwright the fucking dickhead. I can’t stop watching him though, as he parks his bike and gets out to pump gas into his tank. Luckily, he slides his card in the reader and I let out a little sigh of relief.

He’s not coming in here. Thank God.

The guys around him do the same and they’re off. I shake off the unnerving feel that always comes with seeing DJ. Why can’t he just disappear? Hell, why can’t I just disappear.