WYATT
I hiked my gym bag higher on my slouched shoulder and pushed away a few damp strands of hair that kept on sticking to my forehead. After today’s work, I took a quick shower and left without another word for my boss. It’s been the fifth week since he cut my hours short and I was getting more pissed when I saw that I was the only one with my hours cut by half. As if everything wasn’t already gone to shits in my life.
I sighed and pushed away thoughts of her or my family or Ralph. Since my fight with my best friend two days ago, I hadn’t heard anything from him, and I was thankful. It gave me enough room to breathe because I was tired of driving people away. That’s something I had done almost my whole life, but this went too far, even for me. And I fucking missed my girl.
Sleeping in my bed was out of the question. Instead, I would catch an hour here and there on my couch, and my dreams never failed to show me, Marissa. Sometimes moments we had shared, at times moments that we could have shared, other times, and these were the worst, I’d have a nightmare of her with another guy, a man worthy of her.
I was stuck in Purgatory, and it was from my own doing, pushed by a man I despised with all my might. But what did it say about me if I shared his blood?
I snorted at my thoughts and looked up from the uneven pavement.
“I can’t catch a fucking break,’’ I mumbled darkly to myself as I squared my shoulders and stopped near an obnoxiously white SUV. I watched the two men walking toward me, but only one had my full attention. He was a lot skinnier than his friend, but the mean look on his face didn’t offer any doubt as to how this would end.
I hadn’t seen him in months, not since that party where Marissa joined me. I had been spared his filth and junkie shit, but it wasn’t surprising that he was here now. After all, the whole damn universe was on my back.
“Wyatt. Fancy meeting you here,’’ he said, his voice a grumbling mess as if his vocal chords were damaged. I squinted at him, ignoring the sun that blinded me and noticed that he looked worse than the last time. But this time around his clothes didn’t seem like they belonged in the garbage. That was the only improvement because if anybody had asked me, I’d have said that he aged ten years in the span of a few short months.
“You don’t hang out around here. What do you want?’’
He bared his teeth in what was probably supposed to be a smile, only looked like a nasty grimace. I looked away from his yellowed teeth, his chapped lips and the way his skin seemed ready to tear in two. Instead, I stared at the big fella that accompanied him. The bulge under his shirt at the waist made me wonder if he was packing.
My heart sped up a bit.
“Don’t push me, Wyatt,’’ Tim bit out and fidgeted. One quick glance at his hands told me he was in need of a new fix. That didn’t speak well for me. Shit. Fuck. “Damn it. You’re a piece of work. Alright,’’ he went on and came close. I got a whiff of cigarette smell coming from him. His buddy wasn’t looking at us but surveyed the street as if he was used to spotting during some deal of shady stuff. “I was just wondering how’s your family.’’
“My family?’’ I pursed my lips and shook my head. “What the fuck are you talking about my family? You don’t even know them.’’ And if he hinted at anything regarding their safety, he was going to get what had been coming for him.
“I’m not talking about your precious Burtons. Come on, you’re their charity project. I’m talking about blood here.’’
Coldness sipped through me again, rendering me a mess of chills I hid by locking every muscle in my body. I was a wall, a brick wall, on the outside, but inside? Inside, I was a mess of emotions swirling through, with one predominant. Fear.
“Why do you ask? And why did you wait for me after work to catch me on my way back to my place, huh? What do you want from me?’’ I fired the questions in succession, not waiting for him to answer me because I knew he would weasel his way out, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t look him in the eye to catch something in there, anything through the fog of drugs and puddle-deep depth he showcased.
“Nothing better to do?’’ He arched a thin eyebrow, so thin I barely made out the dirty blond hairs. He tsked then. “Not all of us are gym rats like you.’’
“Yeah, and not everybody is a junkie like you.’’
He laughed then, the kind of roar that appeared crazy even to people who didn’t know the guy. It also sounded cavernous as if the man barely breathed. “Funny.’’ He fidgeted again and then glared at something behind me. If I had to guess, it was probably people coming our way, people that would put an end soon to his fucked up visit. But I didn’t check. I didn’t want to let him out of my sight, not when the guy was a basket case and was accompanied by someone who packed. “Careful of what you say, Wyatt. You have no idea who I know. I bet I’ve got ties with someone you’d rather not see again.’’
I blinked at his words and stared at him as he went to pass by me, but just as his skinny shoulder bumped into me, making him sway sideways when I didn’t move an inch, his words registered, or rather the underlying meaning of his words.
Without realizing what I was doing, without keeping in mind that the big dude who hadn’t cracked a word could very well put a bullet in my head, I grabbed the asshole by the neck in one hand and twisted one of his arms behind his back with the other.
His wrist was tiny in my grip, so damn fragile his bones were the only thing I felt in my palm. He tried to wriggle out of my grip, but he was too weak by the drugs, the lack of muscles and he wasn’t blind with anger and fear like I was. It drove a man to great length.
“Fuck!’’ the big dude blurted and tried to get me off his junkie friend, but even if he had me by several pounds, I held on. “Let him go!’’
I grunted and pushed Tim against the brick wall. He cried in pain and closed his eyes tight, but that didn’t stop the crazy smile from stretching his lips wide until a crevice oozed blood.
“You better talk now,’’ I gritted out, my voice so tight it lashed out.
“Get off me,’’ he panted out as I squeezed his throat and pushed his arms higher on his back until I knew just a tiny little push would dislocate his shoulder. Just a push.
“Enough!’’ the guy yelled in my ear, getting me in a headlock that cut off most of my oxygen intake. It didn’t stop me.
“Who were you talking about? TELL ME!’’
And then it was over. The guy released me with a curse and cocked a gun to the back of my head. Right there in the middle of the afternoon, right where everybody could see.
I froze when the cold metal registered against my skull. Funny how my hair didn’t prevent me from feeling the weight of it and the coldness. The guy took off the safety, and I knew that if I didn’t release Tim his friend wouldn't think twice about putting that bullet in my head. I could end up there, bleeding out from the head, unrecognizable unless someone took my dental reports. I could get cold on the pavement while my parents would get a call to tell them I’d have been killed by gunshot, probably robbed.
And it would still boil down to one person.
My biological father.
Everything in me screamed to hurt Tim and get to the bottom of this, but even if I was driving people away from me, it didn’t mean that I was ready to leave them. My parents and Ava, they meant the world to me, and they deserved more than that pain. Ralph was my best friend and had been with me from the get-go. He was going through some shit and deserved someone to be there for him in return.
And Marissa.
Marissa was in my heart, so deep she made me want to believe, even now with a gun to my head and the prospect of getting my biological father in my life again all the more real, that better things could come.
One finger at a time, the joints aching from going against what I craved in the deepest of me, I released Tim and held up my hands in surrender. The asshole bumped his head against the wall when I stopped supporting him. His thin chest heaved. His crazed eyes settled on me with a quiet threat clear as fucking day.
The gun retreated from the back of my head and with it the big dude that crowded me.
“Don’t fucking move,’’ the guy warned and put a heavy hand on my shoulder as if to ensure I wouldn’t go after his friend again. Damn, I was dying to. I shook with the pent-up energy whirring through me. But I wouldn’t move. I chose my family, my best friend and the woman that ensnared me.
“You’re going to hurt, Wyatt,’’ Tim said darkly, spitting down near my shoes before he walked past me without another look, but he wouldn’t go without saying at least one last thing. “There are eyes on you, asshole.’’
Where I was burning up with rage and fear a moment ago, I froze instantly, my whole body going into what could only be hypothermia. I couldn’t be this cold for no reason. I couldn’t lose the sensations in my fingers and feet for no reason. And I sure couldn’t be feeling the ice in my lungs for no reason.
But it wasn’t for nothing, and the weather had nothing to do with it. Hell, it was late June already, and Atlanta wasn’t known to be cold at that time of the year. The asshole’s parting words found echo inside me as I looked around the street, stopping at everything I saw moving.
The cat that ran between cars a block down. The man that held his toddler’s hand as the kid pointed excitedly at a bird that shit on a car. The teenager that dribbled his basketball while walking up the street and bobbing his head, probably following the rhythm of the music playing in his ears. The lady that cleaned the window of her clothing shop.
And then, then I caught a man’s back as he entered a building nearby. A quick glance before the heavy door closed after him told me he was of average height, thinly muscled and with dark brown hair weaved in with gray hair. He could be anybody.
He could be my biological father.
Throat parched, heart unevenly beating in my chest and fear rendering me to the position of the little boy I used to be, the little boy that went into the corner of the closet that was used as his room to rock back and forth while hugging himself tightly in comfort.
I stood there frozen in the middle of the street, unsure if that man had been watching me. If he was my father. I stood there until the car I was standing next to beeped open, and a dapper suit walked briskly to it, distractedly and pointedly asking me to move.
I did. I moved and resumed my walk back home with the impossible certainty that the man hiding in the building had been my monster of a father.
***
MARISSA
I wiped at the guy’s knuckle to remove the surplus of ink and the blood that oozed from where I was working on the letter C in block letter, the last letter from the tattoo that represented the client’s son’s name. I kept my eyes riveted to my work while Kam and the guy talked. They were old friends, but where Kam put his love of tattoos to work, the man seemed content in coming to be Kam’s billboard display while working at an auto-body-shop out of Atlanta.
The tattoo was simple even if sometimes knuckles could be a bitch to work on, but it helped me shed the sadness that permeated me completely for close to three weeks. Three weeks since that morning at Wyatt’s place.
As his name flashed through my mind, I winced. Pushing through the throbbing pain in my chest and the lead that weighed down my stomach, I lifted the tattoo machine to the raised skin and finished the shading of the C. I took extra long just because I needed that time to fight the prickles in my eyes and be fully composed before I faced my boss and mentor.
“Alright, Arthur. It’s all done,’’ I said and wiped out the ink and blood, staring critically at my work. Once I was happy with the result, I straightened up on my stool and glanced at Kam to get his approval.
“Nice, Marissa. For once I bet my girl isn’t going to be bitching when I get home with a new tat. She always says I spend too much money on them, but this is about our little guy.’’
Kam nodded and winked at me. I smiled brightly, but while I was happy, the smile on my face wasn’t as genuine as it should be considering my apprenticeship would be over soon. Finally.
When my phone vibrated in my pocket, I ignored it at first. I had to clean my station, throw away the gloves in the disposal and then cash in Arthur, but when it vibrated again immediately after, my frown slammed down again.
“What’s up?’’ Cam asked when I failed to answer when both men addressed me. His annoyance was clear as day, but I didn’t let it get to me. Not when my phone was silent again and started vibrating a third time in a row.
“My phone keeps ringing. I…’’
“Yeah, yeah. Answer it,’’ he cut me off with a wave and snatched the cleaning supplies from my hands. I apologized to Arthur who smiled, and I grabbed my phone from my pocket. When Jamie’s name flashed on the screen, my stomach rolled over.
“Jamie?’’ I said in a whisper as soon as my phone was to my ear.
His loud breathing and his wife’s complaint in the background gave my heart a start.
“Shit, why didn’t you answer earlier?’’
“What’s going on?’’ I blurted louder, catching Kam and Arthur’s attention and a surreptitious look from Jade and Sophie from the front desk.
“You need to get to the hospital. Aimee’s water broke. Shit!’’
“What?’’ I heard Aimee’s feeble voice ask.
“I forgot your suitcase! I forgot the fucking suitcase!’’ Jamie said and cursed at length loudly, his voice going an octave higher, something that never happened.
“Alright, you need to calm down,’’ I said and paced the main room of the tattoo parlor, weaving between the stations.
“Yeah, I know. Wait,’’ he replied with a choked voice as I heard the car’s motor get louder as he gained speed. “Julia said she got the suitcase. How did I miss it? I’m losing it, Mar. You have to come to the hospital. Now.’’
“Of course. Just… Listen, Julia needs you to stay calm. She’s the one with a watermelon-sized human she’s about to push out of her body. You’re only the one who will get a bruised hand while you try and support her through all of this. Breathe and be there for her. Got it?’’
“Got it. But hurry, Mar.’’ He hung up, but not before I heard him take a deep breath, the same way our dad had told him to when he was a wild teenager quickly riled up.
I put my phone in my jeans pocket and smiled at Kam. “That was my brother. I’m going to be an aunt.’’
“Oh shit!’’ Arthur exclaimed and then laughed cheerfully, apparently still on his baby high from his first-born last week. “Is he a mess of nerves. I was going insane when Carly went into labor. She had to be the one holding my hand.’’
I nodded and gave a quiet laugh as I walked back to Kam and Arthur. “He’s out of his mind and begged me to join them at the hospital. They’re on their way right now. I hate to do this, Kam, but—''
“Don't say more. You go. Family is the most important thing. Once you’ve welcomed that baby, you get your ass back here. Keep me posted and bid Jamie and Aimee my congratulations.’’
“Thank you,’’ I blurted and gave my mentor a spontaneous hug before waving to Arthur and quickly recounting the new development to Sophie who squealed loudly and jumped on the spot behind the front desk just as her three o’clock client arrived for a daith piercing.
“Call me!’’ she yelled after me as I dashed out with my purse in one hand and my car keys in the other.
I was about to be an aunt. A tiny human being was about to make his first appearance in the world, take his first breath and burrow his way into many people’s life before he could open his eyes. But even though this day was for celebration, there was this nagging emotion pulling me down. It stopped me from bouncing to my car. It tainted my smile and dulled the sparkles in my eyes.
My heart was in pieces, and I could try and patch it up with tape, but the damages were done.