Ingram

Coming awake with a gasp I sit bolt upright in bed and pant out the pain in my chest as it hits me with a vengeance and curls into the empty space inside me to the point that breathing becomes difficult.

I can barely see with the darkness all around me and yet I struggle from the bed, angrily shoving and kicking at the tangle sheets as I push up and run for the light switch to clear the dream from my head.

When the bright light stream down and burns my eyeballs, clearing all fog and chance of sleep from my brain I feel a small lessening of the tension stringing me tight and finally let out a sigh of relief, just breathing as I force my mind and body to shake free of it all.

It’s been three days and-I check the clock beside the bed-eleven hours since I had my heart ripped out and smashed into the ground like a bloody piece of offal.

I’d say I’m okay, I mean I should be according to what everyone else thinks of me, but I’m not. Because I was a fool. A stupid idiot who for once let herself believe in romance and those cheesy happily ever afters other people seem to live by.

I want to scream whenever I see Tink, Mari or Rox swanning around in ignorant bliss because it just pisses me of that they’re so unconcerned with the fact that everything they believe in is bullshit!

I hate love. I hate love. I hate love.

I hate knowing that I let myself fall for that fairy tale crap and got my ass kicked like a bitch. I hate knowing that I fell for the whole spiel as if I had any right to think it could be true.

And I hate even more that I feel my heart breaking all over again because it just won’t stop and I know why that is. I miss Russell, that rat bastard, too good to be true little shit who made me believe that letting go and giving in would free me.

Most of all I hate knowing that I feel this way and will have to see his ugly face every week for the rest of my life because along with being my cousin’s husbands best friend, he’s also now considered a part of this family.

Thus prohibiting me from outright murder.

A pity because at this moment I would like nothing more than to kill him deader than dead and leave his broken corpse on the church steps as a warning to naïve fools everywhere.

You’re probably confused because if you’ve met my cousins and heard their stories of love and happily ever afters you’ve heard about me.

The hard one. The snarky one. He crazy one who manbashes and sleeps around like a hooker with an excellent business sense.

And that is me! I swear it is. I mean it used to be and if I have anything to say about this shit it will be me again.

But see…

I went and fucked up. I let my guard down and fell in love with Russell Mark, because he pursued me without shame and had me so upside down and confused that by the time I was right side up again I couldn’t see anything else but him and that cheeky grin that makes my panties scream for mercy.

It only took like two months of me constantly fighting the attraction for him to win and when that happened I swear, I was lost. He possessed me, owned me, made me feel things that no other man ever has before or ever will again and I gave myself up so easily it hurts just thinking about it.

I let him have it all. My body, this useless meat suit that now doesn’t want to breathe without him telling it to. My mind because I think of him all the time anyway so he might as well own that too. My heart. That bloody piece of off cut meat that only stutters occasionally now when I force it to beat. My soul.

Not that I can tell anyone that because according to mama, my family and half the population of the city, I don’t have one of those.

But he owns it. He owned it, I think angrily as I stomp out of my bedroom and into the kitchen to start coffee and boot up my laptop. He used to own it!

Its dead now, so whatever. You want a piece of rotting flesh asshole? Take it, I don’t fucking want it anymore, I snarl, slapping a hand against the fridge as rage hits me.

After getting together with Russell the first time, we both agreed to keep our relationship a secret because as he laughingly put it, my mama would have me fit for a wedding dress and maternity pants so fast my head would spin right off.

We’ve been…we were together for months, sneaking around the place while I pretended to despise him and insulted him nonstop. It was illicit and hot and exciting at first but also great because I got to have him all to myself without my family draining the life’s blood from my budding relationship.

Russel consumed me and I loved every minute of his dirty, wicked feasting. I fell, hard and fast and got in so deep that I was on the verge of saying screw it and telling my family that I am in fact not a lesbian, a man struggling to be free of my woman’s body-like my brother Obin maintained-or physically deformed like my aunts kept asking me about.

I was going to come out-of the love closet-and enjoy the shock on their faces when they all realized that I pulled on over on them all. And then I was going to commit the ultimate of high sin and commit myself to Russell.

Marriage. Little shitting babies who’d probably come out with teeth and snarling evil-because I mean I am Roberta Egan’s kid and with her blood pumping in my veins nothing good will come out of this uterus.

I was excited. Filled with optimism and hope and all that other mushy crap that you idiots believe in. I was resplendent with joy.

Or however you fancy folk say it. On the street we’d say I was shit happy!

And then he broke me.

And now I just hate him. Of course I do. I am not pining or missing him or any of that other gross stuff because I have a brain and pride and if I feel anything good towards that piece of….that would make me a fool. And my mama didn’t raise no fools.

I mean besides my brother Gregor but that is like one example and mama can’t be blamed fully because Greg chose to believe that he could fly off the school roof.

That was all his doing. And it’s not like he’s overly damaged or anything. He just forgets things sometimes and blurts out curses. Funnily enough only at church around the nuns but he has a doctor’s note to explain that okay.

Mama has a theory he’s faking it just to make her burn with mortal shame. I think she’s right but refuse to tell her that because Greg’s my hero.

Just as I’m about to giggle, for the first time in days I might add, the phone rings, startling me enough to spill coffee all over the place. I glance at the clock on the microwave and confirm that the hour is half past way too freaking early in the morning.

For a second my brain streams through some veeeery scary scenarios. What if it’s Russell? Nah, the man is way too intelligent to wake me at this hour without the benefit of hot sex. He knows I’d shank him. Not deep! Just enough to make him bleed like the pig he is and go to the emergency room so I can go back to bed.

What if it’s mama? That woman has the devil’s third eye and just knows when I’m miserable, something I am convinced she lives for. Nah. Even evil needs to sleep.

And then my theory is shot to hell when I grab the receiver and bark a hello.

“You’re awake. I just knew you were awake, I could feel it.” Mari says darkly, making me shiver and rethink my theory about where the nexus of evil lies in this family.

My cousin Mari is straight up, without a doubt, no exaggerations, bat shit crazy. And diabolical. And very eerily frightening if she’s lying in bed next to her husband Gray, one of the hottest pieces of ass I have ever met, and just felt me suffering.

“Jesus Mari, that is ass clenchingly scary lady.” I huff, falling into my seat with a snort when she cackles with glee and takes it as a compliment.

“It’s this pregnancy hormone surge I’m having. I feeeeeel the world around me in a very unsettling way.”

“God.”

“Just kidding. I was at supper remember? I saw the mood you were in and I know you Ing, you brood and skulk around that dungeon you live in when you’re pissed. The last time aunt Ro put your details in the classifieds and advertised to get you a husband you didn’t sleep for three days and bit Obin when he touched you.”

I snort and feel my mood brighten a little because you just know I enjoyed taking a chunk of that man’s diseased hand. In my defence, he was reaching for the last cookie and I only got like three. My daily minimum is five so those people are lucky someone didn’t die that day.

“He got what was coming to him and you know it. No offense Mari, but what in the world are you doing calling me in the middle of the night if you’ve got a hunk in bed with you?”

Oh! Heart cramp. Damn this fucker, when will she just give up and atrophe?

“Ingram, don’t make me come over there and beat your ass. Besides, he’s exhausted after I rode him like a wild woman and dried out his nuts. He needs to recuperate. I think he might be in a sex coma.” She whispers, making me chuckle.

“Why are you whispering then?”

She giggles and I feel my mouth curve. Mari may be terrible and scare the rest of us with her plotting-god I think she may be a carbon copy of Lizzie at this point, how freaking ironic!-but she’s got a heart of gold and I love hearing that she’s happy enough to giggle.

True, that may bite me in the ass when she’s torturing me in hell and giggling with glee, but here in the land of the living I can so appreciate her happiness.

Mostly! Like I said, I get to be a little snide inside about the whole true love shit.

“You’re right. Oomph! Gray! Dammit, you scared me.”

“Sorry, baby. Whatcha doing?” I hear, his muffled, sleep laden growl coming over the phone.

“Talking to Ing. She’s serial skulking again and it’s making me twitchy.”

“It’s creepy that you know when she’s awake. You know that right?”

“Go back to sleep wrinkled nuts and let me worry about being weird.”

He huffs something that makes me giggle and I hear Mari sigh as he kisses her and probably rolls over to escape her wrath.

“Now. What’s up? You were particularly unpleasant at Lizzie’s and from the mournful looks and puppy dog eyes Rus was throwing you I’d guess you put sugar in his radiator again.”

I should. I should ruin that heap of gleaming scrap he calls a car and make him cry like Snookie at a tee totallers convention.

“He’s an ass. I can’t even…” I grate, clenching my cup hard enough to make my knuckles pop.

“What did he do this time? Did he send pictures to your mama again? Please tell me he didn’t. The last time she saw you going at a guy like a badger at a bee hive she was hysterical for days. Mama says she forgot to take her hair curlers out and went to church with whiskey breath.”

That gets a genuine laugh out of me because my mama is what we affectionately term ‘special’. She still sets her hair without stepping foot at the salon, something Mari and I are certain is on account of her head being able to rotate all the way around her turkey neck-she cuts it too okay!-and she tipples a little.

Well, I mean not that much. Only like a few drinks a day but who can blame her? She pushed out ten boys before I came along and then papa knocked her up with my sister Nelly before she ‘had to have her uterus removed’. I say it this way because the doctor looked really uncomfortable when she was telling papa that it was a medical emergency.

My guess is she was so scared her vagina was going to make a run for it that she went against her religion and had it removed so she didn’t have to sin by taking birth control.

Not that she’d have needed to for very long since she’s like six hundred and seventy and would have been spewing talc soon enough.

“Ing?”

“Oh, sorry. Uh yeah, I’m fine Mari. Russell is an ass, but what the hell is new and no, I’m not talking about Stalker Sam because he’s just too pathetic for words. I’ve just got a lot on my plate is all.”

I lie a little because, well I can and I may hate Russell right now but no way do I want Mari getting her claws into him. She’d hear me saying the words heartache and Russell would wake up with his spine in her teeth and shit in a bag for the rest of his miserable life.

I’m cruel but not that heartless.

Besides, I can’t even talk about him at this point because it makes me ovulate and cry like I’m on the rag and I don’t need it right now. I’ll deal like my family has been doing for generations and Self-Denial the shit out of this thing.

It’s a healthier option because if I have to go see a shrink I’ll traumatise the fool and send her to a shrink and then we’d just have a vicious cycle of trauma.

It’s true. The one time I opened up to sister Mary Grace-who is like certified and cannot divulge anything, the only reason I even opened my mouth since I didn’t want to die-she took a vow of silence for two months and hasn’t ever been right again.

My family will do that to a person.

“You sure you’re okay? Maybe I can help.”

Help? Mari’s version of help leans more towards felony crimes and things that require a crime scene cleanup crew and hazmat suits. Think I’ll pass for now. At least until I can unleash her without doing something dumb, like crying. Or letting on to my shark infested family that I actually have emotional responses.

Quickest way to get attacked in this family.

“I’m all good. Promise.” I’m already doomed so lying is just a moot point at this juncture. “Now go to sleep and let my little niece or nephew get some rest. That poor kid’s gonna need all the fortitude it can muster before you get your paws into it.”

She giggles again and I hear Gray mumble something indecent before she squeaks and ends the call.

Ah love. You fickle bitch.