Stumble
On the road of life, we will stumble, and we will probably fall. We will make bad choices. The key is to learn from our mistakes so we don’t stay down.
BREEZE
MY FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY came and went without a word from my dad. Shame got all weird when I asked about him so I stopped. Actually, Shame got all weird when we spoke about anything. Regardless, my dad was a distant memory, lost with my childhood. I walked by my old house a few times, but knew I would only find him drunk. I never knocked for fear of disappointment. Not to mention it was against Shame’s rules.
Although they weren’t blood, I was not without a family. I had the club, which I knew Shame hated. He had hoped his stunt with Tex would push me away. It failed. I grew closer to the group every day. Life in the club could never scare me away because I loved Viv and the guys too much. I also had Lance and his grandma, who I adored.
It was May and The Bastards were hosting a huge graduation party for Viv. They were all elated for her. I was happy too, although a little sad and uncertain. Once she passed The Bar, I knew she planned to work in a law firm. She wouldn’t be at the club for support.
Pocket and I never spoke. Occasionally she would send a text, but it was always short. Viv had become my best friend. She was there for me when Lance and I would have an argument, which wasn’t often, but a girl needed another girl to mope with.
Shame kept his distance, plus I couldn’t talk to him about guys. I needed Viv and she was leaving me. I felt like every time I took a step forward, something would happen to cause me to stumble back a few steps. Honestly, I had been getting more and more down about life. I was wound tight, trying to stick to Shame’s rules and pretend deep inside I wasn’t hurt my dad didn’t want me and neither did Shame. He couldn’t give me back to my dad, although I know he considered it. Viv told me. Lately I felt more like an obligation he resented.
“You okay?” Viv asked, entering the kitchen.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Lance is looking for you.”
“Thanks.”
As I turned to go find him, Viv said, “I’ll be here for a while.”
I turned around, making a sad face. “How long is a while?”
“Relax.” She smiled. “I still have to take The Bar, which I don’t have planned for a few months. Besides, even when I get a job, I’ll still be around.”
I felt a smile form, energy returning to my body. “You will?”
“Of course.”
I felt much better and hugged her hard.
“There you are,” Lance said from behind me. “Everyone’s going to Lars’s house tonight for his birthday. You wanna go?”
I looked at Viv. “Go ahead,” she answered my silent question. “It’s better than hanging out with these clowns, which will only end in cleaning up puke later.”
“Okay,” I said to Lance. “I have to go ask Shame.”
I left Lance with Viv in the kitchen and found Shame on the couch in the clubhouse. Sabina was mounted on his lap. I rolled my eyes as I approached. Shame wanted me to like her, but honestly how could I like a woman so pathetic.
Didn’t she have any respect for herself?
She dropped everything in her life the minute Shame called.
“Can we talk for a second?” I asked, looking past the back of Sabina’s head. Her lips were currently attached to his neck. She giggled when Shame shoved her off. I freaking hated that giggle.
“What’s up?” Shame asked.
“Lance’s friend Lars is having a party for his birthday. Can I go?”
“Are his parents home?” he asked.
“Yes.” I lied. Well, kind of. I didn’t know if parents were home or not, but I wanted to go.
“Be home by eleven.”
He went back to kissing Sabina, and I mocked gagging as I turned around. Tank was right in front of me with a huge smile.
“They are kinda nasty,” he joked.
“Insanely.” I huffed.
“Where are you off too?”
“A party for Lance’s friend.”
“Have fun.”
I was going to have fun; an exponential amount of foolish, teenage fun. Anything to wash away the visions of Shame with Sabina. He had been a colossal asshole to me lately, and I blamed her. She had what I wanted and I hated her for it. Deep down I knew Shame wasn’t mine. The jealously I felt was wrong, but it was too strong to fight, especially with that bitch.
Dusty found me heading to the front door. “Are you leaving?”
I hesitated. My teenage fun would be interrupted if he followed me. “I’m walking Lance out.”
He nodded and Lance and I went through door.
“Liar.” Lance laughed.
“I just want one night without a Bastard around.”
“Hey, I get it.”
I never realized how awkward it must be for Lance. Even when we hit up The Shack for a cone, Dusty shadowed us. Eventually I needed to discuss having a little freedom with Shame.
“Little Bit,” Lars yelled, lifting me off the ground.
I smiled as he put me back on my feet. “Happy birthday, Lars.”
“Come on in the kitchen.” He waved. “You two need a drink.”
I didn’t drink. Well, not since moving in with Shame. It was against his rules. But that night, I decided to screw the rules. I wanted to let loose a little and pretend I was an average teenage girl out with my boyfriend.
The sweet, skunky smell of marijuana made its way into my nostrils. I inhaled the scent, remembering a time I smoked weed every day. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I didn’t have any interest in getting high, and declined the joint a girl with purple, spikey hair offered me.
“Here you go, Little Bit.” Lars smiled with his big goofy grin I adored.
I drained the shot of tequila he’d given me and slammed the glass on the counter. Lars and Lance looked at me strangely.
“What?” I asked coyly.
“Dude, that was hot,” Lars told Lance.
I laughed softly. Lance whispered in my ear. “You’ve done that before.”
“I had a life before Shame.” I shrugged.
“You’re a bit of trouble,” Lance whispered, running is nose along the ridge of my jaw.
I shivered.
“I can be.” I flashed a grin and downed the second shot Lars set in front of me.
After shots three, four and five, I felt no pain. I danced on the coffee table in the living room, waving my hands wildly in the air. Lance watched me with a smile, occasionally shaking his head. The room started spinning and I watched Lance’s face slide. He must have been drunk too because he was falling over. A second later, he caught me, and I realized I was the one who fell—right off the table. Lance made his way upstairs with me in his arms.
“Oh, you want to play,” I teased, brushing the tip of my finger over his lips. “Okay, QB 1, take me to bed.” I didn’t even know what that meant, but I’d heard all Lance’s friends call him that. I lifted my head and tried to focus on his eyes but there were like six of them. “I’m ready to do this. Fuck Shame O’Rilley and everything that bastard stands for.” I let out an amused laugh. “Get it? That bastard.”
While I continued enjoying my joke, Lance shook his head. “I got it.”
Lance opened the door to a bedroom. He placed me gently on the middle of the bed, and I reached for him.
“You stay here,” Lance said in this odd voice, all firm and demanding. He placed my pocket book on the bed next to me.
“Where are you going?”
“To get you a cup of coffee. Do not move.”
“You’re not the boss of me,” I slurred each word, and then covered my mouth as I let out a painful hiccup. “Nope, only Shame gets to boss me around and he isn’t here. So there.”
I stuck my tongue out.
“Just stay here.” He held his fingertips under my chin. “Please.”
“Okay.” I poked his chest. “But only because you asked nicely.”
When he left, I glanced around the room at posters of football players and trophies. I also spotted some pictures of Lars in uniform with some of his teammates. It felt a little strange to be there, and I knew I couldn’t mess around with Lance in Lars’ room. Truthfully, I knew I couldn’t mess around with him at all, because I still wanted to save myself for a guy I could never have. I was pretty pathetic.
I thought about what Shame was doing with Sabina. My skin flamed. They were probably having sex. I pulled my phone out of my pocket book and scrolled through my contacts until I found his name.
I giggled, knowing I was in no condition to call him. I dialed him anyway.
He picked up immediately. “Breeze.”
“Are you having sex?” I giggled.
Another hiccup exploded from my lips. The silence in the line sent heat to my neck. I was going to be in deep shit.
“Are you drunk?” he asked.
No sense lying. “I had a few shots.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m lost and I’m sad and I hate that nobody I want to love me, loves me.”
“Where. The fuck. Are you?”
“At Lars’s house, but don’t worry, Lance is taking care of me. He loves me. He’s cute and sweet, but I don’t love him.” I heard him sigh. “Nope. I love you . . . Shame . . . Shame . . . meanie moo . . . I only wish . . . you loved me, too.” I paused to calm my uncontrollable giggling. “Check it. I rhymed for you.” He didn’t respond and I felt even sadder. “But you don’t love me . . . I’m just a stupid kiddie . . . What do you care . . . If my life’s a bear?” I was on a roll and laughed again followed by another hiccup. The line was dead silent, not even an annoyed release of his breath. “Hello? . . . Shame?”
I had confessed my love to air. I faintly remember Lance entering the room with a cup of coffee before everything went black.
“Oh, God. Make it stop.” The bouncing made me want to barf.
Why was I upside down? And who was Shame yelling at?
The ground moved, no wait, I moved but without my feet. I relaxed. I knew that butt. It was Shame’s butt.
Why was my face so close to his butt?
I lifted my head to see Lars’s front door. Shame hauled me out of the house over his shoulder. I heard Lance’s voice beside me.
“I swear nothing happened. I took her upstairs to make sure she stayed out of trouble. That’s all. When I went to get her some coffee, she passed out. Nothing happened to her.”
Shame stopped abruptly. When he turned toward Lance, I felt bile burning in the back of my throat. If he didn’t stop moving, his jeans were going to be covered in vomit. “You better pray that’s true.”
“I would never let anything happen to her,” Lance insisted.
“You let her get drunk!” Shame barked and started walking again.
Lance trailed alongside of us, pleading his case. “It was only a couple of shots.”
“It was five shots,” I proudly clarified, which was a huge mistake.
“You let her take five shots?” Shame practically ripped off the door of the Camaro and set me in the passenger seat.
“I didn’t count,” Lance admitted. “It happened kinda fast.”
Shame whipped around to face Lance. “When you have something of mine, I expect you to pay attention.”
Shame’s possession of me made me smile, which was foolish. I wasn’t his, like I wanted to be. I was his property, his maid, his humanities project, but not his heart.
“I’m sorry,” Lance pleaded.
“I’ll discuss this with Breeze, and if I decide she can see you again, she’ll call you. In the meantime, if I find out you so much as look in her direction, I will beat the living fuck out of you.”
Lance looked terrified, which made me feel awful. I mouthed an apology through the window after Shame slammed the door shut. When Shame got in the car, I turned in my seat to look at him. “He told you the truth.”
“I don’t give a fuck!” Shame started the car and pulled away from the curb. “He let you get drunk.”
“He didn’t let me do anything,” I argued. “I made a choice.”
“Why? Why choose to be stupid?” he barked, slamming his palm a few times into the steering wheel.
My shoulders fell and I slouched in the seat. I missed my old life where I didn’t have to explain my actions. “Don’t blame Lance.”
“Too late. And you fucked Dusty, too.”
“Don’t be mad at him. I ditched him.”
“Too easily,” he huffed.
For several turns, silence lingered between us, the air thick with a distance stronger than it had ever been. We may have sat two feet away but we were miles apart. I kept biting my nails and fidgeting with the edge of the seatbelt, because I honestly didn’t know what to say. Shame had never been this mad at me, and I had never felt like I let him down. My plan of rebellion backfired, and all I wanted was to make it right, only I wasn’t sure how. I was never sure of anything with Shame.
When I could no longer tolerate the insanity of the quiet car, I said the only thing I could think of. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” he said, his voice soft, but still with a hint of anger. “My trust doesn’t come easily.”
I felt awful and stewed in my guilt as the tension continued to mount.
“Oh, God.” My stomach churned and my skin felt like it was on fire. I retched several times, held my mouth with one hand and rolled down the window with the other.
“Your ass will be black and blue for a month if you puke in my car.”
“Is that a promise?” I tried to sound sexy because I liked the idea of Shame spanking me. My thoughts were so wrong, so perverse, and regurgitated from some story Pocket had shared with me. I was wasted and should have kept my mouth shut.
His jaw clamped so tight I thought it would break. He pulled the car over and I leaped out. Before he reached me, I barfed all over the street. My ears rang, the road blurred and I wanted it all to stop. I felt him behind me before he brushed my hair back and held it away from my face. I retched again, only nothing came out. I stood up, spit running from my mouth. My eyes watered heavily. I couldn’t have been more humiliated.
Shame pulled a green bandana from his back pocket and handed it to me. He always carried one with him, and I don’t know why, but I fought tears as I took it from him.
“I’ll never drink again. I swear,” I said, wiping my mouth with the rough cloth.
Shame sent me one of his cocky grins. “That’s what everyone says when they puke.”
“I mean it.”
He laughed and guided me back to the car. The cold window soothed my skin as I leaned against the door.
“I won’t kill Lance,” Shame said, settling into the driver’s seat. I smiled but couldn’t lift my head from the glass. “But you aren’t leavin’ the clubhouse for a month.”
“Fine.”
It was the longest, most torturous month of my life. Shame was cold and rude. He wouldn’t look at me and didn’t attend meals. He barked orders and checked all of my schoolwork. To torment me, he made more messes than normal. And if all of that was not enough, Sabina was over nearly every night. Each night her cries of pleasure seemed to grow louder. They fucked like rabbits, and I began to wonder which one of them I hated more; him for punishing me, or her for reveling in it so joyfully?
The final night of my sentence, I found him alone in the kitchen sometime after midnight.
“Where’s Sabina?” I asked as indignantly as I could muster.
“At her place.”
He pushed off the counter and headed to his room.
“Why are you being such a dick?”
He spun around on me, and in the instant it took him to reach me, his expression shifted to stone. He was beyond pissed. “This is who I am, Dimples. I’m a colossal dick. You should know this by now!”
“Why?”
He inhaled through his nose and scrubbed the side of his cheek. “So you won’t care about me.”
I felt so confused. All I ever wanted was for someone to care about me. “Why wouldn’t you want me to care about you?”
“I will not be the reason you’re stuck here. Do you hear me?” he shouted. I nodded, choking back tears. “You finally got out from under your old man, and you damn sure shouldn’t have to take care of me.”
I felt so confused. Shame was the one taking care of me. He didn’t need me the way I needed him, or maybe he did. My chest hurt and I inhaled so I would not cry.
“What if I want to?” I asked.
His fist hit the counter and he growled. “You can’t.”
I crossed my arms, grinding my teeth in frustration. “Why, because I’m a stupid kid?”
“Yes . . . No.” His features relaxed. “Because I’m a bad person. We’re all—” He took a moment to look around. “The Bastards are bad people and you deserve better than me or this life.”
So he did care.
I sighed and uncrossed my arms. “Why did you bring me here?”
“I don’t know. Jesus. We’ve been over this. It seemed like the right thing to do.” His hands moved though his hair once, and then he stroked the scruff on his cheeks again. “I heard you on the phone . . . You can’t feel that way about me. You can’t. It’s wrong.”
“Is that what this is about? I was pretty inebriated when I called you. I know we’ll never be together. You don’t have to be mean to me to prove that.”
“It ain’t ever gonna happen, Dimples.”
He turned his back. A second later, the door to his room slammed shut.
He didn’t come out of his room until the next morning, but after that, things were better. He at least talked to me and picked up after himself. I was finally allowed out of the house. Shame was hesitant to let me continue dating Lance, but he caved to my whining. Things were pretty much back to normal. Except for my non-existent relationship with my dad and Pocket, life was good.
For some of us, we only need to stumble once. We pull ourselves up, learn from our mistakes and charge on. Others will have to stumble a few times before they ever take another step.