Torn

"You're right. We'll hang out soon."

"Good luck with this zoo you're acquiring," she teases, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "Call me or stop by. I mean it."

"I will."

My mom shows up about an hour later armed with kitten food, a cat bed, litter box, dishes, some toys, and gives me a course in Kittens 101.

"You're filling a void," she observes as she eyes me on the couch, with the kitten on my chest and the dog laying with its head in my lap.

"What are you talking about, Ma? I'm tired. Sleep is the only void I want to fill right now."

"Taking off for a weekend to the middle of nowhere? Keeping the pets you've rescued? You've been doing this for years, Honey, and you've never wanted to bring any home," she says. "Now look at you."

I shrug. "So what? I like these two. They're different."

"You're lonely, Toren."

Scoffing, I lean back against the couch and close my eyes. "I'm tired is what I am, Ma. Nothing else."

"That's probably true, since all you do is work. Latching onto these animals is your heart’s way of telling you that you want to love and be loved back. You're trying to put together a little family."

Opening my eyes, I look at her like she's nuts as she's standing over me near the couch, analyzing me like moms do. "You been smokin' Tanner's weed, Ma?"

She shoots me a scolding glare. "Do you know how many people come into the shelter every day adopting an animal because they're grieving? Or depressed? Or lonely? Trust me, I know what it looks like."

I wonder if she's right. I've rescued hundreds of animals since I started helping her when I was twelve years old, and these are the first two I've ever wanted to keep.

"So maybe I'll grow into a crazy old single cat man," I joke.

"I guess there are worse things that could happen. Why don't you and Lisa come over for dinner one night this week? I'd love to get to know her better. She seems lovely."

"Lovely?"

"Yes. Nice. Polite."

"Eh..." I curl my lip. Lisa's just not doing it for me, no matter how lovely she might be.

"Then come by yourself if you want. You can hang my new ceiling fan while you're there. Bring Diogee, you need to socialize him or you're both going to be weird around people. You need to get out more."

I think I'm already weird around people. Just a few weeks ago I told a woman my dick was on a vacation. In fact, I think I may have surpassed weird a while ago. I'm not going to admit that to my mother, though.

Letting out a sigh, I agree to stop by, but mostly because I want her to have the new ceiling fan, not because I want to practice social skills with my dog.

"We have a new volunteer at the shelter, her name is Dani. I could invite her over, too. She's pretty, and she has two cats, a dog, and a ferret. I think you'd like her."

"Ma. No. I don't want to be set up with anyone. Especially with someone who owns a ferret. That's an instant fuck no."

"Why? What do you have against ferrets?" She walks around the living room picking up the dog toys and puts them all in a pile by his bed. I know as soon as she's gone he's going to spread them all over the house again.

"They're evil. They're little fuzzy lunatic ninjas."

She sighs in utter frustration. "Alright, then. I tried. Call me if you need any help with the kitten. And you should bring it over to the vets as soon as you can for a real checkup. Maybe have Kenzi bring him over for you. She's been helping at the shelter a lot the past few weeks and she's really good with the animals."

A burn spreads in my chest at the mention of her name. "She's gone to Maine for the summer. I'll take the kitten myself."

"Oh," she says in surprise. "She didn't even say goodbye. I hope when she gets back home she'll still volunteer. I love having her there. She has some really good ideas."

"I'm sure she will, Ma. She told me she wants to. She left sorta at the last minute. She was excited about driving her new car and going on a road trip." Lies and excuses. The first of many.

My mood shifts from bad to worse once my mom is gone. Kenzi didn't say goodbye to me, either. She just left without so much as a text or a phone call, which is unlike her. She always says goodbye. If Asher hadn't mentioned to me that she left before I went on my excursion in the woods, I wouldn't have known she had left.

I can't stop thinking about that afternoon when I told her to leave. I don't know how many times in the past seventeen years I've watched her bottom lip quiver with emotion while tears welled up in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. This time was different though, because I've never been the one to cause her tears. I've always been the one to wipe them away and make it all better. I've always been the hero to that adorable little blonde-haired girl who has morphed into a sensual woman in the blink of an eye, and now I don't know what to do with her.

It took every ounce of self-control I had to resist taking her in my arms and kissing her tears away, telling I didn't mean what I said and everything will be okay. As always, I ached to make everything better for her. But I couldn't. That's what Uncle Tor would do, and unfortunately he went up in flames the moment we touched. That guy is gone, and she can't ever have him back. Just like I can't ever have my little blonde-haired princess back.

One forbidden touch, one taboo kiss, and we destroyed who we were. I don't know who either one of us is anymore or how we got all fucking tangled up in this mess of lust and love that should never exist. But it does exist, and no matter how much I try to deny it, it keeps coming back to get in my face, refusing to be ignored.

And now she's gone, just like I asked.

I want her back. So fucking bad.

14

Kenzi

Kenzi ~ age seventeen

Asher ~ age thirty-two

As soon as I wake up, I can feel something is wrong. There's a darkness in the air - something foreboding that makes a chill run down my spine as I climb out of bed- even though the house is not cold. I find him sitting on the couch in the living room. The television is off. There's no music playing. And that's very unlike him, because sound is his passion. He's staring at the floor and doesn't even seem to notice that I've walked into the room.

"Dad?" I say tentatively, afraid to jolt him out of the trance he appears to be in.

His head raises unnaturally slow, and he starts to tremble. This is it, I think to myself. Mom is really gone. She's no longer lingering between life and death, holding us as emotional hostages in her limbo. It's over.

I run across the hardwood floors and kneel down in front of him. And that's when I notice the blood. On his hands, and on his shirt. It's smeared, and not wet, but sticky. It has to be recent.

"Oh my God. Daddy...are you hurt?"

"It's not mine," he whispers.

"What happened? Whose blood is this?"

"Katie's dead."

I feel like the life just got sucked out of me as my mind tries to process what he just said, hoping I must have heard him wrong. Katie is my five-year-old cousin. Five-year-olds don't die. Especially ones that are so happy and healthy, like Katie.

"What? No..." I shake my head as tears start to track down my face.

"Lukas and I had to identify the body. Vandal had a car accident, and she was in the back seat. It's his blood."

"Uncle Vandal? Is he-?"

He shakes his head. "He's okay. Hurt...but okay."

Gulping, I tug at his blood-stained shirt. I can't be near it, and he shouldn't be either. "Let's take this off, Dad," I say softly, and he lets me pull his shirt over his head. I take the soft throw blanket off the top of the couch and gently wrap it around him. He's still shaking uncontrollably and I'm afraid he's in shock.

"I can't get it out of my head. She was so little...it was awful. I feel sick." He chokes on his tears and presses his palms against his eyes. "I can't stop seeing her little broken body."

I put my arms around him and hug him close to me, fighting the waves of devastation that are rippling through my own body.

"I'm so sorry, Daddy."

I don't know what else to say, or how to comfort him. He needs his wife, not me. I have never experienced death before this, and I'm torn between falling apart myself and needing to be strong for my father. All I can offer is words I've read in books or heard in movies. "Let's try to remember her before. How cute she was. Don't think about tonight. That's not her anymore."

Maybe I should call my Grandmother, or Storm, my other uncle, who's very close to my dad. They must be going through the exact same feelings of grief and disbelief right now, though, and probably won't be able to console him any more than I can.

My father clings to me, hugging me so tight I can barely breathe. "I'd die if something happened to you. I can't ever lose you, too."

I stroke the back of his head. "Nothing is ever going to happen to me, Dad. I promise."

Kenzi

It wasn't easy convincing my father I could make the two-and-a-half hour drive to Maine safely by myself without crashing, getting lost, getting kidnapped, picking up a hitchhiker, or getting several speeding tickets, but after much debate, I finally convinced him to let me go. He didn't understand my sudden decision to leave as soon as possible and stood in my room with a worried look on his face watching me pack a suitcase like a demented squirrel with way too many nuts.

"I don't understand why you're leaving in such a rush. Did something happen? Did Katherine say something?" he asks. There's been a slight rift between my father and my aunt Katherine since my mom's accident. She wanted me to come live with her permanently, stating that I needed to be raised by a mature woman now and not by a bunch of rock stars. My father won that battle, agreeing to let me spend the summers with Katherine. But honestly, I don't think my aunt has ever really trusted that her only sister's child was being raised right. I've never met my mother's parents since they basically disowned her when she got pregnant with me, so Katherine is the only relative of my mother’s that I have any contact with. Every time I visit, she begs me to stay permanently. I always leave, though, because I miss my dad, my family, and Chloe. And Tor.