Page 80 of Tormented
He shadows me inside, coming to a stop so damn close behind me that I swear his body heat is going to cause steam to rise out of my damp clothes any minute now.
“You okay there, Abbey-girl?”
“Peachy, pretty boy.”
He gives in with a grunt and reaches to pull his wallet out of his back pocket. The middle-aged man behind the counter eyes Sawyer suspiciously, as though he’s expecting him to be reaching back for a gun to rob the place. Fucking people and their preconceptions. If only they knew that it’s the ones who look the kindest that are the ones you can trust the least.
“What do you think of him, baby?”
I look over Momma’s shoulder at the man who waits by his car. His bright eyes twinkle in the sunlight, and he smiles.
“He seems real nice.”
“You wouldn’t mind then if Mommy asked him to be her boyfriend?”
“Nuh-uh,” I say, throwing my arms around her neck. “Can I call him Daddy?”
“Not yet,” she says with a chuckle. “But maybe soon if we’re lucky.”
“What you havin’?”
I cross my arms over my chest, aware that the air-con blowing down from the ceiling vent, although mild, is making my nipples hard in this wet gear. “They got an all-day breakfast?”
“You ain’t gonna have waffles again, are you?”
“Nope. Think I’ll have the giant cinnamon roll.” I jam my hand down in the front pocket of my cut-offs to pull out the bills I’ve got stuffed in there.
His hand rests over mine, his thumb stroking my hip. “I got this.”
“Well aren’t you the gentleman?” I sass, doing what I can to ignore the giddy feeling creeping into every inch of my body.
“Sometimes.” He smiles, twitches a frown, and then smacks the side of his head with the heel of his hand before turning for the counter.
Fucking voices. It pains me to watch him struggle with it. Nobody’s ever told me if he’s tried therapy, or if his psychosis is just one of those things that people accepted was a part of him and therefore didn’t need changing.
I search out the restroom while he orders, well aware that we’ve been on the road a good four hours and the next gas station might not have public restrooms to use. An older lady exits with her young son as I approach the door. She gives me one of those smiles that screams “If I’m nice to you, you won’t hurt us” and shepherds the kid toward a table where a man and young girl eat.
It still baffles me that people find me intimidating when for most of my life I’m the one who’s been forced to run from the evil in our society.
The stalls are empty, and after I’ve done my thing I take the moment of silence to regroup and find my reserves. This trip has worn me down more than I’d hoped, and my ability to hold it together without a fifth of whiskey in one hand is slipping away.
I hit the road a while back in the hopes that facing my fears head-on would rid me of them once and for all. Kind of like those people you see who are afraid of spiders, and so have a tarantula placed in their hands to try and shock the fear out of their system.
It works . . . at first. And then there’s nothing but this crippling panic when you start to wonder how you ever thought this newfound bravery would last forever. I set off from the Lincoln clubhouse with a backpack full of dreams, and returned with a paper bag bearing broken promises. King pushed hard to sober me up, and it worked, all until I let the handsome devil out there leave me dazed and confused when he moved to LA.
“Abbey, you in there still?”
I push off where I had my hands either side of the basin and turn toward the cracked door. “Yeah, pretty boy, I’m still in here.”
“Food’s ready. You’ve been gone a while.”
Go on, say it . . . “I was worried about you.” What I’d give to hear those words from a man who loves me more than like a daughter. I’ve had plenty of compassion and understanding from our presidents, past and present, but never from a man who loved this girl as she was, and for nothing more.
“I’m coming now.”
He steps back as I pull the swing door wide, something akin to concern in his eyes before he shuts those brilliant blue irises away and grimaces. Fucking voices.
“Where we sitting, handsome?” I say jovially, trying my best to bullshit the world as well as myself that everything’s okay.