Page 64 of Misguided

He hesitates, my boots slung in one hand, and smiles softly. “I think you know the answer to that.”

“Koen.” I smile back, knitting my hands in my lap.

He nods and then gets back to work. All my makeup is lined up on top of my bureau, my closet organized by color. He rights my laundry basket, and straightens the covers on my bed, shooing me side-to-side as he does.

And all the while I watch in silence, finally feeling a little more at peace.

“There.” Dog looks around at the room, inspecting his work. “I think it’s done.”

“Thank you.” I drop my gaze, ashamed that he’s essentially come in and placated me like a toddler. “I don’t know what came over me. I just …”

“Snapped?”

“Yeah.” Once the anger found an outlet, I couldn’t stop the torrent. As silly as I knew it was taking out my frustrations on pointless possessions, the act of rebelling against order, messing everything up, held some strange meditative quality to it. As though it was the only way I could break free of this perfect persona I’ve tried so hard to feel comfortable in once again.

Strong fingers tip my chin up, and I meet Dog’s concentrated gaze as he looks down at me from where he now stands beside my bed. “Talk to me, Mel. What’s goin’ on in that pretty head of yours?”

I pull my chin from his hold and look away. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

“How about starting with why you trashed your room,” he asks without any trace of irritation. “Or perhaps why the fuck I see a picture of you with a gun in your hand?”

I shrug. “It felt right at the time.” I couldn’t explain it to Crackers either when he asked.

That day had started out like all the other bad ones, with me wishing I was alone in the woods again where there wasn’t anyone to ask me how I am today or look at me with those fucking pitiful stares. I was struggling to make heads or tails of the day even before Crackers lied to me about Hooch.

He said, “Yeah, I heard from him yesterday.” But I knew he didn’t tell me the truth. All his signs were there: inability to look me in the eye, fidgeting with something in his hold and clearing his throat before he changed the subject.

There’s a reason Crackers has given up joining in on poker nights.

So I went out back and tried a little more target practice. Firing the gun into that knot of wood had been therapeutic on the other shitty day, so why wouldn’t it be on this one? Only, the more I discharged the weapon, the more I wondered what it would feel like to turn the handgun around and point it at myself.

Weirder still, I don’t want to die. I just don’t want to feel so lost and pointless anymore.

It’s a strange place to be: happy to be alive, yet wishing for a reason not to be.

“I don’t want to be here at the clubhouse, locked away like some precious possession when I’m no better or worse than any of those people downstairs.” I look down at my hands. “Being here, where my family isn’t anymore … it’s driving me around the bend.”

“I get that,” Dog says, “but you can’t run away from the place forever, Mel. You’re home now, and pretty damn soon you’ll need to figure out how to accept that.”

“I’m trying.” I frown, fighting the pricks behind my eyes. “But the more I try to come up with a reason to be here, something to do to be useful, to earn the accolades people so freely place on me, then the more pointless I feel.”

“Why do you have to be doin’ something?”

“Because look at what this club has done for me,” I argue, meeting his hard eyes once more. “They put up with my juvenile tantrums when I stormed out of the place after Daddy matched me with Crackers. And then they risked a lot by hiding me from Carlos until it all blew over. They’ve constantly held me up on a pedestal, and I don’t feel like I’ve earned that kind of privilege.”

He sighs, shifting to take a seat beside me on the bed. “Have you asked them why they feel that way toward you? What it is that makes them want to treat you like that?”

I snort. “No.” How vain would that seem? “Oh, hey. Mind telling me why I’m so awesome?”

“Just a thought,” he shrugs.

“Can you keep a secret?”

Dog holds my gaze with a sly smirk. Right—Koen. Of course he can.

“I sat down with Beth the other day after you left to go home, and she helped me plan a rally for when Hooch gets back.”

“Yeah?” His eyebrows peak. “Where to?”