Tyrant (King #2)(30)

All were chosen and bought for me, courtesy of Preppy.

Which was another reason I probably loved them so much.

I ran my hands over the different fabrics on the closet and wondered how in the span of a few months my taste could change so drastically. Or maybe I always liked my comfy clothes, but just hadn’t been able to speak my mind.

Maybe when I lost my memory, I grew a pair of balls.

After a little further searching I had found a few things I felt comfortable in and after a quick shower I put on a pair of black Converse sneakers, a black V-neck, and a pair of ripped jean shorts. I met Tanner out in front of the house as he’d instructed. He pulled up in a newer model shiny black truck with bright chrome accents. Something had been done to it to make it a lot taller than most trucks on the road, which got me to thinking about another black truck. More of a farm style truck from the sixties or seventies, and the man who looked so good driving it. “Mommy!” Sammy shouted from the backseat, bringing me back to the present, and my heart did a little skip.

“Let’s go make some memories!” Tanner said, rounding the truck to open the door for me.

During the entire half of an hour ride, Sammy babbled endlessly. I was impressed with Tanner’s patience, especially when Sammy let out a high-pitched screech that could only be described as a pterodactyl scream and Tanner only laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “He does that when he’s frustrated.” Tanner pursed his lips. “And when he’s happy, and when he’s upset, and when…he does it all the time,” he admitted. We turned off on an exit marked Indian Reservation. We crossed under a sign made out of bent branches that announced that the place was called ALLIGATOR FUN LAND. Sammy squealed with delight when Tanner took him out of his car seat and the second his little feet hit the ground he raced through the gates in front of us.

We chased Sammy from exhibit to exhibit. The entire time, Tanner talked me through what we’d done there before. What I’d said. What I had thought about the flamingos or the turtles. Anything to connect the past to the present and trigger a memory. Most of the time, I just smiled and nodded as I watched the little boy of energy that was my son run circles around us.

For lunch we ate hot dogs from a cart and brought them into the little arena to watch the alligator feeding.

Sammy crawled up on my lap. “Mommy, look!” he cried out, pointing to where a man dressed in a safari type outfit, khaki shorts and matching short-sleeved collared shirt, had entered the gate housing a small dark pond. “Where the gators?” he asked, chewing on his fist as he spoke, spreading the mustard from his hot dog up into his nose. Tanner reached out and wiped his face with a napkin.

“You gotta watch the pond buddy,” Tanner said, pointing to the water. When the trainer tied a piece of red meat to the end of a rope, attached to a long pole, the audience of around twenty people went quiet. He pushed the pole out over the water and shook it so that the rope and the meat dangling from it danced in the air. In less that a second, several alligators rose to the surface in a series of splashing and thrashing, opening their strong jaws and climbing over one another to get to the meat. The largest of them all was the one who was successful, clamping his razor sharp teeth around the meat, snapping the rope, and disappearing back under the water as quickly as he’d appeared. Tanner and Sammy clapped and cheered along with the rest of the audience but the entire thing felt unsettling to me. The trainer was provoking beasts kept in captivity.

It felt wrong.

There was enough trouble in the world; there was no need to go looking for it by dangling bait in front of a hungry beast with sharp teeth.

Tanner nudged my elbow. “The feeding show never was always your favorite.”

Either that has changed or Ray was a really good liar.

I shrugged and looked down to Sammy who was still on my lap, clapping so hard his hands would miss each other every so often and land on his chubby arms. He looked back at me and smiled, mustard crusted around the corners of his mouth. I didn’t care if it left me with a bad taste in my mouth, if it made Sammy smile like that, it was alright by me. “Nah, it’s great.”

On the way back to the car, Sammy walked between us, grabbing both of our hands. We swung him back and forth as he shrieked in delight, my stomach doing a little flip every time I knew his smile was a result of something I’d done.

We’d done.

“You know, we had our first kiss here. Right in the parking lot. We actually couldn’t afford to go inside so we set a blanket on the grass by the fence to watch one of the shows until we were told to leave by security,” Tanner said, his eyes squinting as a low hanging cloud rolled away from the bright sun.

“We did?” I looked around to the lot crowded with families and searched for something familiar, something that would snap it all in place for me.

But it never came.

When Sammy’s little legs got too tired to keep walking, Tanner lifted him and carried him on his shoulders as we made our way through the parking lot. When Tanner’s hand sought mine out, I could already see where the truck was parked. The happiness radiating off of the boys was infectious as they listed all their favorite parts of the day. I didn’t want to ruin the amazing day we’d had by pulling away and again reminding Tanner that the girl he loved wasn’t his anymore. So for the twenty or so feet to the truck I let Tanner hold my hand.

And for all twenty or so feet, I thought about King.