Gun Shy(12)

“Almost eight.”

Almost eight? Shit! I lift the covers to get out of bed; my underwear’s gone. I freeze, setting the blanket back over my thighs. I see him glance at my lap, what looks like suspicion sparking in his blue eyes. He takes a step toward the bed, and for one horrific split second, I imagine he is going to rip the blankets off me and see what I am – or rather, what I’m not – wearing. And if that happens, he’ll flip his shit.

Fate decides to intervene, though. Thank you, universe. I hear the static buzz of a two-way radio, and Deputy Chris McCallister’s voice sounds in the kitchen downstairs. Damon hears it too, freezing mid-step.

We continue to stare-off, his curious eyes pitted against mine, as the radio crackles to life again. The voice more urgent. Sheriff King, do you copy?

“Downstairs in five, Cass,” Damon says with an air of reluctance, giving my lap one final glance before he turns and leaves. A moment later, I’m out of bed and pulling fresh panties over my bare legs, my skin rising in gooseflesh to greet the frigid air. Gun Creek is the coldest place in Nevada, and it only gets colder after Thanksgiving. Soon, the pass forms ice and it’ll be dangerous to drive on, just like it is every year.

Just like the year of the accident.

Coffee. I need coffee.

I locate my pajama bottoms, stuffed down into my blankets as if they were kicked off in a hurry. Kicked or pulled, it’s all the same. I’m sore down there, and although I can’t remember much of the act itself, I’ve got a fairly good idea about what happened. It was quiet, but it definitely wasn’t gentle.

I traipse downstairs, the tight feeling in my chest expanding with every step. Running late is a cardinal sin, according to my stepfather. Everything must be perfect. Everything must be on time. All the time. He frets if things are out of order. If things are messy. If things are not on time. I am a creature who is always messy, always out of order, never on time.

The staircase stops at the entrance to our kitchen. We’ve got one of the bigger – and older – houses in Gun Creek, one of the original gold mining ranchers. Every window is large, rectangular, and framing a picture of mountains and empty tundra and snow.

It’s beautiful to look out there if you’re in a good mood. If you’re not, it’s utterly desolate, miles of blank space waiting to swallow up your soul.

I’m not in a good mood.

“Hey, daydreamer,” Damon says, breaking my thoughts. He’s sipping coffee from an old Mickey Mouse mug my grandfather bought for me when I was eleven and we went to Disneyland. Something stabs me in the gut. I wish he wouldn’t touch that mug. That’s my fucking mug. Leo’s in jail and my mom is in a coma, and now I can’t even drink coffee out of the mug my dead grandfather gave me. My grey mood turns black, always balanced on a knife’s edge, and I grit my teeth together as anger stirs in my gut.

I never used to be prone to rage, but I’m not the girl I used to be before all of this.

“I made you cereal.” He pulls out a chair and points to it. “We’ve got ten minutes.” I do as I’m told, acting every inch the sullen stepdaughter. He tells me all the time that I need to curb my attitude, but my attitude is just about the last piece of me that’s still hanging on. After the accident, after Leo went to jail and Mom was just gone, I had a lot more…. Salt. I was feisty. I threw tantrums. In public.

You should be nicer to Damon, more than one person has said to me. He’s doing the right thing, taking care of you all these years while your mother’s been sick. Fuck those people. My mother isn’t sick — she’s dying. I’m twenty-five years old with a brain-dead mother and a waitressing gig at the local diner. I’ve got nothing. And I don’t give a fuck about being nice.

Damon sits across from me, pointedly eyeing my unbrushed rat’s nest of blond hair and my bare cheeks. His hair, by contrast, though short, is neatly combed, his badge shined, his shirt pressed.

“You look like shit, sweetheart,” he says casually.

I dig my spoon into the bowl and suppress a gag. The last thing I want to eat is something full of milk and sugar. My churning stomach needs dry toast, or saltine crackers, or preferably nothing at all.

“You smell like a fucking pine forest,” I mutter around a mouthful of Froot Loops. Damon’s aftershave situation definitely isn’t helping my stomach. I stare down at the brightly colored cereal in my bowl and imagine myself down a well, or floating in a lake, just like Karen. I don’t know why I’m thinking of Karen now, not nine years after she turned up in Leo’s well.

“Don’t swear at me,” he says, his eyes narrowing. “It’s not ladylike.”

Getting drunk-fucked in the middle of the night and not being able to remember is pretty unladylike, too, but I don’t mention that. My life would be pretty miserable if I started talking about that. I throw my spoon down after two mouthfuls and stand up, in search of coffee. The pot’s been brewed a while ago, and the treacle brown liquid inside is lukewarm at best, but it’s better than nothing. I take another mug out of the cupboard and set it down on the sink, watching a moose wander by outside as I pour my liquid crack cocaine and take a sip.

“You’re losing weight again,” Damon says, interrupting my daydreaming and moose-watching. His voice softens. “I worry when you don’t eat.”

He wants me to keep eating. I sit back on my chair with great reluctance, washing cereal down with giant mouthfuls of coffee, even though I’m fairly sure what I’m eating is completely devoid of nutritional value. I drink two cups of caffeine just to get through my breakfast, all the while being watched carefully by Damon’s bright blue eyes. Another thing he frets about. Plates with food left on them and girls who don’t eat enough. He told me once how he was never allowed cereal as a kid. How he never had enough food. How I should appreciate him buying it for me. If he knew that I throw up almost everything that passes my lips - with the exception of alcohol, of course - he would be very upset, indeed.