Brutally Beautiful(99)

“Fine, Kade,” he mumbled, as the girls walked back into the room. “I guess after she leaves, I won’t be seeing you for another couple of years, huh? It was nice to have you bloody visiting.”

Samantha handed me a warm cup of coffee, but I didn’t even taste it. I just sat back down in the corner and hunkered down in my fictional thoughts, where I had more control over everything. It was easier to breathe that way.

After we left Dylan, I drove her to the store. The day had turned to night and the darkness of it lay heavily on my shoulders. “So how did you meet David?”

“Why?”

“I have the right to know,” I snapped.

“Why?”

“Because I’ve already thrown my heart out for you. Already stripped my soul bare for you, so I want the same in return. I want to know the person who is going to destroy me completely!”

“Does it make you feel better yelling at me, driving faster, gripping the wheel, clenching your teeth?” She asked.

“No.”

“Then f*cking stop it. You got something to say to me, say it. Don’t yell at me because of the situation I’m in when my hands are tied.”

“Now, I’m f*cking thinking of you tied up. Just tell me the story, no more games. You’re leaving right? Tell me something more!”

She turned her head to look out the window. The disregard for my feelings and her looking away cut me deeply.

“David and I developed a tumultuous relationship over one too many glasses of champagne at one of my father’s hospital parties and our affair was fast and furious. I looked at him through rose-colored glasses, complete with lens flares and animated floaty hearts. I loved him, I really did. The easiest thing in the world was falling in love with him. I fell in love so fast, head first, feet first, heart first, doesn’t matter; it’s so damn easy to fall. The hard part was where I landed in his life and how I needed to hold on to who I was. But I fell in love with a complete lie. I never really knew the person he was. Let’s just say that he and Thomas would have been a great team.”

The parking lot of the store was unusually crowded. I pulled into the only empty spot, stomped out of the truck and slammed the door as if I was throwing a tantrum. “We will finish this f*cking conversation!” I snapped.

“Oh, wonderful. I can’t wait to continue. You’re so lovely to talk to about all my secrets. Just a real sensitive being, you are,” she snapped back, storming into the store.

Pushing the cart through the store, she was like a NASCAR driver, and you know it has that one f*cking wheel that spins around in madness on its own accord, tripping her up and calling attention to itself with its whines. But she was determined. She was determined to get all the f*cking shit she needed to change her appearance and leave me.

Hair dye. Men’s clothing. Baseball caps. Make-up. I wanted to vomit.

The one, yes one, check out line was at least 25 people long, all of them staring menacingly at the elderly woman holding up the line with a thick wad of coupons for her cat food and asking the cashier to read aloud to her about its nutritional value. A crying, wailing, screeching something-month old baby was in the arms of a harried snot-nosed teenager who bounced quickly back and forth on her flip-flops, even though it was not even twenty degrees outside.

“Why the f*ck do you need this shit for?” I picked through the clothing and boots, and other crap in the cart. “This line is impossible. This is insane. Look at these people. They’re all pathetic trash. I can’t stay here anymore.”

“Shut up, Kade!” She hissed poking her finger hard into my chest. “Maybe, maybe this is more about something other than you! Those walls you built up for yourself. You should have installed windows in them, just to get a chance to see there are other people in this world besides you! Maybe that woman needs the nutritional value for herself and not her damn cats because her f*cking social security checks don’t cover what she needs it to…that baby and that teenager? Well, you think she wants to be strapped with that crying kid, when babydaddy is out with his friends after he promised to make it all up to her? That kid is sick, Kade. Look in that baby’s eyes, she has a very high fever…look how limp her body is, look at her nose flaring and listen to her wheezing breaths. She shows signs of pneumonia, Kade, and look how tired the mother is. God, she’s just a baby herself.” Again, she poked me with her finger, harder this time. “You think they’re all here just to get in your way? Look at me…Kade…I’m here because I need to change the f*cking way I look because there is someone who wants to see nothing more than me die, and I won’t let him…you don’t know these people’s stories. They are not less important than you are. They have there own issues, Kade, everybody does and you can’t know what these people’s stories are, even though in your head you think you can automatically tell who and what people are. Are you absolutely 100% sure that your reality is the f*cking real one? In your gloriously disordered mind, I was nothing but a stripper.”