going over to Steph’s to get my dick sucked.”
“You’re telling me like I’m your fucking housewife or something.”
“At the rate you’re going, bunking our football workout, being a jerk, you might as well hold on to the fact that five, ten years down the line, I’m going to need someone to make me hot dinner when I get back home after my games.”
“Bro, fuck you too.”
He just whistles louder and leaves.
Good, now I need to deal with Nicky. But judging from how my mother just went at her throat, her guard is definitely up. Which means I have to go about this the right way.
So, I head to dad’s office, taking out my phone.
The door’s locked and there’s no way I’m knocking. I’ve never knocked on his fucking office door all my life, I’m not about to start now so I text him.
What’s the number of that guy you use?
Dad: Stay out of this.
She’s mine. I won’t ask you twice.
I wait for a few seconds, but he does come through with the number and another text.
Dad: He’s out for blood.
You mean your brother?
Dad: That man IS NOT my brother. Stop annoying me, Julian, I’m not in the mood unless you want to get behind these fists.
Ease up, grandpa. Nobody’s trying to fight you after that shit.
I turn around and head for my room upstairs, dialing the number he just gave me.
“Yes?” the voice answers.
“John Fitzgerald gave me your number.”
“Yes, you must be his son.”
Shit, dad already talked to him that I’d call. Good.
“What can I do for you?”
“I need to find a number.”
“What do you have to go on.”
“I know that it’s probably a pre-paid phone, bought maybe four days ago with cash.”
I’m going to find you, Little Minx.
13
When I wake up, I find myself laying on the bathroom floor, my head spinning.
My eyes are blurry for a few seconds. My mouth is dry, like I swallowed a desert. Did I drink last night? I feel terrible.
What happened? Sunlight filters in through the windows, which means it’s probably mid-morning or early afternoon. Wait, mid-morning? That can’t be right. The last thing I remember is going to bed. I was in bed, under the covers to be precise. How did I get in here?
But it’s when I go to sit up that I feel the pin prick of pain.
I glance down and almost scream when I see it.
There’s blood on the tiles. The broken flower vase at the base of the cabinet, the fragments scattered everywhere. But then there is one of the fragments, thick and now coated in red… like in my nightmares only this time, this is real.
I slashed both my wrists.
“Oh God.”
Cold shivers start going through me. All concept of time and meaning escape me, thrusting me into a cold, dark, empty vortex where my mind can’t tell what’s real or what isn’t anymore, it all just runs together.
The pain.
The emptiness.
The grief.
But what was happening inside me wasn’t grief, although the rest of the world seemed to have been all about that grief life, crying over a woman none of them knew.
I was firmly between the undrawn lines of aching denial and anger. Or at least that’s what I thought as some hours of the day, unwanted tears just randomly start running down my cheeks, then other hours I’m filled with so much anger, I can hardly see straight.
I was angry at the world, angry at Nicky for hiding so much shit from me. Angry at myself for not having anyone and for allowing people into my heart that destroyed it instead.
But mostly, I was angry at the dead, which was stupid really. It’s not like Nancy was going to suddenly wake up after the red curtain re-opens to take her final bow for the shit she managed to pull right under my nose.
Sleeping with John—who so happened to be her husband’s stepbrother. I’m still reeling about that.
Silently, I grit my teeth and get up, ignoring the slight burning sensation from my wrists and arms.
If I’m awake by myself, it probably means the cuts aren’t deep, but I did lose a bit of blood.
“Why, Mia?” I mumble to myself. Why would I do this to myself? I almost scoff because the answer is simple. I managed to sleep. Which is something I can’t say for the other nights before.
Pretending like the cuts aren’t there, I open and close the bathroom drawers, then find the first-aid kit. As I tend to the cuts, an unbridled memory flits through my