Bouncer by Kim Jones Page 0,33
find my hair. Like they have every other night we’ve spent together.
“Isabelle was my mother,” I start, jumping straight in. “She was….” I release a breath. “She was so beautiful. Sometimes I’d just stare at her. I couldn’t wait to grow up so I could look like her. Be like her.…”
I trail off—lost in my memories.
“She sounds special,” Bouncer says, bringing me back.
I focus on his finger trailing my spine. “I thought she was. And my Dad, he worshipped her. They were such a powerful couple. Both lookers. Had more money than they could spend. Dad was a CFO. Mom was a socialite. They always threw the best parties. Wore the latest styles. Lived in the nicest houses. They molded me to be just like them. I was spoiled, to say the least. I had everything I ever wanted. Except for their attention.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. “That sounds so, cliché, doesn’t it?”
“It really does,” Bouncer says. I can hear the smile in his voice. “So why Apple Seven?”
“Well…Mom wanted a name no one else had. She had to stand out. Be different. More. Her daughter couldn’t very well go to school with a normal name like, fuck I don’t know, Mary? Sara? Chloe? The next year, some celebrity had a kid and named her Apple and my Mom told everyone that she named her after me.”
He shrugs. “I can believe that. I can’t imagine more than two people on this planet naming their kid Apple.”
“Asshole.”
“I’m teasing. Why do you call her Isabelle in your dreams and not mom?”
I draw circles on his chest with the tip of my finger, stalling to find the right words. “In my dreams, it’s not me calling her Isabelle. It’s my Dad. And he didn’t just say it, he screamed it. Over and over and over until I can’t think about her without hearing it.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“For what?”
He pulls me tighter to him. “For whatever comes next.”
If I didn’t know before this moment, I know now…I love this man.
“Turns out, my Dad wasn’t a good man. He embezzled millions of dollars from his company. When my Mom found out, she wasn’t concerned about her husband going to jail or me losing my father, she was too busy worrying about her image. What people would think of her. Where she would live if not on millionaire row.”
I’m silent for so long, he has to ask the question, though I know he doesn’t want to. But I don’t think I could tell him if he didn’t. “What happened to her?”
“On the day my dad was indicted, she ate a bottle of pills. I was watching the story on T.V. She was in her room. My Dad was with his lawyers. He’d agreed to turn himself in to avoid a public arrest. But he wanted to come home first. He found her. When I heard him screaming her name, I went to see what was wrong.”
I swallow hard and force myself to continue. “He was at kneeling on the floor at her side. When he saw me, it was like he looked right through me. He stood. Left the room. His office door closed. I was still staring at my mother’s lifeless body when I heard the gunshot. I thought he’d went to call the police. Instead, he blew his brains out. I was sixteen.”
“Jesus, baby.” Bouncer lifts me to his chest.
“He stole a lot of money. From a lot of good people. Rumors were that my mom knew about it. Thinking back, I’m not sure how she couldn’t know. They both paid the price with their lives. I benefited as much as they did from what he did, but I’m still here. And I struggle with that. Sometimes I wonder if people expected the same of me.”
“Hey.” Bouncer sits us up so he can look me in the eye. “What they did is not your fault. You were a kid. You didn’t know.”
I nod. “I know that. Doesn’t really help with the guilt, though. I mean, I’d never take my own life over it, but I feel like they did it and people forgave them. But they haven’t forgiven me.”
“You don’t need their fucking forgiveness. You didn’t hurt those people. They did.”
I offer him a weak smile. “People need someone to blame. And whether that someone is me or not, I took the fall.”
He tucks my hair behind my ear. “How did you end up here?”
“Well, I don’t have any family outside of my parents.