Keeping On

There is a part of me that just wants to let go.  I really couldn't find a reason to keep moving forward--even Dylan wasn't enough.  It was a little bit of boredom, a little bit of selfishness.  I was a after all a product of my parents even though I kept trying to be more.

My lover and my husband had united against me, and I couldn't say that I blamed them.  There was after all a darling child who deserved better in the middle. I didn't know what was going to tip the scales and either kill me or bring me back to life but family sure enough wasn't my anchor.  School didn't really work out and I probably shouldn't be anywhere near a bar.

Dylan was about to start school, it was in the back of my head that I should be there but the kid had already forgotten the word mother.  Maybe I needed medication, maybe I need a straight razor and a bottle of Jack whatever my soul was searching for I am not sure it exists.

New Orleans

I wasn't exactly off the grid, instead I was hold up in a plantation that Charlie was care taking at. I had a feeling that James had something to do with it, it was a sweet gig compared to the cemetery.

There was only one phone line in the house and I couldn't hear it in my room. Dylan was with with Don for the week. Something James seemed comfortable with. Walking and talking he was even more like his father, something that was a source of endless amusement.

Don wanted answers that I couldn't give him, he wanted to know what happened. Sure he married a drug using bum pregnant by another man but he couldn't figure out why the relationship fell apart.

Priscilla and Jane had stopped talking to me. They thought I would have returned by now but I couldn't, there was just something broken.

Fucking A

I don’t even think that expression is En Vogue anymore but it still worked for me. I was an ass, a big one and instead of getting a weight off of my shoulders I had gone and made Jane cry, hell I had broken her heart. If she felt this way about the situation I don’t even want to know what would happen if I told Don. Fuck me for thinking I could have a normal life. I laid back down on the bed, while Jane sat on the edge crying silently.

I know how she felt sort of, it’s like when I found out my mothers boyfriend that I actually liked was leaving. He wasn’t my Dad and he had really only been in my life for 6 months but I thought my world was falling down around me. The ignorant hick in my also failed to remember that Jane had been friends longer with Don that he had been my boss or husband.

“Do you think you will change your mind?” Jane sobbed.

“Baby girl, I am a fuck up and nothing is going to change that but right here, right now is not where I should be—if I don’t get out soon I am going to destroy everything.”

Jane wiped her nose. “What are you going to do?”

“I think I am going to take James up on his offer to go to New Orleans but I am going to stay with Charlie. Y’all can come visit, I don’t want to make it seem like I am going to be gone forever.”

“I get the worse feeling that your never coming back, that I will never get to see Dylan again.” Jane looked at me.

“You will see Dylan again.” Jane’s face crumbled and I realized that I hadn’t included myself in that sentence.

I needed to call Don, shit maybe I should wait until I didn’t have a fever.

Cheater Cheater

I couldn’t do it anymore. The fact was plain and simple—I wasn’t meant to be married let alone be a mother. It was too late to give up the kid, I was too damn attached but Don didn’t have to suffer my self imposed entrapment. Sometimes I felt like I should have been born a man, I guess that’s a bullshit excuse for less than a mensch. I had been stuck in the hospital for two days and all I could do was think about Reno and that old lady, she had changed my fate, some part of me couldn’t let her down.

It was Tuesday, and it was raining. I was tucked inside my bedroom, still too weak to really do anything. I was laying on my back playing with the overkill remote which I still hadn’t figure out how to use. Once I was able to turn on the stereo, to my further exasperation I found trying to peruse the music library on this contraption overwhelming—so I pressed Shuffle.

The Beatles poured from the Bose speakers and a deafening rate. I covered my ears looked at the remote, then gave up and got up to turn it down manually. It took three knobs, a few dozen buttons and much cursing before it was at a comfortable level. I had been seconds away from pulling out every plug I could find. Climbing back into bed, I let the world spin, perhaps bending over hadn’t been such a good idea.

My cell phone rang it was James, I picked it up irritated that it was him.

“Hello”

“Hey, how are you doing dawlin?”

“Good” his drawl made me smile a little.

“I was thinking.” Big pauses were never good.

“You were thinking?” Two heartbeats was more than enough time for me to wait.

“I want to go back to New Orleans.” Fuck, my heart flipped, sank and did all the other horrible shit they do when you hear something you don’t want to hear.

“I” I didn’t know what to say and I wasn’t ready to speak.

“Cher, I want to take Dylan with me for a couple of months.” Here they were hot fucking tears, blinding me. I had become such a damn crybaby since having the kid.

“Savannah, I want you to come with us.” He choked on us, I sobbed, hung up the phone and did the stupidest thing you could possible do.

I took a steaming hot shower, painted my face, pulled on the tightest jeans I could find and the highest heals I could tolerate and called a cab.

What the fuck was I doing, I knew exactly what I was doing. Ruining my marriage, putting my kid in jeopardy and coming up for air for the first time in months. There was an oak door between me and the crazy train. I had downed two gimlets at a no name dive before arriving where my feet were currently planted.

I knocked, Darren opened the door. He had his professor jacket off and he was wearing one of those cheesy short sleeved dress shirts and a tie. I didn’t have to say anything; it must have been the way I let my eyes crawl from his feet, over his tatted arms to his mouth that I had been dreaming about.

He yanked me in the office and had his tongue buried in my mouth before I could have a second thought. My skin tingled and the fog in my brain lifted. I kissed him back grabbing him on both sides of his waist.

He pushed me up against the door—maybe dreams do come true.

“You are so hot.” I smiled, as he kissed my neck.

When he pulled back still embracing me and frowning, I knew he wasn’t talking about my sex appeal.

Before I could protest, the back of his hand was on my forehead and was looking at me clinically.

“Don said you were just getting over something.” I let my leg around his waist slid to the floor. He said his name.

I must have looked mortified, he kissed me gently. “Why don’t we take a walk to the med center?”

He stepped away from me leaving a void and walked to his desk to grab his keys.

I may as well have been a snake and not a student. Before entering I had hastily reapplied some gloss but suddenly I felt a sick as I must have looked.

The nurse, took the thermometer out of my ear.

“100.1, you should go home. If it gets any higher go back to the hospital.”

I was right back where I started. I had convinced Darren that Don was home and I would be fine when he dropped me. I trudged back and hid all evidence of my outing. Grabbing an ice pack I climbed back into bed, halfway dreading being alone. The thought had barely finished forming in my brain when the front door opened.

“Savannah” It was Jane, the question is…to confess or not to confess. It was just a kiss, so far.

Well God Damn

His smell filled my nose and worked its way into my lungs. His lips were firm, cool to the touch—his hands, icy made me shiver as they traced a path over my ribs. He took my heat, lapping it from my tongue. This was damn good. I didn’t feel the hard bricks behind my back. Only a whisper of shock escaped when he hooked his fingers into my panties.

“Mammuh” He was pulling away.

“Mammuh” A little hand patted forearm slapping it lightly.

I opened my eyes, Dylan was smiling back at me eating zwieback cookie and drooling profusely in the process. James was standing over me smiling.

“You look so innocent when you sleep.” I frowned.

Bastard, James was a part of my problem. I realized I felt a little woozy and put my head back down on the couch thinking it would pass. James face changed to concern and he picked up Dylan, and placed his hand on my forehead.

“You’re hot”

“Thank you.” I cracked a smile and realized my entire face hurt. I frowned rolling over yawning.

“I thought you had Dylan until tomorrow.” I waved at him, goofy as hell with the exact same look on his face as his Dad. I put my hand to face; the palm of my hand was shockingly cold and made me remember my dream. I smiled again.

“I think you need to go to the Hospital” James had serious look of concern on his face.

“Who needs to go the hospital?” Don walked in with a bag full of groceries from Trader Joes.

James didn’t even bother to back away from me to let Don get closer.

“I don’t need to go the hospital.” I closed my eyes and was sucked back into my dream.

I smiled in the dream as he approached me again kissing me. I moaned, and was promptly slapped on the cheek.

“What the fuck!” I sat up so fast it scared Dylan and he gave me a dirty look like he was the one who got slapped.

Don was sitting over me now. “You’re delirious.”

“Pssht” I laid back down, now where was I?

I hated being carried more than anything. I wasn’t a Goddamn baby. But here I was being cradled by husband who was I am pretty sure…shorter than me. He seat belted me into the car then put an icepack on the back of my neck.

What the fuck, I pulled it off and vaguely noticed that James was buckling Dylan into his car seat and climbing in next to him.

“If I am so sick do you really think you should have the baby around me?” Why was I so dizzy? And nauseas? Oh shit what if I was pregnant again, that would be some shit.

We pulled up to the hospital and I couldn’t be bothered to get out of the car, Don yanked the door open and tried to make get into a wheel chair.

“I’ll walk”

Stumble more like it. Why the hell was everyone staring at me?

“Maybe because you look like a damn drunk?” I opened my eyes. What the hell? I was laying in hospital bed covered in a damn freezing contraption that I suppose was supposed to bring my temperature down.

Don was sitting next to me, James and Dylan were nowhere in site.

“What happened?” I pulled an oxygen mask off.

“You took two steps out of the car and passed out, nearly hitting your head. You had 103 temperature.”

“I don’t get fevers” I shook my head

“How do you feel now?” Don was being very clinical.

“Cold, tired.” Don nodded.

“They are going to keep you for awhile, they don’t know what you have it might just be a virus, they are running some tests but they want your fever to be below 100.”

I looked at the IV in my arm.

“I slept through all of this?”

Don nodded.

He was mad; I could tell his lip was tight and slightly pushed out. He took his glasses off to rub the bridge of his nose.

I felt a pang in my chest, he was so handsome, it was like when he took his glasses of he wasn’t Clark Kent anymore. He wasn’t any taller, stronger or richer but he was mine. He was the man that only I got to see.

I reached out and took his hand, I could barely reach it. He encircled my wrist before he looked up at me. He stood up, kissed me then turned at walked out of the hospital room.

Panic shot through my body and I started sobbing. I tried to tell myself I was jumping to far ahead, but I knew something had changed within him.

Window Shopping

Darren sidled in the bar that night looking much more like I was used to. He smiled at me and walked up to the bar. “What is your goal?”

I frowned at him, he was using his professor voice and I didn’t really like it. He caught on quickly and changed his tone. “What the hell are doing in college?”

I pretended the bar still needed to be wiped down—I could see his face soften. Here we go… “You are shy; I would have never guessed that about you.” Since getting married and becoming a mother I have pretty much arrived at the conclusion that I have multiple personality disorder—they are just all high functioning and aware of each other. I needed my hard face.

“You are on my turf, I don’t disrespect you in yours, don’t do it in mine—what are drinking?”

“And the wall goes up, a Newbie.” He was genuinely disappointed that I wasn’t going to let him in my head. I slammed the beer down a little too hard and, Darren grabbed my hand and kissed my palm—it completely unnerved me. So much so that when I saw Shack walking through the door I breathed a sigh of relief. I walked from behind the bar as fast as I could.

In the office I locked the door behind me; Don didn’t even look up from what he was doing. I walked over and straddled him kissing him on the mouth, he didn’t miss a beat and kissed me back gripping my ass and nibbling my lip. I hugged him hard. It wasn’t what I wanted, what I really wanted was to get high so I could cope with that shit Darren just laid on me.

I didn’t want to be a window shopper but I was, the curling of excitement in my belly told me that I was fucked. I told myself to focus on the jewel that I had in my arms, a gift that I was never going to be given again. I systematically and intellectual forced Darren out of my head, I had known him for over a year—he was a recreational drug user (like I was any better), he made out with random women in the bar, his pissed on the sides of buildings, having a Ph.D didn’t change any of that.

My palm burned. “I am going home.” I stood up.

Don knew something was wrong but to his credit he didn’t ask.

First Day

What the fuck was I doing here? You have to be kidding me, I was too damn old for this shit. My first thought was that I was going to have to start stocking up on weed to keep me from flipping out of my skull.

I was in goddamn classroom with my legs shoved under a desk with a bunch 18 year olds staring at me. This wasn’t going to work. I thought I would blend, in a lightweight sweater and faded jeans I was trying not to look like a mommy or a wife for that matter—just a girl except I wasn’t a fucking girl I was a woman.

“Hi” I turned to the young man sitting next to me who spoke. Nicely dressed early twenties I bet he was a jack and coke guy.

“Hi” I bit the “I” out. If was I was behind the bar, this conversation would go whole lot smoother. I tried to smile and felt my lip stick to my upper teeth. He bought it though because he beamed back at me like he had just scaled Mount Everest.

I turned my attention back to the front of the class and tried to look comfortable. The class had become so full that they were students left standing looking perturbed. Finally a man entered wearing khakis and a long sleeve dress shirt with one of those horrible jackets with the patches on the elbow.

He looked familiar.

“I am Professor Anderson; this is English 1A if you aren’t in the right class please leave.”

He still hadn’t looked at the class I chuckled wondering who could be stupid enough to be in the wrong class. When several people filed out of the class I stopped laughing. The professor's eyes widen when I laughed and he turned to me.

Fuck—D-Boy was a damn professor? Holy shit I had it in the bag. Darren Anderson (never knew his last name) was one our bar flies. He was covering up nearly full sleeves with that shirt. A quick count in my head I had kicked him out of the bar at least nine times for popping something illegal in his mouth.

This was going to be fun. I had a shit eating grin on my face and winked at the Jack and Coke kid. Bring it on!