Page 50 of A Love So Hard

“It means you still don’t treat her like one of the other kids. When was the last time you told her you loved her?” I couldn’t answer that because if I really thought about it, and I didn’t want to do that right now, I honestly didn’t know if I’d ever said those words to Ever. “When was the last time you told Anna?”

“About twenty minutes ago when she called to see if she could stay the night with her friend,” he admitted.

“Funny how you can answer one of those question so quickly, but the other one not at all, and you’re surprised by what I said? You need to apologize to her and make things right. Time is running out. She’s almost an adult, and you’re going to lose the chance to have any kind of relationship with that girl.” Lucy turned as if to leave the room. “She’s the one suffering for it now, but one day you’re going to look back, the view will be clear, and you’re going to see that it didn’t have to be like this. When you’re looking back though, it’ll be too late.”

“Go home, Luce.” I told her, unable to think on it any longer. I didn’t want to hear about how I’d failed as a father. It was the one thing I’d always looked forward to being and to doing right. My parents had both screwed up in so many ways that I just knew, once I was with Lucy, nothing could keep us from being the best damn parents to our children. The problem was that Ever wasn’t ours. She was just mine, and I couldn’t get past the fact that I had a kid that didn’t belong to my wife. I had been stuck in that mindset so damn long that I missed the fact that Ever was actually more Lucy’s than she’d ever been mine, and that was all my fault. I couldn’t think about that though, because it would mean I’d failed miserably. “And make sure Ever ain’t brought around here any time soon either,” I tacked on in the end because my drunken pride was speaking for me then. Yet another regret I’d have to add to the list long enough I could have built a house with it by now.

“Yeah, she ain’t welcome,” PeeWee added beside me, then cackled with glee with before tipping out of his chair.

That’s when something hit me. “I’m leaving,” she called out, “but hear me now. You are staying, because you aren’t welcome to come home until you change your goddamn attitude!” Lucy screamed the words at me and then stomped out of the clubhouse. I had a few too many drinks in me to think clear enough to know I should probably go after her. Hell, it took me until she was already out the door to realize what had hit me. A bag. There was a bag of my shit spilling out onto the dirty clubroom floor. Every bit of liquor I’d just guzzled down suddenly wasn’t sitting right in my stomach any longer. I moved to get up and barely made it to the nearest trash can where I puked up my liquid rage-party for one and then I turned and grabbed the bag Crow was handing me.

He’d taken care to stuff all my belongings back inside before clapping a hand down hard on my shoulder. “She’ll figure it out, man. Women are always the last to pick up on that shit. Easily manipulated.”

Chapter 22

(Lucy – age 39, Double-D – age 42)

I spent the next few months in a constant flux of emotions. I was angry with my husband, my son, and the entire brotherhood they both represented. My heart was breaking for Ever as she attempted to trudge through each day only to have more hatefulness and hurt piled on top of what was already there. Aside from her one girlfriend, the only person she had to turn to was me. Toby had attempted to mend fences with her, but since he hadn’t spoken up for her in the beginning it wasn’t really happening. I couldn’t blame her for it either even when I wanted my children to be best friends again like they had been for the previous eight years.

CJ apologized for his misstep at the clubhouse, for the drunken scene that I’d been loathe to have considering how many club whores had been there to see me basically throwing him out. I hadn’t slept for the three nights it took him to finally make it home. If he was to be believed, Merc insisted that Double-D was holed up in his room alone since the moment I left. His only companion was a bottle of Jim Beam he ordered up every now and again. Merc had assured me he had gone in there himself and made certain that D was eating too, but he was just barely doing that.

“He brought this on himself,” I’d informed the man.

“I know he did, darlin’. Lily wants you to bring Ever over so she can have a talk with her. She’s missing her girl already. For the record, she doesn’t believe a word that girl said. Hell, she came to the clubhouse and announced that the skanky bitch Jay was seeing was no better than a club whore and hopped jock cock so much she had to finally swap brands to baby bikers.”

Jay had apparently been thoroughly embarrassed as that was done in front of his club brothers, but Lily had simply smiled at him and asked how he thought Ever felt about what he’d had to say about her in front their entire high school. Merc explained that Lily wasn’t really talking to her own son at the moment, and it was putting a strain on their family too.

“I can’t send her there, Merc. I’d love for her to have Lily to lean on too, especially now, but that’s Jay’s home. She won’t go there.” I choked back a sob remembering the latest story Toby had told me about why he’d been suspended for fighting. He had been defending Ever’s honor, but as she’d told him when she asked him to stop fighting over her – the damage was already done and no one stood up to tell the truth in the beginning so anything said now in her defense wouldn’t matter.

I knew Lily was taking it hard. After the conversation I had with Merc, there had been several more with him pleading for me to reconsider possibly forcing Ever’s hand in seeing Lily. Ever had become a surrogate daughter for Lily. Ever was the unwanted daughter of a club member and Lily was the old lady whose body couldn’t produce the daughter she’d so desperately wanted. They had bonded immediately after I’d gotten over myself and had a few days to settle in with Ever in the beginning. They’d been thick as thieves ever since. Hell, Lily and Ever both thought that one day Lily would become Ever’s mother-in-law. I knew she was hurting that Ever didn’t want to see her, and even though I’d made certain Ever knew that Lily didn’t believe any of it, the fact that she was Jay’s mom made her uneasy. She wanted nothing to do with their family, the club, or even her father and brother and when she could avoid them.

Our family was broken, and I didn’t know how to fix it.

Toby’s stance had changed somewhat. He said he wasn’t sure what to believe and that there were too many people who claimed to have heard what went down in the bathroom for him to not have doubts, but at the same time he saw what his sister was going through and how she never spoke up – not even once – against what people were saying about her. She just let them talk and kept her head high until she came home and passed out from the strain of having to bear the weight of everything all day long.

Graduation Day for the boys was finally here though, and I was hoping that would alleviate the strain on Ever. The boys would no longer be at the school with her, and the next year would be like a fresh start. At least, that was what I was hoping for. I refused to let Ever stay home when we went to watch the boys walk. “You’ll regret it down the road if you aren’t there for Toby today.”

She had just looked at me for so long that I wasn’t sure if I should say something else. Finally, she nodded her head and went to get ready. We sat together with the Donovan family and some of the other club brothers who came to support the boys. Ever sat on the fringes away from as many of them as she could. Still, I saw her smile as Toby crossed the stage. The emptiness she showed when Jay did was telling. That boy had destroyed even any semblance of a friendship they’d once had.

“What the hell? Someone muttered. It was clear something had happened in between the boys receiving their diplomas and when they finally made their ways to where we standing in front the bleachers. “What the hell’s wrong with the two of you?” Merc asked them. Both boys were looking as though they might be sick at any moment and a brief worry that maybe someone had slipped them something to ‘celebrate’ with and they were having a bad reaction. I didn’t think Toby would take drugs like that, but hell, what did I know these days?

“Ever,” Jay called out, his voice raspy and full of emotion. Tears were pooled in his eyes as he tried once more to get her to listen to him. “Fuck, Ever, I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I didn’t know. I thought she had been telling the truth. I thought…” He stopped talking and everyone grew quiet for a moment taking in his words, his actions, and what it all meant.

“What in the fuck did you just say, son?” CJ angrily snapped at the boy.

Jay ignored my husband, which was a huge mistake. “I’m so sorry, Ever! I’m so, so fucking sorry. Please, you have to believe me.”

That was when Ever snapped. Her body bristled at my side and she glared in his direction, looking at him for what was probably the first real time since the day she’d come home crying to me about what he’d said in that assembly.

“Just like you believed me?” She huffed indignantly as her chest rose and fell with the pent up emotion she’d been choking back since her one and only meltdown. “You destroyed me with your words, you allowed everyone around us to continue where you left off, and it was all based on the lies of one of your whores. A whore over a friend. A whore over a sister. You believed a whore’s words over someone who never gave you one damn reason to believe they would ever do a fucking thing in this life, or beyond, to hurt you. Now, you beg for me to believe you?”

Oh God! I knew it was bad. I knew she’d been going through hell and back every day she showed up at school, and even knowing that. When her birthday rolled around and we had to cancel the sweet sixteen we planned to have, things had gotten worse. She had nearly swallowed a bottle of pills a couple of weeks ago, and I had put her in therapy, and kept a secret from everyone else, per her wishes. Her therapist thought that was for the best too so long as I was certain I could keep a close eye on her. Even having gone through all of that with her, nothing prepared me for hearing the absolute devastation in her broken voice. “You deserve nothing from me but my back. You will get nothing from me but these final words. You get nothing from me ever again except this goodbye. You get the same amount of respect from me that you’ve shown. You get the same loyalty you reaped, and nothing more. You are dead to me Jason Donovan. I don’t have to believe a dead man’s words. Maybe that will help you sort your priorities in future, but it won’t matter even a tiny bit to me either way anymore.” Lily let out a startled cry from the other side of Merc, and I felt for her, because I knew what this meant for their relationship. Jason had just cost Lily the daughter she had wished so hard for.

There was supposed to be a graduation party afterward at the clubhouse where the boys, well Toby, was intended to receive his kutte. Jason had already been informed his kutte would wait a few more months after the way he had chosen to confront Ever in the school. It showed he wasn’t mature enough to handle wearing the club’s name on his back just yet.

I made sure Ever was safe, tucked away, and Lily actually came to the house to be there so that I could go to the clubhouse. “I won’t disturb her,” she had promised me. “If she comes to me, then fine. I will honor whatever she wants. I’m sorry, Luce.” I wasn’t sure if I could handle my heart breaking for any more of my family over this situation. How had everything gone so far out of control?

When I got to the clubhouse the party that was supposed to be happening wasn’t. Everyone sat around somber-faced, and pensive while the boys stood front and center. I watched from the back of the room as Merc moved in front of my son holding a kutte. “I have half a mind to tell you that you haven’t earned this damned thing yet,” he grit out. Toby actually nodded his head in agreement. “If I were to do that, I’d have to take the kuttes off the backs of most of the members of this club though, myself included.” He shook his head back and forth and said something in a low voice to Toby that had my son’s shoulders shaking. I would never know what those words were, but to get my boy to lose his shit in front of all the men he’d looked up to for damn near his whole life, they had to be pretty powerful. Merc placed the kutte over my son’s shoulders and then punched the place where his road name was embroidered into the leather just over his heart. T-Bone was what they’d gone with for reasons a mother doesn’t even want to ponder.

---