Page 30 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

It was the first time I felt hope in months, and I wasn’t going to let that feeling slip through my fingers. The lights never got turned off and the water still ran, so I assumed that Merc had started paying those bills again, and if not him, our parents had done so. After that day, Merc was at the house by six every weekday evening, slept on the couch, and was gone again in the morning. He was never home at all on the weekends, and I assumed those were the days he was shacking up with his little whore at the clubhouse.

Tinder broke things off with Stacey, so after that, I had no way of knowing. I felt responsible for the loss of her relationship, even though she assured me it was no big deal. My best friend, unlike me, would be graduating from high school in June. She had plans to go off to college and take over the world, and I had no doubt she would succeed. I just wished I was going with her.

Every Monday morning, when I got ready for school, there was money sitting on the kitchen counter for me. Every week, I simply tucked it into the small safe I’d purchased that was stashed in the locked drawer of my desk.

Three weeks after the showdown in my house about the rent, after March had rolled slowly into April, Merc was home when the taxi dropped me off.

“Where were you?” He asked, as he watched out the window while the car pulled away.

“Doctor.” It was the only time I bothered responding to him. Otherwise, I just pretended as if he didn’t exist. That was what he had been doing to me for months on end, so I felt it was only appropriate. It wasn’t as though there was a relationship between us to salvage or anything.

“Is something wrong?” He asked and finally, I turned to look at him. The asshole seemed genuinely concerned, but it just reminded me that he was clueless about my whole pregnancy, and it pissed me off.

“You do realize that when women get as close to their delivery date as I am that they start going to the doctor bi-weekly, right?”

He seemed shocked by that, and I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. “You’re close to your due date?”

“You don’t even know when the baby is supposed to be born?”

“Did you ever tell me?”

“Did you ever ask?” I countered. It didn’t take a genius to figure out when I should be due considering we’d only had sex the one time, but he wanted to ask stupid questions, so he got stupid answers.

Merc huffed in frustration as his fingers pinched the bridge of his nose, like he could stave off the headache I was trying to cause him.

“When are you due?” He relented and asked.

“May first.”

“That soon?”

“Not soon enough,” I told him just as the baby gave me a solid kick to the ribs and a one-two punch to my kidneys. “Ouch!”

“You okay?”

“Fine. Just being a punching bag for everyone as usual,” I murmured.

“I’m going on a run for a few days, so you probably won’t see me until next Wednesday.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m leaving money on the counter now, instead of…”

I had already walked off, not caring what he had to say. As far as I was concerned the money was nothing more than hush money to keep me quiet and keep our dads off his back. To my surprise, he followed me.

“Lily, I’m trying to fix shit here, but it is impossible to do if you don’t let me at least try. Do you need anything?”

“Where are you on the weekends when you don’t come home?” I asked, because I had a point to prove. Then again, judging by his response, I supposed he did too.

“Lily, you already know that I stay at the clubhouse on the weekends. That our marriage is on paper only. What do you want me to say about that? We’re not meant to be a couple. I’m just trying to fix things enough that we can make sure you and the baby are taken care of and not forgotten in the mix of things.”

“I’m perfectly fine. Your conscience is clear now, you can head on out. No need to remember me when the door hits you as you go.” The one thing I could say for Merc was that he was consistent. Every time I thought I saw a glimmer of something more in him, he quickly disavowed me of those notions.

10 - A Son

Tiger Lily

By the time Merc got back from whatever run he’d been sent on, My father and Boone were sent out. Honestly, I didn’t even know what they did on those club runs, if it was legal, illegal, or just for fun. I had zero clue and they would never tell me because it was club business, and I wasn’t part of the club. At least, not in the ways that counted when information was passed around.

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