Page 23 of Bear
“What’s going on, Bear?” He asked quietly.
“I changed the address of the Amazon shipment tomorrow. It’ll be delivered to our other house.”
“Why the fuck did you do that?” His voice flicked out from the phone like the forked tongue of a serpent. I put the cigar out and sighed.
“I did it because it needed to be done. This is a big order. It’s the first order I’m placing on my own. I wanted to make sure it got delivered.”
“That was fucking stupid. If I was there I’d knock your motherfucking head off for that dumb ass decision.”
“Well, you’re not here. Are you, Dad?” My voice was even but I was getting pissed the longer I listened to him rail into me. I didn’t tolerate that shit from my workers and I didn’t want to tolerate it from my father either. I was always respectful though.
“Bear, you keep talking shit like that and I’m going to find a way to reach out and touch you.” I rubbed a palm over my face and apologized to him. I liked to keep him placated in there. He was the last person I wanted to fight with. “You need to remember that the only reason you’re running my businesses is because I’m in here. You ain’t shit without me telling you what to do around every goddamn corner. There’s a reason you still report to me, you little piece of shit. Keep getting beside yourself and you’ll be beside your brothers. Do we have an understanding?” My jaw clenched the relaxed a few times, slowly stitching together the hole Dad left in my armor with resentment and anger. “I said do we have a fucking understanding?” His voice was still monotone. I answered him in an equally unmoved voice.
“Yeah, Dad. Sorry.”
“You better be fucking sorry, Bear,” he grunted. “You’re just a puppet, remember that.”
I could never forget.
I was a puppet. I was running his show and that was it. All the men at my disposal were because of him. All the pull I had once was his. When he got out on parole, everything would go back to my father and I would fade into the background again like a flame against the sun.
“You better land this fucking delivery.” Those were the last words he said to me. Deep down inside, somewhere overgrown from years of neglect, I wondered what it would feel like to get praise from my father instead of ridicule and orders. I’d never know, but I wondered.
I stared at the phone in my hand and made a fist around it, letting the wonder that had infected me moments prior vanish like mist. After that phone call with Dad, I needed to unwind. He drew jagged points on me and expected me to move through his world without scratching anything. It was only possible when I emptied myself.
I went to my room, changed into sweats and a hoodie then went to work in the gym. I pounded the weights over and over. I let the sound of metal clanging against itself become my new theme song.
I was a puppet.
I was running the show for Dad. I wasn’t the show. I wasn’t in charge. I was a placeholder.
Sweat rolled down my face in place of the tears I could never shed. Aggression bled through my muscles every time I tore the tissue beneath my skin to pulp. Every grunt and grimace was how I pushed out the pain. It was how I handled hurt feelings if I ever had feelings to hurt. The only way to make myself feel anything was to push my body.
“Bear?” I stopped my reps and looked into a pair of cognac-brown eyes that immediately tethered me to the earth again. “You’ve been in here for hours,” Cecily’s arched brows furled together as she walked in and sat down on the weight bench I was using.
She never cared about the space I was in. If she wanted to come disrupt me, she would. I knew she only did it to physically distract me. If she didn’t, I would keep going. I’d plow through everything.
“I needed to work through some things. Everything okay?” I pulled my hood off and my locs fell forward against my forehead. Cecily’s eyes skimmed my hair then fell down my face. She was reading me. I watched her gaze follow words that must have poured from my skin. Whatever she read when she looked at my face must have been her favorite passage because she was fixated.
“Everything is fine but something is off with you. You’re upset.” She reached up and pushed her fingers through my hair. I caught the scent of sweet Fruity Pebbles on the inside of her wrist and angled my face toward it. My nose brushed against her skin and I felt myself wanting to fall face-first into that scent.
“I don’t get upset, remember?” I pried open the weightlifting gloves on my hands and focused on the sound of the Velcro becoming undone instead of looking at Cecily and how beautiful she was. It wasn’t like she became that beautiful overnight. I was obsessing over it right then though in an effort to think about any and everything besides my father.
“You’re human, Bear. You get upset. We all do. You just don’t know how to handle it so you do this.” She waved her hand around at the small gym. “Or you blast jazz or read. You chew on anything to avoid the fact that youdohave feelings.” She pressed her lips together tight. It looked like she had so much more to say to me but she refused.
“Of course I get upset, I was being excessive when I said I didn’t. You know that.” If I didn’t get upset, I wouldn’t kill people.
I felt like killing someone right then.
Maybe the pop of a bullet firing and the sound it made ripping through bone and flesh would take my mind off the bitterness coating my thoughts. I seriously thought about it for a while.
“You talk to Kaiden’s mom?” I quizzed.
“Not since I’ve been here. I sent her a text but I haven’t heard back. I hope she’s okay.” She wrung her hands together over and over. I could feel the worry pouring off her. She cared so much about other people. I wanted to bottle that quality and pour it into myself. If I could fill myself up with compassion for others, maybe I wouldn’t care so much what the fuck Dad thought about me.
“Call her later on.”
“It’s already evening. I don’t want to disturb her.”
