Page 14 of Mimic
I gingerly touched the bruise that had formed under my eye. I’d have to ask Gunner what story he wanted me to give myclients. Jealous ex was too cliché for me to even consider it. It was always the scapegoat when a woman got hurt but couldn’t tell the truth of what really happened. I wanted something that didn’t make me sound like a battered woman. I wanted a story that made me sound like a badass.
I thought about Magyk. She’d never made contact after that night. Never checked on us, never came back to make sure we were really okay, that we had truly survived. But she was still our savior. Mine and the other girls who escaped with me. We were free because of her. I would never forget what she risked for us.
I took a deep breath, shaking off the memories that threatened to pull me down, and stepped out into the hall. Armed with a confidence I never truly felt, I walked down the hall and stopped.
“Haizley?”
“Oh, Indie!” She rushed over and pulled me into her arms. “I didn’t wake you, did I?” she asked, pulling back to look at my eye. She winced and asked, “Does it hurt?”
“It’s not bad. I’ve had worse.”
“What?”
Shit!
The horror on her face that I might have endured something worse than a black eye was the reason I would never tell her about my past.
“I broke my leg when I was a kid, falling out of a tree. That was way worse than a black eye.” The lie rolled off my tongue with ease. I had a dozen or more that I’d practiced saying in the mirror after I ran away from the foster home.
Cover stories had become my life. I’d created an entire childhood of love and happiness, filled with all the things I’d never been able to do. Trips to the zoo and the aquarium with my parents. Father/daughter dances in middle school that I never went to. And prom—what a night that was.
That was when I lost my virginity. A sloppy, fumbling romp in the science room at a high school I never went to.
I had a story for every question. A tale to hide all the dark truths of what I’d really suffered. I learned quickly that people didn’t want to hear the truth of what went on in the real world. No, they preferred to live in their fantasy that life was perfect. They wanted to hear fairy tales. The fun, family-friendly stories that warmed the heart and made them feel good inside.
No one wanted to feel sick after hearing about the first time a girl sucked a dick at five years old. Or how they lost their virginities at the same age.
“How old were you?”
“Eight,” I answered without thinking. The truth was, when I was eight years old, I was beaten black and blue for disobeying a client’s order. An order that should never have been issued to an eight-year-old child, especially by a grown adult.
“Gosh, your mom must have been frantic.”
I nodded. I hated lying to Haizley, but what choice did I have? I knew that, of anyone, she would listen without judging or pitying me. But I didn’t want a therapist; I wanted a friend.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, searching the room for Mimic, trying not to identify the feeling of loss I felt that he wasn’t still here. The rejection that came with his leaving me.
“Oh!” She rushed over to the counter and set a plate of pancakes on the table between two place settings. “Gunner needed Mimic at church, so he asked me to come over and stay with you.”
“He does understand I’m an adult, right? I don’t need a babysitter.”
“He does not,” she deadpanned.
A laugh tumbled out of my mouth because I knew she was right. Gunner acted like my father most times. He was sixteen years older than me, so biologically he could have been myfather. I wished he were my father. I would gladly take a stupid teenage kid as my father than the one I had. The one who ignored me when he bothered to visit. The one who hurt my mother over and over. The one who never came looking for me when I disappeared.
My stomach grumbled at the sight of the pancakes, and I sat in the chair across from Haizley. “You didn’t have to come; I have to work today, anyway.”
Haizley froze and looked down at her plate.
“What’s wrong?”
“Remember what I said about Gunner not understanding you’re an adult?” I nodded and waited for her to finish. She looked at me with sympathy. “He rescheduled all your clients today.”
“WHAT?” I jumped up from my chair. “He can’t do that. I do not work for him. He is not my boss!”
I paced around the living room. I couldn’t believe the audacity of that man. He didn’t get to dictate what I did and when. I was fine to work. Sure, I was a little tired, and I might have had a small, dull headache in the back of my head, but I needed to work. I had bills to pay, and besides, what would I fucking do all day if I wasn’t working? It wasn’t like a had a bunch of friends I could call to hang out with. Yes, Haizley was here, and I counted her as a friend, but she had work as well. I was sure she had better things to do than stare at me all day while I slept.
“Indie, calm down.”
