Page 15 of Crow

“My dad doesn’t want me associating with bikers, drinkers, or other bad people.” I’m worried that Crow will be offended at Patti’s teasing, and quickly to try distract him. “He thinks that my behavior would reflect badly on him. Maybe he’salso afraid I’d be swayed into a life of- erm- well, one that he doesn’t want me to live.”

“Seems distinctly unchristian-like.”

“Hold the fuck still,” Patti curses.

I grin, while I swear Crow tries not to. It’s hard to tell what his face is doing, given the severity of the injury.

While Patti painstakingly applies the stitches that aren’t stitches, I grasp my hands together and focus on them. I don’t mean to say anything else, but the words just pour out like I’m the one with the hole in me, letting them escape.

“I’m going to rent a truck and pack my things and move out as soon as I can. I don’t want to cut my mom and dad out of my life, but I know how they’re going to react to the change. It’s just… time. I’m far too old to be living with them. I want to be independent.”

Crow blinks at me like we’re doing the whole code. One for yes, two for no.

“This sounds completely trivial, doesn’t it?”

Two blinks. No.

Patti swats Crow on the shoulder when he tries to open his mouth. She finishes the stitches, pulls the strange cord thing in the middle that binds them together, and stands back to assess her work. She shakes her head.

“Well, that was damn hard and you’re still a mess, I’m afraid. You need real stitches. Don’t you guys have a private doctor or surgeon or something?”

Crow’s whole body goes rigid.

“Okay,” Patti murmurs, rolling her eyes. “Club secrets. I hear you loud and clear, Sunshine. Get yourself there if such a place exists, and get your face looked at by someone proper. That shit I just put on you isn’t going to hold.”

While Patti zips up the kit, Crow takes a step towards me. “I think you’ve been aching to rebel for a long time,” he says, low, trying not to move his mouth, so the words come out in this low, strange register.

I don’t have to tell him he’s right. Unlike his face, mine is the open book to end all open books.

“Maybe you’re the one on the straight and narrow. They’re the ones who are living an abnormal life, trying to control you and manage you. You’re not their property. You’re a human being. Is it in the Bible not to break and leave your children downtrodden?”

I can’t deny the prickling sensation that works its way down inside of me, burrowing into my tissue and seating itself deeply in my very cells. It feels like delight. Like relief. Like for once, I can just be honest.

“I don’t know. My dad could find a passage somewhere that suits his purpose just fine. He’s good at that.”

“I don’t think you believe in any of it.”

Patti jerks like someone just shoved her. She’s ready to step in and put herself between the two of us to shelter me. It’s a nice gesture, but I can’t hide forever. Not behind her, and not behind my own fears and insecurities.

I face Crow down, trying not to flinch. “That’s going a little bit far. I don’t know what I think, but does it even matter? No one knows for sure anyway. That’s why all anyone does isspend so long on the burden of proof. I don’t want to talk aboutthat.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

It’s like he’s just wrapped his hand around my throat and squeezed until he cut off my air. I need to get my shit together and send Crow on his way before Patti’s patch job busts wide open. I’m sure she’d very much like it if we were both out of here. As in, an hour ago.

I shake my head subtly at him. “Thank you, Patti.” I give her a tight hug. Her arms are solid and motherly. She smells like the stale alcohol she spent all night pouring, a little bit like sweat, deodorant, and fries from the kitchen. It’s familiar and comforting. I pull back after she lets me, which isn’t for a solid minute, until she’s sure I can stand on my own two feet. “We’ll get out of here now and let you do the things you really want to be doing. Like sleeping.”

She gives Crow a motherly stink eye. “You take care of her, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Crow responds, without a trace of mockery.

I want to protest that no one needs to take care of me, but he’s already heading for the door. I should probably just let him ride off into the night and head out in a few minutes, but I found myself trailing after him. It can’t possibly be, but I imagine that I smell fresh air, leather, and the tang of metal in his wake. It’s either blood or grease in his place, but my mind refuses to believe it.

He waits for me at the backdoor, arms crossed over his leather vest, inked muscles bulging in his forearms. I let my eyestrace the veins there far too leisurely, before I remember myself and grab my car keys.

Crow shuts the door, checks to make sure it locked behind us, then follows me to the station wagon. He doesn’t even make a move to get on his bike. It’s clear that he’s not going to ride off until I’m gone, and he can be assured that I’m safe.

That kind of protective, overbearing bullshit is exactly what I’m trying to get away from. It should piss me off, but it doesn’t. Not when he does it. With my dad, if I asked him for the most mundane thing, a walk in the rain in the summer just for the sake of how pleasant and freeing it can be, he’d deny me. Probably give me a lecture about why he’s right after, often with those Biblical passages I mentioned in the kitchen.Thou shalt not walk in the wet or thou shall be punished with pneumonia.

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