Page 21 of Pen Me

“Wh– the hell is—going on?” Maelyn sleepily mumbled from the sofa she’d passed out on last night.

I didn’t have time to answer her, my brother’s mouth was on ten the minute the door cracked.

“Sammy! Sammy, listen to me. You have to get a local doctor. You can’t just sit on this thing.”

My eyes widened, and I tried to step out onto the porch as he tried to brush inside the house, causing us to collide in the doorway. I didn’t want Maelyn to know my business. Sauce was the only one that knew, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“You need to let me handle my affairs.” I steeled my tone and laid my warning, “I’m sorry I unloaded on you the other night, that shit wasn’t right. I appreciate your being an ear when I overshared to an unfortunate degree, but that is the end of it.”

He scoffed and shook his head, “Telling your family some guy gave you cancer with his dick isn’t oversharing–”

Shame shot through my body and exploded against my palm when it connected with his cheek.

“Shut the fuck up, Malachi!” I snapped.

Maelyn was already pulling at my shoulder.

“Sammy–” Her confusion was apparent, but that sleepiness was gone.

“You need to leave.” I exploded, stepping out toward my brother.

“Sammy, what the hell is going on?” Maelyn demanded.

“You, too. Both of you. Leave. Now,” I demanded, closing my eyes against all of it.

When I opened them, my brother’s face was a mask of hurt. The type that burnt deeper than the fingerprints I’d left on his cheek. He turned and fled to his motorcycle, and my guilt rolled hotly down my cheeks.

“Goddamn it!” I spat.

I turned with every intention of fleeing into the house, only to find myself drawn into Maelyn’s arms.

“Shut the fuck up,” she whispered as she held me, her hands strumming through my hair while I lost it in her arms. “I’m not going anywhere, bestie.”

She escorted me to the sofa where I cried until I was limp, letting it all pour out. Every horrid detail of what I’d done and what I’d been through since I was last at home on leave with her.

I told her about Bill and how beautiful his mind had been. I admitted how special he’d made me feel in the beginning. I told her how I thought he was the one to bring home to meet my parents, and then it all blew up in my face. I went over every detail of the humiliation I’d endured in discovering his wife and having to explain myself to my superiors. Worst of all, the man’s dishonesty had cost me a dishonorable discharge. A fact I also had yet to share with my parents.I didn’t deserve a friend like Maelyn, I doubted anyone alive did or ever could. It was impossible to match her energy sometimes.

She was just too good to people.

She insisted I rest on the sofa while she made me soup and set up an appointment with a local physician. When she finished, we watched movies and talked until the wee hours of the morning. I didn’t do a thing most of the day, and yet sharing that secret exhausted me. The emotional toll of admitting that I’d been betrayed that deeply by someone I thought I loved, it was inconceivable.

How would I ever trust my own judgement, or another soul, again?

Chapter Ten

All Twisted Up Inside

Menace

I didn’t know they’d let the same person visit you at the county two days in a row, but there Sauce was, at the table when they led me down to the visiting room.

“You tell your dad?” I asked, as I straddled the stool.

He stared at the table and shook his head.

“I can’t lose two sisters, Menace. I also know I won’t be able to live with myself if I snitch on her,” he mumbled.

“Sauce, man… Telling some things, especially amongst the club or family ain’t the same as snitching. It’s just lookin’ out for each other.”

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