Page 1 of Mated
Chapter 1
Nisha
“I hope you told him to leave.” The voice is thick, angry, and all southern woman through the earbud in my ear.
My eyes roll. “No, Mom, I told him to hang out for as long as he needed,” I retort. Juggling my phone and my keys in one hand, I slam the back hatch to my Jeep with the other. “Of course, I told him to leave. He has until the end of the week to finally get his shit, or it all goes to the curb.” I tuck the keys out of sight in the gas tank cubby.
Normally, I would carry them with me, but I don’t have the patience to manage them tonight. Not with the damn argument still circling my head.
“I warned you about him, Nisha. And you didn’t listen,” she snaps as I close the lid.
For a brief moment, chagrin filters through me. But it’s gone just as fast.
Mom doesn’t trustanyman. So her warning me about Chuck is redundant. Especially now.
“Look, as much as I would love to discuss how all men are lower than the scum under the factory,” I say, slipping past the park entrance, “I’m out here at the path. I want to get a run in before midnight.”
Mom huffs. “Fine. But you just remember what I always told you. Ain’t no man good enough for my baby girl.”
I lean against a low pine and mime the words along with her.
“Nisha?”
“Yeah, Mom. I know,” I say as I tuck my phone into the sleeve over my bicep. “Love you.” My tone is all fake cheer.
She gives an aggrieved sigh, and I have the strangest feeling she knows I was mocking her. “Love you too, Nish. Be careful.”
“Always am.”
She hangs up and old school Jackson 5 blares through my headphones. Head bobbing to the beat, I set off at a swift jog down the unused trail at the back of the park.
The path through the scenic part of the swamp is old, derelict, and dark. But I don’t have to worry about slow runners, creepy men, or thieves. No one uses the path but me. No one is crazy enough to.
My sneakers pound the trail, decimating little broken leaves and the half-dried puddles from the storm days ago. A strong Louisiana breeze helps to dissuade the heat. But it’s quiet. Inandout of my head.
Running has always done that for me. It drowns out the incessant flow of bullshit that filters into my life.
I veer around a really deep puddle and keep going downward, starting the ascent into the shallow basin. A short creek runs nearby. Its babble is soft this far out, but the big rock on the bank is the best place for a cool down stretch.
My sneakers slide in the makeshift ledges of dirt and roots as I speed down the slope. I grab onto a small sapling to slow my momentum.
It snaps off in my grasp.
I windmill, trying to grab onto anything else as my slick shoes fly out from underneath me.
My hands close over fistfuls of leaves, sticks, and protruding stone, but I can’t get purchase in any of it.
I careen head over heel. My body rolls down the slope, banging and jarring every inch of my flesh with sharp stings and pulsating aches. I cry out. The sound echoes in the trees.
But no one will hear.
I throw my arms up to protect my head, but my vision darkens as my temple slams into something rough. My teeth grit. Everything fades on the pounding beat of my heart, and all sound and light flees as I crash to the forest floor.
The world spins, but I’m not moving anymore.
Nausea and pain rack my body, leaving me whimpering and curled inward on myself.
My eyes flutter open and the trees are mostly still above me. I lightly pat the ground.
