Page 42 of Wreckage of My Life
She finally decides to quit it for now. I see her raising her head and looking around, her mouth setting in a straight line when she catches sight if me.
“Dylan,” she almost whispers when she gets close enough. I haven’t been correcting her about the name she calls me. “Ethan is not okay. What did that woman do to him?” Meaning Mia, and I’ve been wondering that myself. “And who is Ali? He keeps on crying for someone named Ali.”
“Ali is Wyatt’s girl.” I tell her, although I think I mentioned it to her before.
I see my mother’s eyes filling with unshed tears at the mention of my brother.
“Is she good to him?” Ever since Wyatt decided that club life was not for him anymore and left us in the dust, she never stopped worrying about him. Especially after my father refused to allow much contact.
I almost want to lie to her about Alison and her relationship with Wyatt. Surprisingly, I don’t have it in me.
“She’s good to him,” is all I say. Because if I say more, she’ll realize the savage jealousy I feel toward my brother and the relationship he’s in. I could’ve been like that with Becca, I realize with a start.
I press a hand to my chest and watch one of the club whores, the nicer one, approaching my kid. She tries to smile and talk to him gently. I’d have thought he’d be all over it. She kinda looks like Alison in a way. But no, he is even more distraught. He hits the bottle of water out of her hands and cries harder yet.
“Hey,” I finally snap from my spot on the side. “Don’t do that.” The tone of my voice doesn’t allow for any room to negotiate. He instantly stops crying, big tears still running down his small face, and he lets out a hiccup every so often. “You don’t act like that with her,” I point to the nice whore, “or anyone else here,” I then point my finger around. “Do you understand?”
“I want Ali,” he lets out a strangled cry. “And she smells,” he points to Ruby, the nice whore.
“She smells?” I am flabbergasted by his comment. I sniff the air around us while Ruby’s face is in complete shock. I don’t smell anything other than the perfume she has on. It’s not my favorite, but it’s not bad.
“If you don’t get this fuckin’ kid to stop cryin’,” my father’s voice booms from behind us, “I’ll give him something to cry about.”
“He’s just a scared little boy,” my mother jumps to her grandson’s defense.
“He ain’t looking that scared to me,” my father pushes her out of the way to get closer to the kid. He then bends his knees down to get more to his level. “Shut. The Fuck. Up,” he growls into his face.
I don’t like the boy crying either, but I’ll be damned if I’ll allow my father to talk to him like that.
“Get the fuck out of his face, old man,” I push him a little, almost making him lose his balance. “It’s all new to him. He’ll adjust.” I then bend down and pick the boy up, surprised how light he is. My ribs still hurt like a bitch, not as bad as before, but the twinge of pain is still there. The club doctor taped me up as soon as we got here, and that’s helped.
The crowd of onlookers falls quiet as I turn around to make our way to my room here at the clubhouse. The boy shocks the hell out of me when he rests his head on my shoulder, just like I saw him doing countless of times with Wyatt or Alison, and he is quiet for a little bit.
My heart twists painfully in my chest. I don’t normally feel much emotion, and the fact that I am starting to feel something toward this small human is scaring the shit out of me. Between this and the storm of emotions I felt toward Becca, I could get fuckin’ killed.
I march to the large bed in my room that hasn’t seen any action since the night I left to see Becca for the last time. That’s when Number One and Number Two went at each other in it, but all I wanted to do was get them drunk so I could leave unnoticed.
Now, I watch the kid,my son, sitting on this bed of sin, eyes big in his small face, waiting for me to make it all better for him.
I almost can’t believe the words that are next coming out of my mouth. “You wanna talk to Wyatt and Ali?”
He nods so big, his head is almost bouncing off his shoulders, making it very hard for me not to smile. I’ve been trying really hard not to get attached, but it seems like some kind of emotion toward him is seeping through.
I pull out my cell phone and dial Wyatt’s number.
“He wants to talk to you,” is all I say when I hear my brother answering the phone. I put the call on speaker and give it to Ethan to hold, showing him how to keep it close to his mouth when he speaks.
“Unka Wyatt,” he whimpers into the speaker, making my chest hurt with unspoken emotion. I don’t understand why this is happening to me. I realize with a start that he never attempted to call me by anything other than Dylan. When we left Illinois, as I was trying to get us situated in the van, he kept on screaming, “I don’t want to go, Dylan!”
“Hey, buddy,” my brother’s voice now echoes from the speaker. “How are things? I got Ali here too. She couldn’t wait to hear your voice.”
The boy just has a one track mind though. “When are you coming here?” They promised him they’d come visit him this summer. He’s obviously holding them to it. It’ll be my brother’s first time visiting in years, and his woman’s first time ever. It should be interesting.
“I waited,” the boy cries into the phone. Ethan, I need to think of him as Ethan. Why am I having such a hard time with this? “You said you’re coming to see me.”
“We will, buddy,” Wyatt assures him in a happy tone, although, I’m sure he’s anything but. “We haven’t had a chance to plan yet. Can you give us a couple of weeks?”
Ethan bursts into tears. “Tomorrow. I want to see you tomorrow, Unka Wyatt.” He is crying so hard, I can’t watch. I turn my back to the pitiful picture he makes, hands on the hips and head back with eyes on the ceiling. How the fuck is this my life?
