008: Unforgiven
Aug 6, 2021 1:56:31 GMT -5
Post by Admin on Aug 6, 2021 1:56:31 GMT -5
• JD •
August 5, 2021 || Reno
The coffee shop was a Starbucks knock-off, off the tourist path in Reno that was mostly filled with college kids and aspiring writers, leeching the free WiFi. He'd been coming here for almost a month now, lingering over the bitter mugs of dark roast, waiting for a ping on the TaskRabbit app for handyman work. It led to a lot of thinking, a lot of soul searching (and a bit too much heartburn) – he'd started watching people come and go. The girl with the pink hair had come in the last few days, lingering in the corner and alternating between staring at her phone and pretending she wasn't watching him. She seemed sad, almost like a lost puppy and he contemplated going over to talk to her because he could almost feel the weight of her emotion from across the room. The signs for social distancing kept him where he was – at least that's what he told himself as he brought the mug up to his lips, draining the rest of the coffee that had gone cold hours ago. When he moved to his feet, he didn't bother looking back. He'd been watching people long enough; he knew she was going to follow. He paused between buildings, fishing out the cheap plastic lighter and bringing it up to the tip of the cigarette he held between his teeth, lighting it and taking a long, leisurely drag.
"Who are you?" He kept his voice pitched low, knowing she could hear him well enough. A car roared by, some shitty song's awful bassline thumping loud enough to make the windows rattle in their frames, making him tense for a moment before he let out that breath, turning slowly to see the girl standing less than a foot away. Doc Marten Mary Janes. Rainbow socks pulled up to her knees with a pair of cut-off Daisy Dukes and some silly shirt with tacos all over it – she looked like another one of those damned college kids, obsessed with their social media interactions and TikTok dances.
"Who are you?" He said it again, leaning against the brick as he tilted his head back to look up at the sky, rolling his neck to clear the stiffness after sitting so long. "Why are you following me?"
The girl's brown eyes were wide, that startled deer-in-the-headlights look and then she took a step back when he turned his head to look at her again. She was shaking her head. "I... I wasn't."
"You've been coming here for the last four days," JD replied, his voice cold and calm, stripped of all emotion. "Yesterday, you walked in seven minutes after I did. Ordered a pink lemonade refresher. Today it was a latte. Extra cinnamon with almond milk. You paid with cash. I'm willing to bet you didn't log into the WiFi-"
"Wha-"
"Did they send you?" He was facing her now, lips thinned into a hard line and his eyes narrowed as he took her in. She was tall, probably close to six feet, lean the way his late wife had been, but she seemed sturdy enough when he looked at the lines of her calf muscles outlined by those ridiculous socks.
The girl shook her head, looking terrified but she surprised him by standing her ground rather than fleeing as he closed the distance between them, flicking away that half-smoked cigarette into the street.
"I'll ask you again, then. Who are you?" She blinked, chin quivering as she bit her lip, and he wasn't sure if she was on the verge of some emotional meltdown or about to piss herself in fear. Either way, she was putting out the wrong kind of energy for what he'd assumed she was – there was no way they'd send someone this green to try and take him out.
"Daddy?"
He was reaching out to grab her arm when she said that word, her voice so small, so fragile that it cut right through him. He hadn't seen her since she was eleven. She had to be in her early thirties now – this girl looked like she was barely old enough to vote, let alone drink legally in the state of Nevada. Still, the more he looked at her, the more he could see it. Those eyes, the way she carried herself that reminded him so much of looking at a ghost. "M-Mia?" He almost choked on her name, disappointed with himself for that lapse in control.
She nodded, "it's me." A sigh escaped her lips as she looked over her shoulder, as though she was the one fearful of a tail now, "Dev told me you were back. That you reached out and tried to talk to him – I know he was an ass to you about it and he pretty much told me he'd never talk to me again if I..." she stopped talking, shaking her head and sniffling and now he could tell that he'd been right. There was something wrong with her, some emotional maelstrom going on behind those eyes.
He took a few steps towards her, taking her by the hand and then they were walking in the other direction, back towards the shop and the tiny little patio outside it. He led her to one of the empty tables in the shade – it was hot as hell out here but there was a bit of a breeze. He didn't really notice it most days. It was better than creeping through jungles or trying to survive a heatwave camped out in the wilds of Brazil. She sat down, almost falling bonelessly into the chair.
"Your brother," he began, sighing as he sank into the chair across from her, "blames me for things that were out of my control. They told me you'd be safe, that-"
"It wasn't so bad." She forced a smile, "at least not for the first couple years. I left when I was sixteen. Moved in with Dev. Dropped out of high school." Her elbows rested on the table, her face in her hands as though she was ashamed. "I didn't finish until I was twenty and then I ended up at this dump in Utah. I wanted to be a dancer, thought it was easy money and then one day this guy showed up and gave me a ticket to anywhere I wanted to go. I tried this wrestling thing... it didn't work out. I got hurt. I got addicted to painkillers and it took me a couple years to get clean. Dev... he was good then, got me into a rehab place. Helped me dry out and I... I went and got a degree. I do physical therapy now – well I did. Until the whole world went to shit."
JD reached out, resting his hand on her arm. "I should have reached out sooner. I just thought..."
"Yeah." She lifted her head, eyes shining with tears. "And I should have done more than creep you on social media for the last year. I was scared."
"Of what?"
Her laugh was bitter, "rejection, I guess? You reached out to Devon. Not me. I just thought maybe..."
"Fuck that," he snapped, his control slipping for a moment and the vehemence in his tone gave them both pause before he shook his head. "Not a day goes by that I don't think about you. About what your lives are like. About what could have been... about everything I left behind. Don't you ever question that."
"My life?" Mia shook her head slowly, "my personal life, anyways? It's a mess. I guess that's why it felt like it was time to come find you. I mean, it can't get any worse, right?" She blinked away tears, reaching up to rub a knuckle under her eye. "God, and I swore I wasn't going to do this... I wasn't going to fall apart into some sobbing mess and fall into your arms begging you for a hug and to make it all better like some lost little girl with a skinned knee."
"You never did that." His smile was sad, "you got up and dusted yourself off."
"Dev was the messy one. Always taking risks, breaking the rules. I had to be the good one... happy and smiling. Mom told me it was easier to love me because I was a good girl – I think I carried that with me all this time – it's total bullshit, by the way. That shouldn't matter. You should have loved me enough no matter what, even if I did have too many broken bones and... and broken promises." She swallowed hard, breaking eye contact, "you could have let us know. Somehow. That you were out here all this time. And I don't want to hear some stupid excuse about how you weren't allowed to... or how it was safer for us to believe you were dead. How is that ever..."
"Mia," he began but she cut him off.
"No. Shut up for a second and just listen. I was young enough... I didn't really understand. But Dev? He blamed himself. You guys were going to get him because he got kicked out of school. You know how much that fucked him up? You don't understand why he wants nothing to do with you – that's why. He spent twenty fucking years blaming himself for the fact that you and mom and Jesse were gone and then... you just pop up out of fucking nowhere like 'surprise, it was all a lie'."
Her voice was barely above a whisper, but she may as well have been screaming in his face. Every syllable cut deep, reverberating deep into the core of him. He knew she was right. That was what made it easier to stay away, to be nothing more than a shiftless ghost drifting through towns and life without a real tether. "I..." the words caught in his throat, "I'm not going to make up some bullshit excuse. You're right. I should have written a letter. Called you on your birthday. Told you somehow. It got easier to stay gone, the older you got. I kept tabs. I knew about your marriage to that tattoo artist. I knew when Devon finished school and got that job as a social worker – he's done some good. So have you, Mia. I'm proud of what you've become." His voice was breaking, growing hoarser as he tried to keep his own emotions in check. "I wish I'd been there."
"I don't." Mia's voice was cold, "we learned how to survive on our own. Without you. Despite you, really. And God help me, I want to hate you. I want to punch you in your stupid face and shoot you in the head so that you'll really be dead but I... I guess that's normal. That's what my therapist says. That I thought I had closure for all those years but really, I just buried it like I did with everything else. It's not me being a good, happy person. It was trauma. All of it... and I just... I can't smile anymore. Okay? I can't..."
The tears were falling again, her chin quivering and it broke his heart in the worst way to know he was responsible for the damage. Without a word, he got up and rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment in silence. He started to turn away but stopped, reaching into his pocket to pull out one of the business cards he always had on him. He dropped one on the table in front of her before walking away.
He wanted to apologize. He wanted to tell her that he loved her. That he'd never stopped loving her and her brother both, but he knew they were just empty words from a stranger. This time, she didn't follow him. This time he made it all the way back to shitty little apartment that he kept that Natalie didn't know about – his escape plan just in case things went south. The moment the door closed, the moment that lock clicked home, that was when he finally let himself feel and the weight of the repressed emotion sent him crashing to his knees.
