My Last Pieces

Savannah

“Savannah, will you come here, please?”

Jagger parked the squad car and moved to the hood of it.

The dark street had no streetlights or houses, but it’s on the way home so I guess this is as good a time as any for him to fire off questions and scold me.

He has been patiently waiting, driving beside me as I cry and act like it’s just a random face scratch.

Stopping, I stand still. Unmoving, but I know Jagger will fill the space and come to me himself.

“Savannah, I can’t begin to understand the shit going on in your head. You’ve always been…wild. But I am here. Even if I’m in uniform and technically your watchdog. I’m still your friend. You can talk to me.”

I can feel his mountain of a body behind me. He isn’t touching me but he’s close. I can feel the heat off his body and smell this autumn hint of fallen leaves.

“Thank you, but you can’t help me with this. Nobody can.” I shake my head but stay in my place until I can hear him get back in his squad car to follow me the rest of the way.

“Don’t bullshit with me.”

He catches an ungrateful tone and it sets a fire in my belly that he doesn’t want me to explode with.

“Bullshit yourself, Jagger. Do your job and follow me like a good little dog.”

I take a step, but Jagger is in front of me and blocks me in. His six-foot-two frame and muscle that could break a brick wall cage me in.

“Out with it.” His voice like some throaty grunt he has perfected as the intimidating police officer he is.

“Don’t cop me. Friend? Fuck off. I had the worst night. I do not have the nerve for you tonight. Take your ass back to the car and get the hell out of my face.”

My tears dry up, the morning birds already out to sing their morning retinue.

When I go to sidestep him, he blocks me in.

His arms like tree limbs to catch me when I try to get away from his irritating self.

His arms wrap around me, tangling me up in my fight for freedom and solitude.

I kick while he so easily picks me up. I bang my fist on his stone-wall chest and send a string of curse words and threats that could make sailors cringe.

He doesn’t let go, holding me to him but not letting us go anywhere. He takes every hit I rain down on him without so much as a grunt.

“Gosh fucking damn it, Khal Drogo put me down! Get off me!”

I wiggle, thrash, pound, kick.

Nothing works. I stop fighting and more ungrateful tears cut the brim of my eyelids.

I scream out a few choice words and names at him. He says nothing when I call him a wannabe Maui and threaten to ta’ka his ass, or when I call him a sexed-up Aquaman.

My voice goes hoarse by the time I’m done. Still no closer to home or the ground.

“What do you want?” I croak.

The exhaustion has sunk into my bones.

“For you to let it out.” His hold switches to a gentlemanly one.

His cop mode gone and his friendly way of himself back in gear.

“Why does Lucien Henley hate us?”

Us meaning the Madis bloodline, but he knew it.

“That’s a conversation for chief. Did Lucien do something to you? Is that what—”

“Shut it.” I stop him from going on.

I can’t tell him Lucien Henley shredded my dad’s jacket.

I can’t tell him how I really spent the weekend and how the gunshot wound on my hip is searing from the way he has his arm bound around me.

“Damon and I won’t work. His dad hates me. I can’t come between them.”

I let go of the friction I held myself stiff with and mold to his body, my head laying on the back of his shoulder. My ass kind of close to his face.

“Do you actually want to be with Damon Henley?” he asks to be a friend, but he couldn’t hide the disapproval in his tone.

“I laugh when I’m around him. I smile. I forget it. It gets so loud here. Damon makes the silence feel like fresh snow. Like when you wake up to school being canceled and you’re a little kid.

“That happiness that races in your body when you peek out the window and see the whole world covered in fresh powder. Damon is like my snow day.”

I smile sadly inside my heart.

It’s going to be nothing but the jungle from here on out.

No more snow days.

“Maybe we can find you a new snow day.”

I can feel his face turn to look at me.

“Maybe.”

The doubt held strong in that one word.

Jagger lets me down. His arm is still latched on but now it was more like a hug.

“Chief doesn’t know you snuck out. I won’t tell him if you can honestly promise me, this is the end of it. No side-tracked late night endeavors or whatever you keep pulling lately. That you will be good.”

I tilted my face up, my neck craning to see his eyes.

“I promise this stops tonight. No more Henley madness. I promise no more lying. I can’t promise I’ll be good because we both know I can’t.”

I fold my lips in and raise my eyebrows.

“That’s fair.” His full lips turn up into a smile at my expense.

***

^~Two Weeks Later~^

“Why are you so tired lately?” Percy and I crash out on the couch, switching through different options on TV to find something to watch.

He has asked me this five times already but I don’t think he believes me.

It’s been harder for me without my dad’s jacket, and the fact that I have all these secrets I can’t tell anyone.

That I have no drive anymore or want for anything.

But I have to fake it. Also, working through this anger brings rage at Lucien Henley.

“Probably due to the lack of sleep I’ve been getting.” I pop a chocolate-covered pretzel into my mouth and grunt when I see ~Sweet Home Alabama~.

Percy doesn’t fight me on the movie choice.

“That could be a problem. Are the sleeping pills not helping?” He steals my Ziplock baggie of pretzels and shoves a fistful into his mouth.

“I’ll tell Reid to make more next time.”

I snatch my pretzels back before he can eat my last few.

Reid has been giving me things since I’ve been working with him at the police station and sneaking in a few orgasms after, and a lot of the time during, our shift.

No more thank-you cards, now I get snacks or frappes.

He got me flowers last week, but I prefer the snacks.

He is getting paid with money for the filing and organizing. I am getting paid in time with Reid so it’s working out well.

Percy gets time to spend with his other friends and driving his car. I know he missed it.

Damon has stayed away. Moonpie and Sunshine check in with me every day. Catching me as soon as I get into one of my classes.

They say things like they miss me or the guys miss me or Dane wants me to meet him in the black room, which is the room Damon took me to when I puked and he held me.

I get texts from Damon at night, some kind of one line to a song that I don’t respond to, but he keeps on.

I tell them all to fuck off.

To leave me alone.

But I miss them too and don’t really want them to stop.

I just can’t with them right now.

I have a lot to work through and can’t figure out a way to hate Damon the same way I hate Lucien.

Even walking to and from work, I catch a black head of hair and almost give myself whiplash to check and see if it’s my Angel.

Uncle Jonah has kept me under lock and key pretty much twenty-four-seven.

Life’s back to how it was before, just lonelier somehow.

Our movie time goes off without a hitch and finally it’s dinner time and off to my room where I spend my night looking out the window or flipping back and forth in my bed until I get the newest song lyrics from Damon.

My gunshot wounds are now scabbed up and healing nicely. Finally.

Jotting down more of my homework, my phone pings.

Dropping my pencil into the spin of my spiral notebook, I grab it from the dresser and unlock it.

Angel

Oh, said you lost your dad, girl I know how that feels

I lost my mom, tryna deal with that still

I guess we connect on our hatred for pills.

It’s real.

I got you on my mind, baby.

You got me thinking things I never used to.

I’m not the phone type, I’d rather be with you.

Sometimes I hold back from saying, “I miss you.”

But I miss you.

I have to admit, on this road I get lonely.

But you make me smile.

You let me be myself.

You don’t control me.

I got you on my mind, baby.

Laying in my bed, I’m just staring at the ceiling, baby.

I just wanna know if you feel what I’m feeling, baby.

Got you on my mind yeah, tell me what the deal is lately.

I’m a man of my word, girl believe that.

I’m a closed book but somehow you learn to read that.

Know that I should relax, hate the way I react.

Thinking that I’m good but you know I’m ’bout to relapse.

Girl I wake up in the morning’, all I can think of is you.

I got you on my mind, baby.

I got you on my mind, I got you on my mind (don’t you know, don’t you know).

I got you on my mind, baby.

Got you on my mind.

The lyrics make my heart swell.

I can’t shake the pain from being without my father’s jacket, and I know better than to think Damon had nothing to do with it.

I also know better than to think he is just like Luci.

Maybe it’s just the broken part of my brain that wants to believe it.

Finding what I want to say in the form of another song, I talk to him for the first time since that night at the bar.

I can’t tell him the raw truth.

So I tell him what I can.

Savannah

You’re a world away

Somewhere in the crowd.

In a foreign place.

Are you happy now?

There’s nothing left to say.

So I shut my mouth.

So won’t you tell me, babe?

Are you happy now?

You’re the only one who can up and run

Leave me just as empty as the day you came

And you hold all the cards, all the broken hearts

Strung over your shoulder till it’s all in vain

And only you know the strength of your teeth

The weight of your pockets, so deep

And lonely.

So tell me, babe, are you happy now?

I waited.

Staring at my phone screen as if I wouldn’t get his message back if I didn’t have both eyes glued to the fluorescent screen in my hands.

What felt like forever, I get the ding.

Angel

Go ahead and call me a coward and say I’m not strong

Because I’m not like you

Go ahead and call me crazy 'cause I live in a maze

Tell me, how about you?

I think I live in my head, sometimes I think that I’m dead

I hide behind my youth

No, I've been losing my mind and I’m a little behind

Step inside my shoes

'Cause I’ve never been happy with myself

And I don’t need no one feeling bad for me.

~Oh, okay, Mr. I’m So Deep.~

I know growing up with Luci as a father had to be tough. I know losing a parent hurts so fucking badly it’s world-stopping.

~But how much blame do I give him?~

~How much slack to allow?~

~How can we even move forward?~

He knew.

He had to.

I get Luci is his dad and blood’s thicker than water, but when you’re wrong, you’re wrong.

I have never let anyone walk over me.

I have been used before and taken advantage of.

Whatever this is between Damon, how could it work?

~Do I want to make this work?~

I want my snow day.

I want what I have with him, but I can’t do that with our families in this backwoods Hatfield and McCoy shit Luci has started, or at least is continuing.

I haven’t found out why exactly yet.

Until I can, until we can be friends without hurting each other either from his father ripping my heart from my bare chest or from my Uncle Jonah thinking Damon will somehow ruin me.

It’s goodbye.

For the people we care about to be happy.

Savannah

Your fingertips across my skin

The palm trees swaying in the wind.

The sweetest sadness in your eyes.

Clever trick.

Well, I never want to see you unhappy.

I thought you’d want the same for me.

Goodbye, my almost lover.

Goodbye, my hopeless dream.

I’m trying not to think about you.

Can’t you just let me be?

So long, my luckless romance.

My back is turned on you.

Should’ve known you’d bring me heartache.

Almost lovers always do.

I felt the sting and went to my bed.

Crawling into it, the blanket snugged around me like the hug of a mother I will never receive again.

***

Hours felt like minutes. My alarm going off to tell me the bitter truth was still bitter even with the few hours of rest that split it from fresh wounds.

I got dressed, doing the same routine that I do every school day.

Percy and I walking and talking.

It feels like so much space is now between us and I hate it.

We used to be peas in a pod and now I felt like we were in separate pods.

I wasn’t even a pea anymore.

Walking into school and to our lockers, I notice Moonpie and Sunshine are not here to greet me like they have been for the last two weeks.

My locker combo gets kicked in, the door swinging out.

The same black and blue velvet-trimmed box I returned his gym clothes in the first time is sitting in the middle.

Taking it in my grasp, I pop the top to look inside.

A heavy, smoky gray leather takes up the entire bottom.

Slowly I take it from the box like the material is going to dissolve if I’m not going at snail speed.

The box lets it go. Holding it up, my jaw hits the floor.

My fingers running over the white patches of one-of-a-kind artwork my dad had specially made for his group of friends twenty years ago.

Each patch just like the ones I had personally restored when I was on bed rest.

The jacket wasn’t the same as my dad’s; he had never worn this one or spent hours over the black leather to stitch and pin them all on.

He hadn’t polished or relined the zippers.

He had never made a memory in this one, but it was still a part of it.

A small fraction to connect me to him.

To my mom.

To my baby brother.

The smoky gray making the white and black in the patches stand so fresh and clean.

The sharp steel brass of the zippers looks like a charm instead of a regular zipper to just do the job.

Instead of my dad’s heavy folded collar that had nicks and pleats I could never work out, a rainbow striped heavy duty cotton is in its place.

The slick black Satin that lined the inside, which I had stitched in myself, was now like a Dolly Parton coat of many colors.

Different pieces of mismatching black, slick black, plum purple, baby blue, powder pink, pine tree green, and gray.

The mismatching dull leather black with the slick shiny black...my fingertips brush along it. That warmth from my dad’s jacket coming in through the pads of my flesh there.

“What is that, Van?”

Percy reaches out to touch the black inside pieces.

“It’s Uncle Jeremiah’s. Isn’t it?”

My eyes well up with tears.

“Yeah, it is.”

My arms slip into the sleeves and I hold it to my body like a second skin.

My hands stick in the side pocket, feeling the scratch of a paper hidden inside it.

“I’m sorry too.”