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“It’s for when I work late and you’re alone. I know you hate it. I know you worry, even though you have nothing to be scared about. But now, you can wait for me wrapped up in this blanket and feel safe and secure until I come home to you.”
She peered up at me with her big, bright, blue eyes, tears falling down her beautiful face.
“How did you do this?”
“Believe it or not… Your uncle.”
Briggs
I jerked back, stunned. “What? My uncle helped you?”
“I told him that I wanted to give you a piece of your childhood for your birthday. He gave me an address and a key. He said everything I needed would be in there. It was a storage unit that didn’t have much, just some boxes. There were photo albums, clothes, and some jewelry. He told me to keep the key. In case you wanted—”
“My uncle? He’s kept all this. Why didn’t he ever tell—” I shook my head, wiping away my tears.
I gave up trying to understand Uncle Alejandro years ago. I took in every last picture, especially the one of my mom and dad. They were kissing. They looked so happy, so in love. I couldn’t believe Austin did this. It was the most thoughtful thing anyone could have given me.
A piece of my happiness before the darkness set in.
“You look like her. But you have your dad’s blue eyes,” he chimed in, pointing to my dad in the picture.
I smiled, more tears spilled over. “My dad used to travel a lot. My mom would let me sleep with her in their bed when he was gone. She’d tell me that she didn’t miss him as much when I was lying next to her. That all she had to do was look into my eyes and she would see my dad’s staring back at her.”
Austin grabbed my chin, making me look at him. Wiping away my tears with his thumb. The smell of cigarettes along with his touch comforting me the way it always did.
“I didn’t have this made to make you cry, baby.”
“They’re happy tears,” I reassured him.
“Anytime you want to talk about your parents. I’m here to listen. I wish I could have met them, so I could tell them how amazing their daughter is and how much I’m in love with her.”
“I love you too. Thank—”
“Austin!” Mitch called out, peeking his head through the door, interrupting our special moment.
I had forgotten that they were here. Which was surprising since they were here more often than not. I didn’t get fucked up with Austin nearly as much as I used to. I thought if I stopped partying, if I led by example, then he would follow in my footsteps.
I was wrong.
He just got new friends to party and get fucked up with.
“Your phone is ringing off the damn hook in here. Either answer it or turn it the fuck off,” he said, holding Austin’s ringing phone out in front of him.
Austin glanced over at me silently asking my consent, and I nodded. He walked away from me to grab the phone. I stayed by the railing, admiring my blanket.
He was so fucking sweet when he wanted to be.
“Yeah,” he answered, his tone and demeanor quickly changing. “No shit, motherfucker, it was supposed to be here last week. You either make it happen or I’ll find someone who will!” he snapped, making me jump.
I stopped going on runs with him a long time ago. He didn’t need me with him anymore. I was just another thing for him to worry about during deals. I hated the person he would turn into. He wasn’t my Austin when he was working. He was a complete stranger. The power, the money, and the drugs took over. It didn’t happen over night. But as weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, the more I started to see him become someone I didn’t recognize anymore.
Someone that scared me.
Someone that reminded me of my uncle.
I just stopped going, and he never asked why. I think a part of him knew. It was easier for him to be that person if I wasn’t around. To let the darkness take over. He loved the power and the respect. The money was just an added bonus because what he really loved.
Were the drugs.
It was no longer about the pain in his back. For years I justified him popping pain pills like they were fucking candy. That he was actually in agony from the muscle spasms, to have to take the Percocets, the Vicodins, the Oxys that I supplied him with. Anything I could get my hands on to help him get through the day. That wasn’t the case anymore.
There were days that I couldn’t tell if he was high or sober. Sometimes it all blended together, and that terrified me. I lay awake waiting for him, not caring if he came home high, just as long as he came home to me.
Wrapped his arms around me.
Told me he loved me.
That I was his girl.
That I was his everything.
Promising me a future that I desperately wanted to believe in, but as the years went on, the more it became a dream than a reality. At times I felt like an outsider looking into the life I caused. The life that I brought him into, the life that he had because of me.
No one else but me.
There were days that I felt so lost, not knowing what happened to my life. The life that I hated was now replaced with a life I didn’t recognize.
The irony was not lost on me.
I was home alone one day a few months ago. Austin had gone on a run. He had been drawing all morning, still pictures of me, of us. Always capturing the happy memories, never the sad ones. For some reason I went into the closet and grabbed his old notebook, the one that I had opened for the first time years go, wanting to finally see a part of his life. I sat on our bed, my favorite place in the entire apartment, smelling him all around me.
Craving him to be there holding me.
Feeling like I was found in a moment where I felt so lost. My fingers turned to the very first sketch he ever drew of me. The drawing where I was dancing, so free not knowing that my life was about to change forever. Taking a drastic detour to the love I’d always wanted.
I tore the picture out of the notebook, instantly turning it over. I started writing. After years of reading books, I began writing the story of my life. Starting from the day Daisy Mitchell died. I transferred the few paragraphs to a Word document on my computer. Every so often I would pick up my laptop and write a few more paragraphs, a few more sentences, a few more pages. Usually when I felt lost again, which seemed to be happening a lot more lately.
“You have two days, do you hear me? If it’s not fucking done, you’ll have to answer to me, and trust me, you don’t want to fuck with me.” Austin hung up the phone, bringing me back to the present.
“Sorry about that, baby.”
He was like night and day with a flick of a switch. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a blink of an eye. But the man I loved was back. He kissed my face and pulled me into his arms. As if he knew what I was thinking, what I was feeling, what I needed that only he could ever give me. And just like that. He made everything…
Go away.
Chapter 26
Briggs
I needed a break.
I needed to step back and look at the whole picture, not just what was in front of me from day to day. My mixed emotions caused chaos all around my mind. Wreaking havoc all around my life and what it had become.
I felt like I was a hamster on a spinning wheel, running in circles with no end in sight. Our relationship had always been intense and still was to that day. From the second we laid eyes on each other in Miami, the whole world disappeared and we started to live in our own little bubble. Our own little creation where nothing else existed or mattered, only each other. I went from being alone, from having no one, hating my life and where it was going till, him.
Till Austin.
He became my everything. My best friend. My only friend. My lover. My partner. My confidant. I was happy, for the first time in my life, I was really truly happy to have found someone that was just as alone as I was. Someone who needed me as much as I needed them.
Love was blinding and at times cruel. Y
ou only saw what you wanted to see, what you so desperately desired. Only picturing the good, never the bad.
I didn’t realize that Austin had demons that lurked within him, or maybe I did and ignored the signs. Maybe it had always been just waiting around the corner.
For the taking.
His bright blue eyes that I loved for so many years were dull and void now. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw them shining bright, full of life. They had been replaced with a dilated gaze. The darkness out-weighed the light and the life that I once cherished.
I could still see his love for me. Even behind the lies I told myself everyday.
He knew me inside and out. I used to love that he was the only person that had ever touched my heart, my soul. It built the bond we shared. Now it just felt like a double-edged sword, placed directly in my heart. There were days I saw him. My Austin peeking back at me through the drug-induced haze, the haze that seemed to always surround him.
I didn’t want to believe what was so blatantly in front of my face. It was easier to live in denial instead of admitting the truth that I knew in my heart.
I walked around New York aimlessly the entire day, lost in my thoughts. The city was alive all around me, yet I still felt like I was walking the streets in slow motion. Strangers were passing me by in a blur. I lied and told Austin I was going to the spa. That I needed a girl day and I was finally using the gift certificate he had given me to spoil myself for the day.
Truth was, I wanted out of my fucking apartment. I needed out. The walls were caving in on me the more I was around the truth. It was easier to live in the lies than the reality. There were always people around, hanging out, drinking, doing drugs. We were rarely alone anymore. Drugs were everywhere all the time. Spread around the apartment, on the kitchen island, on the coffee table, on the dining room table. With the open floor plan, I had nowhere I could escape it.
My safe haven had become my Hell.
Austin and I fought about it often and his answer was always the same. He would say he understood. That it wouldn’t happen again. That he loved me. That I was his girl. That he was sorry.
He was always, always fucking sorry…
When I made it back to the apartment it was already nighttime. I heard the loud music blaring the second I opened my car door in the parking garage. It vibrated against the walls of my small building. I was instantly thankful I only had three other people that lived on my floor and most of the time they weren’t even home. I knew security wouldn’t do a damn thing about the noise. My uncle had everyone on his fucking payroll. Even the cops would look the other way.
I pushed open the door on my floor. My heart mimicked the beat of the music. I deliberately walked slower down the hallway, not wanting to witness the shit show I knew I was about to walk into. Taking a deep, calm, soothing breath, I grabbed the knob and pushed the door open to the place I used to call my home.
“What the fuck?” I said to myself, taking in the crowd of people.
The billowing smoke from weed and cigarettes and God knows what the hell else hung heavy in the air. I couldn’t see over the strangers who were making themselves at home in my personal space.
“Where the fuck is Austin?” I whispered again to myself, getting more and more frustrated as the seconds passed.
I pushed through the people, not caring who I knocked the fuck over, looking for Austin among the madness. I rose up on my tippy toes searching the unfamiliar faces, when my eyes focused on what I thought was a little person’s hand.
My worst fucking nightmare played out right in front of me. A kid exposed to this life.
My dining room table was covered in drugs. So much so, I couldn’t see the glass anymore.
“Oh my God!” I shouted.
No one turned to look my way.
Panic coursed through my body as I put my hand over my mouth, watching in complete horror and disbelief. The little girl, I had never seen before, played with the pills like they were toy cars. Sliding all the different colors and tablets through the white powder on the table. She reached for a needle and I lunged into action, roughly pushing my way through the crowd. Hurrying to the little girl before she grabbed the syringe.
“No! No! No!” I yelled over the music once I got to her, but it still sounded muffled.
She jerked back, frightened that someone was suddenly in her face. Her little lip jutted out and tears filled her eyes. I crouched down in front of her seat, wanting to be on her level.
“It’s okay, sweetie, don't cry. I’m Briggs. What’s your name?”
I rubbed her back and she bowed her head. “Molly,” she whispered so low I could barely hear her.
“How old are you, Molly?” I coaxed, trying to get her to trust me.
She put her hand out in front of her, holding up four fingers.
“Wow. You’re a big girl.”
She nodded, smiling. Her guard coming down. I looked up at the table in front of her and noticed a My Little Pony coloring book beneath the pills and blow that she had just been playing with.
“Can I carry you? We can go outside, it’s so loud in here. Have you been outside? There’s a balcony and there’s a whole bunch of buildings and bright lights,” I said, excitedly. “And sometimes birds come and they sit right on the railing, or even better, at the table with you.”
Her face lit up. Nodding her head fervently. “Like Cinderella?”
“Yes. Exactly like Cinderella. Okay, come on,” I said, picking her up under her arms and placing her on my hip.
Not one person was paying attention to me. No one was watching her, taking care of her, looking after her. No one fucking cared. They just left her with a coloring book and crayons at a table full of drugs.
Why would someone bring a kid here?
I couldn’t imagine what would have happened if I didn’t see her reaching for a fucking needle of all things. If I hadn’t come home when I did. I shook away the thoughts, taking her in my bathroom first. I lifted her up on the sink to wash her hands of the drugs that she was just playing with, thinking they were toys. I asked her repeatedly if she put anything in her mouth, if she ate anything and each time she shook her head no. I didn’t know whether to believe her or not, but she looked fine.
If she took anything it would have already had an effect on her. I was there now. If she started acting funny, I wouldn’t hesitate to call 911. I didn’t give a shit what the repercussions could be. It made me sick to my fucking stomach that some asshole would bring their baby here and that Austin would let it happen.
I picked her back up on my hip, grabbing Austin’s notebook from his nightstand with a few colored pencils since her coloring book was covered in cocaine.
At the last second, I grabbed my memory blanket, hoping that it would give her the same security it always gave me. I made my way through the crowd out to the balcony. Finally finding Austin out there, smoking a cigarette with Jon and a few other random people.
“Baby,” Austin greeted as soon as I opened the doors. “There’s my girl… I was starting to worry about you,” he slurred.
He took a drag of his cigarette as he walked toward me, blowing the smoke to the side, before pulling me into his arm, trying to kiss me. I shoved him away, and he stumbled back. He still hadn’t even realized I was holding a kid in my arms.
“The fuck?” he muffled out, gripping my arm. “What’s your problem?”
“You! You’re my problem. Whose kid is this, Austin?” I asked, nodding toward her.
He blinked a few times, trying to focus on the little girl but failing miserably in doing so.
I sighed, disappointed, furious, and annoyed.
“Everyone go inside!” I roared.
They all looked back at Austin as if it didn’t matter what I said. Like it didn’t matter that this was my damn apartment, my space they were all invading. He nodded towards the balcony doors.
I sat Molly on a wrought iron chair, throwing all the shit that was on the table onto
the floor. Not giving a fuck what it was. I placed Austin’s notebook in front of her, opening it up to a blank page and handing her the colored pencils.
She beamed, sitting up on her chubby little thighs to see and reach the notebook better.
“Will you draw me a picture? Maybe Twilight Sparkle? I love her purple hair,” I stated, pulling back her soft brown hair away from her round baby face.
“Yes. She has purple hair like you,” she said in the cutest little voice.
My heart was breaking for her and we'd only just met. I smiled, and she went right to work. It was starting to get cold out and she was dressed in summer clothes, so I placed the blanket over her shoulders and she snuggled right into it.
I took another deep breath before turning to face Austin. He was intently staring at us. As if everything he ever wanted was a few feet away from him.
I saw it.
For a moment, my Austin was peeking through the haze.
I walked toward him, dragging him to the furthest spot on the balcony, away from her, so she wouldn’t hear us.
I didn’t falter. I couldn’t. If I did, the love I had for him would win and that wasn’t going to happen tonight. Not after all this.
“Did you know she was here?” I gritted out, pointing at Molly.
He looked back over at the little girl who was happy as could be and then immediately peered down at the ground, rubbing the back of his neck.
I scoffed, shaking my head in pure utter disbelief.
“You knew she was fucking here? You knew someone brought a child? And you still let it happen? What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shoved his chest.
“Baby…” He stepped toward me and I instantly stepped back, placing my hand out in front of me.
