Page 12 of Made in Love and Blood

“I really didn’t want to deal with her until my birthday, at least.”

Carina would have to be there for her graduation.

All the rest, though?

“Fuck,” Frankie spat.

“Francesca Dove Gallo, language!”

Sissy had every right to reprimand her, but she barely heard the warning. A little too much had been piled onto the plate of total crap that was her day.

Carina tipped the scales. Complicated didn’t begin to explain the toxic mess between she and her stepmother. There had been times in her life when Carina stepped up for Frankie in ways no one else could. Yet, she had also been the same woman who traumatized a motherless child.

No one knew the mess of hatred and gratitude inside Frankie festered and warred each time she exchanged air with the woman her father had chosen to make his wife. A model known globally, but the farthest thing from a mother to exist. They never loved each other, and a kind word hadn’t passed between Carina and her husband in years.

Yet, the word divorce hadn’t been spoken, ever. The word entered Frankie’s vocabulary at twelve, sitting in a pew while a man at the pulpit deemed it a sin.

Then, she got a little older and realized how her stepmother had come from the same place that now controlled her father’s every move.

That’s how she figured it out. Her father’s marriage...an arrangement. Some deal struck that she probably couldn’t ask about. Like everything else.

“Are you okay?” she heard Sissy ask.

“No.”

“Can I help?”

Sometimes. Not this time.

“No,” Frankie whispered, pushing back the stool to stand.

Life often became too much for Frankie. People, places, and things became background noise to the blood that rushed in her ears and the sound of her own heartbeat thrumming through her screaming bones. What had started for her as a child that felt like too many butterfly wings beating in her stomach every time a voice raised around her had turned into full blown panic attacks for her as a teenager.

Before she turned to leave, Frankie said, “I’m sorry for swearing.”

“It wasn’t at me, I suppose.”

That didn’t make it better. Neither did her apology. Before she said or did something worse because she couldn’t manage her own feelings, she decided to go deal with it alone in a way that soothed the angry, anxious parts of her like nothing else could.

Hell, she tried the meds. Not even that helped like running did.

“Where are Sassy and Stella?” she asked of her pets. A tiny mixed breed dog and a white Maine Coon that liked the outdoors more than the inside.

“Somewhere. I’m sure they’ll find you. The fruit will still be here,” Sissy said at Frankie’s retreating back, “after you run it out.”

That was their deal. A secret between them, too. Sissy wouldn’t count the minutes, or hours, that it took Frankie to come back. Frankie had to eat when it was all said and done, whether she wanted to or not.

•••

The nice thing about having what felt like unlimited property—it wasn’t—in her backyard meant she finally had space to breathe while her legs took her down gently rolling hills of manicured grass. She could be alone but didn’t feel alone the same way she did inside the massive house that echoed with emptiness.

Cobblestone pathways weaved throughout flower gardens that Sissy had taken to maintaining alongside the landscaper hired by her father. A few paths veered off into tree-covered canopies that gave the sense of more privacy. Various sitting areas allowed someone perusing the property to take a rest if needed in private sunrooms, under gazeboes with firepits, or on stone benches that faced small fishponds.

Someone else might get scared the darker it became with cloud cover hiding stars, and few lights on the property the further away from the main house that a person traveled. Not Frankie. The twelve-foot stone fence that encompassed the entire estate, including a guest home at the rear of the property, and the cameras and security meant no one would get in. Sometimes she wondered how much of their wealth got tied up in ensuring the safety of their lives, but it probably didn’t add up to a single drop in the bucket.

She rarely noticed the cameras or patrolling men, now. Once in a blue moon, Larkin, the man heading it all, visited Sal’s study.

Frankie didn’t run the back property to think about all that shit, though. She didn’t run it out to admire the time and work that went into the property she called home. She ran until her legs burned, lungs ached with panted breaths, and her stomach started to roll from every slam of her running shoes into the ground. She ran so that she didn’t have to think about it because the only thing on her mind became the mantra of another lap; just one more lap even when it hurt.