Page 11 of Redline Baby

I hate it.

I pull the heavy leather jacket off my shoulders, letting it slide completely off my arms and hit the back of a kitchen chair.

I force myself to walk forward. My boots feel incredibly heavy on the cheap carpeting of the bedroom. I don’t turn on the overhead light. I don’t need to. I navigate perfectly by memory toward the tall bookshelf situated against the far wall.

I reach my hand up to the absolute highest shelf.

My fingers brush against something completely soft.

I pull him down.

It is a small stuffed bear.

His name is Pretty.

The material is incredibly worn, totally softened by years of desperate handling. One of his rounded ears is permanently flattened tightly against the side of his head. I have physically moved him exactly three times since Charles packed up his belongings and finally walked out the door, and every single time, I relocate him somewhere significantly harder to reach.

I have never been able to throw him into the trash.

I carry him slowly toward the mattress.

I sit heavily right on the edge of the bed, my boots still securely strapped to my feet, and rest my forearms entirely on my thighs. I hold Pretty in both of my hands.

I reach up with my right thumb and slowly run the pad of my finger along his flattened ear.

My face does something it hasn’t done all night.

The grin vanishes, replaced instantly by a frown.

I don’t make a sound at first.

I just sit hunched over in total darkness, entirely alone, with only Pretty, staring directly at the worn bear resting in my lap while my vision rapidly blurs. My eyes go hot, and I can’t stop the tears.

A ragged sound violently tears its way out of my throat.

It is a terrible, broken sob.

I lean entirely forward, curling my body aggressively over the small stuffed toy, pressing my face down toward my knees, and I begin to cry into the echoing dark of my own apartment, fundamentally broken, totally exhausted, and entirely sure that absolutely no one in the world is watching.

I don't know how long I sit there before the memory comes.

It doesn't ask permission. It just arrives and it hurts worse than anything else has hurt all night.

Redline used to look different to me.

It was a Friday, almost two years ago. I remember because Dex had lost a bet earlier that week and had to buy the first round, and he was still sulking about it. I remember because I wasn't wearing my cut. I wasn't anyone's biker that night. I was just small.

Charles had dropped to the floor in the Little corner, folding himself down onto the low carpet with a groan about his knees that made me giggle, and he hadn't asked me if I wanted to come down with him. He never asked. He just patted the space beside him, low and warm, and I went.

I always went.

There wasn't a version of me that didn't go when Charles patted the floor.

I had a coloring book open in front of me, the good kind with the thick cardstock pages that didn't tear when you pressed too hard, and a fan of markers spread out like a rainbow between my knees. My tongue was poking out of the corner of my mouth in concentration. I remember that specifically, because Charles reached over at some point and tapped the tip of my tongue with one blunt finger and said, "You're gonna bite that thing off one of these days, baby," and I laughed.

I also always laughed about how a motorcycle kink club had a space where we could be soft and color together.

Allie was across from me, small and sleepy, curled into a beanbag with her thumb resting against her bottom lip, not quite sucking it, just resting it there the way she did when she was calm. Her Mommy, Dee, was braiding a section of her hair, humming something tuneless. There were two or three other Littles I don't remember as clearly, building something enormous out of foam blocks near the wall, shrieking every time it toppled.