Page 11 of Dove
And she'd laugh and say there's no way I can remember every time I've thrown my body between her and a bad idea.
But she'd be wrong.
Eighty-nine.
I've thrown myself in harm's way eighty-nine times, trying to stop her from jumping from a bridge. Standing on train tracks. Swimming in water she can't see the bottom of. Swinging from a tree that's nearly cracked down the middle. Driving too fast on a mountain road or straight into a snow bank. Snowboarding in an area where she can't see where the edge of the cliff is or hiking through a pass where she's certain to meet not only cougars but also wolves. Maybe bears.
The girl has been trying to kill herself since we were seven, and that means it's been twelve years of me standing between her and one of her plans to 'blow off some steam.' Twelve years of being constantly alert to any change in her behavior, always on my toes so that when she takes off running for the nearest cliff to dive off of, I can catch her before she does it.
I'm exhausted.
And I wouldn't change it for the world.
Okay actually, I take that back. If I could alter her so that she wasn't constantly looking for the next adrenaline rush, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Teach her that her life is worth more than she realizes, and that it hurts me that she places such little value on herself. Hammer into her head the idea that I want her to live, and that my need for her should be enough to get her to stay.
At least long enough for her to find her own feet and learn how to value her own life.
But, a little voice has always said, if she stops running–stops jumping off bridges and running into roads like her own life doesn't matter–then what will she need you for? Because you won't need to save her anymore.
And that right there? That scares me almost as much as her search for adrenaline, or whatever it is she does.
Because if she doesn't need me to keep her alive, what reason does she have to keep me around?
I shake my head, pulling myself out of that particular wormhole, which I've been down way too often, and cast her a sideways glance. Her shoulders are pulled up around her ears and her hands are clasped in her lap like she's trying to draw into herself, and that's not like her, either. The girl has the biggest personality of anyone I've ever met, and she doesn't even try to contain it. She explodes out over everyone around her, corners them with her brilliant light, and doesn't apologize if they get burnt.
She's a 5-foot-nothing bundle of joy and energy, and I don't think anyone has ever known quite what to do with her.
The opposite of her mother, to be honest. Celine, my stepmother, was a beautiful, sweet woman, but where Sammy is bright and spontaneous, always looking for the next adventure, Celine was... vacant. Dark. Empty, like someone had borrowed her soul and forgot to give it back.
I don't know if she was always like that, but when my father returned to town and my mother left for a better life–or so she said–he'd turned to Celine like he'd already had it planned. And Celine, broke and devastated by Sammy's father deserting them, had accepted him.
They'd been married within the week, and three days later, my father had run again.
This time, he'd left me with Celine and Sammy.
I was too young at the time to understand Celine, but my memories of her are soft and cushy, sweet and warm. The woman was a saint, and everything I thought a mother should be. Until I realized she was wearing a mask the whole time, pretending to be okay when she was already dead inside.
I never had the chance to ask her when she'd lost herself. By the time I realized something was wrong, at fourteen, it was too late. She killed herself one weekend while Sammy and I were camping in the woods, and left us to discover her body.
I don't like to think about how she did it, but thinking back over Sammy's life, I have to wonder if she passed that tendency to her daughter.
The fear of living too long or being forgotten.
The fear that your life isn't worth enough to keep it... or that other people don't value you enough to care if you stay.
"What the fuck is going on over there?"
I jerk when Sammy's voice suddenly breaks the heavy silence in the truck, and realize that I've daydreamed my way through much of our drive down from the mountain. We're already at the outskirts of town, near where the hardware store and blacksmith shop sit side by side, and the parking lot is crowded.
Too crowded for this early on a Saturday.
Bikes sit haphazardly across the space, none of them parked correctly, and beyond those, I can see men milling around in what I've come to think of as standard motorcycle getup: rough jeans, plaid shirts, leather vests. Most of the men have some sort of branding on their back as well, and as we get closer, I can see that the branding matches. They're all from one gang, then.
And it's not the one we have here in town.
Our gang belongs to Mars Hawke, cousin to Gunner and Barrett, who are the direct descendants of the man who started Hawke's Wood. Mars is rough and sometimes out of control, but he runs his group with a sunny inability to accept anythingbad and makes sure they stay in line, particularly where town matters are concerned.
He would never allow any of his men to park the way those bikes are parked.
