The beeping of the microwave brought out of my maudlin thoughts, and I sighed. I’d had a lot of therapy to deal with this shit, but it didn’t an I still didn’t think about it. Because I’d been drugged during my assault, I didn’t rember most of it. Snippets from ti-to-ti, but never full mories, and as horrible as being drugged and raped by two bikers sounded, I was grateful I hadn’t been lucid for any of it.
I had been able to compartntalize in a way.
My best friend, Lennon? Not so much. She’d wanted blood but no one had been able to keep both of them behind bars. Boneyard had been released due to overcrowding and the other creep was in the wind, so I’d had to leave it in the hands of the Denver PD.
Lennon Whitman had been my best friend since we were paired together as college freshn. She’d been my ride or die from the mont we t, and she was still living in Colorado, recently swept off her feet by a mystery man whom she’d t while visiting with her grandmother. He was a neighbor who apparently helped the elderly woman out with fixing the occasional clogged sink, so he sounded pretty close to perfect, and she sounded happy which made happy.
After my attack, I’d refocused my studies on Physical Therapy and moved to Portland. Well, technically, I’d moved to Vancouver, Washington. But nobody knew where the fuck Vancouver was. You’d tell them, and they’d say, "Oh, Canada?"
No, you dumb shit, Vancouver, Washington was settled before Vancouver B.C. And then you’d correct them, and they’d say "D.C.?"
Insert facepalm.
On their face.
D.C.’s on the total opposite side of the country.
So, it was just easier to say Portland, because I needed to protect my peace, and their general well-being.
In the end, I’d put everything behind . It was a clean break, and since I had no family, other than Lennon, really, it was a chance to start over. It was the best decision I’d ever made.
I love, love, loved the rain, so the Pacific Northwest was a perfect fit, and my career involved helping people, which had always been my passion anyway, so Portland was where I landed.
I wasn’t a fan of being so far away from Lennon, but we talked and texted almost daily, and since she was working on her PhD, we pretended she was just super busy, not hundreds of miles away from each other.
I grabbed my phone and dialed her number.
"Hey, Gravy," she said, answering on the third ring.
I smiled. She’d given so many nicknas in the past, but landed on ’Gravy,’ and it didn’t matter how much I’d groaned and lanted how la it was, it stuck.
"Hey. Did you see the news?"
"You know I don’t watch that crap," she reminded . "Why?"
"Delbert Fisk has been emasculated."
"Like by a dominatrix?" Lennon retorted.
"No, not emotionally." I sighed. "As in literally. His penis and testicles have been removed."
"Oh...really?"
"Yes," I said, and then I realized she hadn’t sounded surprised.
At. All.
"Lennon?"
"Yeah?"
I narrowed my eyes. "Why don’t you sound surprised?"
"Well, I kind of knew already. I heard about it over the weekend."
"Why didn’t you call ?"
"I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure if it would fuck with your happy and I didn’t want to bring all that up for you again."
"I get that, Len, but never feel like you can’t tell things, okay?"
There was a mont of silence and then another sigh.
"Wait, I just saw about this on a breaking news report. How did you know already?" I demanded.
"Well, I need to talk to you about that, but I just haven’t been sure how to bring it up."
"What?"
"You know Granger, the guy I’m dating?"
"Yes," I hedged.
"Um, well, he’s, a..."
I waited several tense seconds for her to speak, but she stayed silent, so I pressed. "He’s a what, Lennon?"
"It’s just so hard, because he’s so great and I don’t want you to form a negative opinion of him before you et him."
"Are you trying to tell you’re dating a lawyer?" I joked.
"No, no, he’s not a lawyer. He’s a biker."
"You’d better an avid cyclist," I bit out.
"No," she breathed out. "As in he rides a Harley Davidson in a motorcycle club."
"Oh my god," I rasped. "What?"
"He’s not like Boneyard, I swear. He’s the kindest man—"
"There isn’t one goddamn biker on the planet who’s kind, Lennon," I snapped. "I’m sorry, I cannot speak to you right now."
I hung up, turning off my phone because I knew she’d try to call right back, and I could not, absolutely without a doubt, could not, speak to her right now.
Then I sank to my knees and burst into racking sobs.
Reviews
All reviews (0)