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Vince
I go home. There’s nowhere else to go. But the second I step inside, I realize what a mistake it was to come back here. Everything smells like Rose. Just a week in the house, and she’s infused everything with that haunting scent of hers. I can’t get away from it. It fills my nostrils and refuses to leave.
I need it gone, though. I meant what I told her. She’s dead to me. She might as well have never existed. I plan on erasing every trace of her from my home, from my memory, from my life. I start to march towards the bedroom to begin stripping her away, but something on the kitchen table catches my eye.
It’s a pad of paper, covered in pen. The writing is a swirling, feminine script. I know without having to think that it’s Rose’s. I sit down and start to read.
Dear Vince, it starts. From there, it flows in a meandering scroll that winds from emotion to emotion. Each word is thick and dark, bearing the weight of so much feeling behind it. I can practically sense her aura, like it’s still lingering here even though hours must have passed since she first wrote it.
I should have told you right away about the baby. But I was scared. I still am scared, actually. More than scared. Terrified. I feel like I don’t have control over my life anymore, like I’m nothing more than a victim to bigger, meaner men throwing me around at their whim. I’m scared you are one of them, even though everything I’ve seen tells me you’re so much more, so much better than they are...
I read on, feeling a foreign burbling in my chest. I’ve never had a feeling like this before. Ever since I met Rose, I’ve waded through emotions I didn’t even know existed. But they must have been in me all along, just waiting for her to tug them out from the dusty corners where they were hiding.
Fucking hell. I reach the end. In big, careful letters, she writes her final words.
You said you’d protect me, that nothing bad would ever happen again. I just want you to know, I trust you.
Love,
Rose
She might as well be in front of me, saying the words herself. I can almost hear her voice speaking them. Love, Rose. She does love me. The truth there is obvious to me. I don’t care what Carlos says, Rose would never betray me. I can understand being afraid of a man like me. I wasn’t given an easy lot in life and I certainly didn’t make it any easier on myself with the path I’ve chosen. There are things to be frightened of. I’ve seen bad things. I’ve said them and done them, too. But goddamn, Rose makes me want to shield her from all of that. I want to be there for her, to protect her from all the dark shit the world throws at a person. She deserves to wake up every day and have those eyes be unclouded, free from fear and pain. She deserves to have a baby look back at her with those same blue eyes, just like Devin’s, full of hope that maybe there’s a better way than the one I’m mired in right now. I want to make all of that happen. For her. For my child.
My father may have abandoned my mother and me to a life spent adrift being battered around by forces bigger and stronger than us. I made it out of that, but I was lucky. So many others suffered worse fates. I won’t subject Rose and our son to the same kind of life that I was forced to endure. For their sake, I can’t give up. Surrender is not an option.
I stand, tucking the note into my back pocket. I grab my cell phone as I run out the door and mount my bike, veering off down the street the instant the engine comes to life. “Boulder,” I bark into the mouthpiece as I ride. “Don’t let anyone leave the clubhouse. The Inked Angels aren’t going down without a fight.”