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The night air cooled, and I rocked back and forth gently.
It had been hours since Mitzy had drawn a line in the sand, and she thought I had left.
I had left the kitchen, but I hadn’t left her house. Instead, I had listened to her alternate between strangled sobs and her cussing my name out.
Barracuda had texted an hour ago checking in on us. I had told him Mitzy and I were working things out, when in reality, I wasn’t sure what the hell was going to happen with her. I truly understood Mitzy, but her insistence that she always knew what was best was going to get her in trouble.
“What are you doing here?”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Mitzy standing at the screen door. “Enjoying the night.”
“I thought you had left,” she said softly.
I shook my head. “Nah, I did take a walk and looked around your buildings, but I never left on my bike.”
She pushed open the screen door and stepped out on the porch. “Creeping around?” she sassed.
I chuckled and shook my head. “Just trying to think.”
“This the only place you can think?” She sat down on the other side of the deck on the chaise.
I shrugged. “I guess it was the only place I wanted to think.”
Mitzy sighed. “I don’t know what we’re doing here, Monk. I want to hate you and never see you again, but you’ve all I’ve been able to think about since I woke up in the hospital bed with you next to me.”
I pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “I feel the same way, Birdie, but I’m starting to wonder if maybe you and I are too alike.” I blew a plume of smoke up into the night sky and looked at the stars overhead.
“Is that what you really think?” she asked.
I shrugged. “That we’re alike? Yes. Do I think it’s a reason why we won’t work? Maybe if we let it get in the way.”
“In the way of what?”
I chuckled. “In the way of loving each other, Birdie. I don’t know exactly what you went through, Mitzy, but I know it’s changed you. Hell, you’re still dealing with the aftermath.” I glanced over at her. “You’re gonna deal with it for the rest of your life.”
Mitzy sighed and sat back on the chaise. “He took everything away from me, Monk. He took away my right to think, choose, and even feel. By the time he beat me to within an inch of my life, I didn’t want to live anymore. I didn’t want to be in this world if Allan was going to be in it.”
“But you left,” I whispered.
Mitzy closed her eyes. “I did, but it was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I was so ashamed to have to tell someone how much control I let Allan have over my life. How weak and pathetic I was.”
“You weren’t either of those things, Mitzy. I’m not going to listen to you take the blame for that piece of shit’s actions.” I tried to quell the rage coursing through me at the thought that Mitzy was so ashamed of the way Allan treated her that she wanted to die.
She laughed flatly. “I know that now, Monk, but back then, I didn’t. Hell, some days, I forget that Allan being a piece of shit isn’t a reflection on me. I wanted so bad to believe he was a good man, and he just needed a good woman to show him that. It took me two years to realize I was still a good woman, and he was and will always be a bad man.”
“Why did you let him go, Mitzy? Why did you insist Barracuda spare his life?”
Mitzy scrubbed her hand down her face. “Because there was a tiny part of me that still thought there was some good left in Allan.”
“Well, the past three weeks can attest to the fact that he’s still a fucking cockroach.” Two attempts to kill Mitzy proved that.
“I don’t want to run in guns blazing with you, Monk. I understand the man is dangerous.” She motioned to her broken arm. “He did this to me. Three years after, I thought I was free of him.”
“I know, Mitzy, that’s why I’m going to make damn sure you are free of him now. Allan isn’t going to be able to live free and make your life a living hell one more day.”
“I agree with you,” she whispered.
“Then why in the hell are you so hellbent on confronting him. For all the shit that man did to you, you want to stand in front of him again?” I demanded. “I don’t want you to give him the power to know you still think about him.”
“He doesn’t have power over me anymore, Monk. Not in the way that you think. I do think about him every day, but that’s only because I never want to forget where I was and how far I’ve come.” Mitzy sighed and laid her head back. “That man destroyed me, and I’m still sitting here, living the most amazing life I could never have imagined back then.”
“My injured Birdie who will always be strong enough to fly,” I mused. “I just wish you would let me fly next to you.”
“And I wish you would, Monk. I want you next to me, not in front of me.” Mitzy turned her head toward me and opened her eyes. “But when you firmly tell me what I can’t do, you’re caging me.” Mitzy stood and made her way over to me. She held out her hand to me, and I threaded my fingers through hers.
“I’m sorry, Mitzy. I can’t stand to see you get hurt again.” I had watched her battered and bruised enough to last me a lifetime these past weeks. I pulled her hand to my mouth and kissed the back of it. “I will die before he ever lays another finger on you.”
“Help me out here, Monk,” Mitzy whispered. She put her hand on my shoulder, and I spread my legs. She moved between them and hitched her leg up. I grabbed her bottom and lifted her ‘til she was straddling my waist. “Things are so much easier with two arms,” she mused.
“This thing will be off before you know it, Mitz.”
She sighed and trailed her fingers over my cheek. “I’m sorry about earlier. I know you’re just trying to keep me safe and not control me. I guess I forgot in the heat of the moment.”
“That’s your sass, Birdie. Your mouth is writing checks your ass can’t cash.” I wrapped my arm around her waist and pressed a kiss to her lips.
“Maybe you’re gonna have to try to fuck it out of me, Monk.”
“You know,” I laughed. “I said that to you as a sort of a punishment, but you’re too much into it that the threat is gone.”
Mitzy ran her fingers through my hair. “Maybe you should try it, and I’ll let you know how much I like it.”
“Oh, Mitzy. There is one thing I know for certain,” I mused.
“And what is that?” she asked.
“Life sure is going to be interesting now that you’re in it.”
She kissed me gently. “And you damn sure like it, don’t you?”
“Wouldn’t trade one second of it, Birdie. Not one second of it.”
*
