Maybe I need to sage my room.
Does burning incense help? Maybe I can call a psychic.
Maybe I should go to church. We aren’t a religious family. Surely, at church, I could find some clarity of mind or something.
Everything is upside down and inside out.
Colton Vaughn, the biker known as Kick, wants to keep me safe.
Only, I don’t see how I’m in danger.
Emmalee is purely smitten, and I hate that word, but that’s exactly what she is over Wesson Vaughn.
I get it; the man has a killer smile. He may be in a wheelchair, but his body is toned in a way very few men are. He’s attractive, but for Emmalee, she says it’s the way they connect.
Apparently, he texts and calls all the time. He’s big on communication she says. Well, isn’t that just sweet?
His brother sure isn’t. Not that I expect him to be. In fact, I have zero expectations of either Vaughn brother. Wesson makes Emmalee smile. He makes her feel confident in a way I’ve never seen from her. I am truly happy to see this in her. I hope he sees what a treasure he has in my best friend. I see so much beauty and good inside of her, something I know she struggles to find in herself. It’s why I love that confidence Wesson is bringing out in Emmalee.
My mind goes back in time.
“Sleepover girl time!” Kelly excitedly announces. “I’ve been dying to hang out for weeks!”
Emmalee shrugs her shoulders. She has been quiet all day. I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t like seeing her like this. Emmalee has the most beautiful smile. It fills her face and gives a peek at her perfectly straight, white teeth, without being overstated.
“Emma, you okay?” Kelly asks, and I watch my closest friend carefully.
“Talk to us,” I encourage her.
She sighs and the tears begin to fall. “Josh is going to break up with me.” Well, that explains her withdrawal. Emmalee loves Josh. He’s the first really serious boyfriend she’s had, and she wants this to be the forever kind of thing.
I shake my head. “What do you mean he’s going to break up with you?”
She sobs and leans over against me. I wrap my arms around her. “He said since I won’t put out, he’s going to move on. All because Farrah said she would fuck him! Can you believe her? She knows we’re together.”
I hold my friend. “It’s his loss, Emmalee.” Girls need to know the sister-code. You do not fuck your fellow females over. No guy who will cheat with you will ever be faithful to anyone. It’s not that you’re so special regardless of what he tells you. Men have box brains and what’s right in front of them is what they focus on in the moment. Don’t be a dick and take another chick’s dude.
“I feel stupid,” she states sitting up and drying her eyes. “It’s just sex. Like I should get over it and just do it. Then it’s over, and Josh and I can go back to the way things were. He said if I’ll do it then he’ll stop talking to Farrah. Why not?”
“I think that’s a good idea.” Kelly shocks me with her advice. “Just do it. Honestly, I don’t know why guys want it so bad. I had sex with Alex last year, and it was so bad I had to ask him if he was done.”
“Does it hurt?” I ask feeling ridiculous.
Kelly shakes her head. “It’s not painful. It’s just awkward.”
“My mom told me to wait and not because it’s my virginity. She says it’s about knowing yourself and it’s not going to be good until I know myself inside and out. It’s one of those things where we’re young. We’re only fifteen. How do I know myself?” Emmalee says. “I love Josh, but is this right for me?”
I smile at my friend thankful for her level head even with Kelly trying to say just get it done. “If you have to ask the question then I would say the answer is no. My mom says it’s important to be patient because men are never patient. She says it’s about my body.”
Kelly interrupts, “Yeah, my mom told me my virginity was a gift. Y’all know I’ve had sex with three people, and I still have yet to see this as any kind of present. In the moment, it’s like alright, but after it’s like hard to look at them.”
Her statements don’t make me feel any better about having sex … ever. “Okay, friends. As the young women we are, let’s vow here and now, no sex unless we can hold our heads high to the men we give it up to!” I mutter trying to find pride and unity with my friends. “Even if we’re the biggest sluts, we will be confident in ourselves. This is a revolution. We’re going to be the women who encourage each other. We’re going to be okay when we have sex with a guy and when we don’t.”
I raise up my hands extending my pinky fingers as do my friends. We lock them together and say, “We are smart. We are strong. We are beautiful. Together we rise, and together we fall.”
Oh to go back in time when losing my virginity was a heavy topic. Now, I have someone tagging my car. I have to face the gorgeous man who I had a rendezvous with and sort out my life as things seem to be spiraling around me.
Yes, sex is truly the least of my concerns.
Kelly didn’t keep the vow to only have sex with people she could hold her head high after. Kelly didn’t stick around despite Emmalee and I doing everything to be her friend. She said we were too immature and stopped speaking to us because she was doing drugs on top of having sex with anyone she could. Kelly is now a single mom living in a camper on the beach. Emmalee and I have reached out but she still wants nothing to do with us. I hate it because I once genuinely cared for her.
Watching her in high school taught me what I didn’t want to be like. I meant what I said that night and still do now. Even though I didn’t know his name, I still have no shame in hooking up with Colt. Does that make me a whore? Maybe in someone else’s eyes, but not mine. And I’m only concerned with what I can go to bed with on my shoulders at night. I don’t typically hookup, but there is something about him that I simply can’t deny.
Even now, I would have sex with him again.
Is it stupid?
Maybe.
But life is to be lived. Time is to be spent. Memories are to be made.
I also know how to separate sex and love. I know Colt doesn’t love me. There are no emotions between us but sex. Emmalee, I love her, but she falls hard and fast for men like Wesson who start out nice … and then they change. I’m always here to pick up the pieces, but I really hate to watch my friend hurt.
At least she’s trying to build something real with Wesson.
I’m the fool who had sex with his brother in a drunken moment of weakness, so who am I to judge or even try to downplay what she feels is a connection?
Colt.
There’s something about him that I can’t shake.
The moment he’s near, I begin to feel this fullness inside. It’s more than attraction and butterflies, but exactly what it is, I don’t know. He’s not the typical guy I date. He’s rough around the edges, to say the least.
I can’t explain it, but I look in his eyes and I get lost. After our unexpected meeting today, I have to admit he has me on edge. Even though I can’t figure out his motives, nor do I think I’m in danger at all, the way he wants to step in and look out for us has me wondering what he knows.
This day has been so much to process, starting with the morning revelation about my parents’ marital state. My dad isn’t home when I get in, but I seek out my mom because she’s the person I need to talk to.
She isn’t in her room, so I continue searching. Finally, I find her sitting on the back deck staring off into space. Our back porch is my mom’s favorite place to be. Normally, she can be found on the whicker couch reading a book or in one of the oversized rocking chairs she had custom made for our front porch. She swears everyone in North Carolina deserves to have a porch with a classic rocker for the evening time.
“Mom,” I greet, taking a seat in the rocking chair beside her.
“Diem,” she whispers my name and reaches over to squeeze my hand.
I sigh, not sure what to say, but decide I need to be honest. “Did you really cheat?” While I can’t say I’m overly close with my parents, we aren’t distant either. I have never lied to either of them, and frankly, I’m still surprised my mom would do anything behind my dad’s back.
Her head twists to me, and the shock is evident. “What?”
“Dad said my car was a message to him about your affair.”
She shakes her head but doesn’t release my hand. “Diem, no one cheats on your dad. No one crosses your dad. I don’t know what happened with your car or Emmalee’s. There are many things I can’t tell you, but I am not the one having an affair.”
Her words twist in my gut.
She sighs. “Diem, I don’t know what is going on. Your father and I have not been close in many years.”
This is not something new to me. I don’t reply. I don’t know what to say.
She looks at me, and I see tears filling her eyes. “Diem, you are the most beautiful young woman I have ever known. Inside and out, you are simply stunning. You have kindness, compassion, grace, and this ease about you. From even when you were just a little girl, my heart has belonged to you.”
“I love you, Mom.” The words leave my mouth in a whisper.
“Honey, no matter what, never settle. I know I’ve said it a thousand times. Especially, when you first started dating, but please, if you never remember one thing I’ve told you but this … be patient with yourself in finding love.”
I nod, not really wanting to let her words sink in.
“Diem, listen to your mom. Love comes in many forms. Not all love is beautiful either. Just because a man loves you doesn’t make the relationship right. People, in general, are selfish. It’s natural. But hear me, really take this to heart. A man who loves himself more than you will never be wholly yours. A man who asks more of you than you are willing to give is a man who will drain your spirit dry. A man who can’t see you as his partner will never treat you as his equal. Diem, don’t settle. Even if you are thirty or forty and still waiting, it will be better than giving your heart to the wrong man. Don’t lose yourself in love, my beautiful daughter.”
The somberness in her tone rips my heart out.
“Are you and dad getting a divorce?” I ask bluntly.
She shakes her head. “Your father will never allow that.”
“Are you happy?”
She turns and looks out to the backyard. “I never meant for anything to go this way.”
Her words are softly spoken but not lacking in pain. Before I can ask her to elaborate, the door beside us opens, and my father steps out.
If looks could kill … that statement has never been truer until this moment. The air between them is tense. The anger in my father’s gaze rages like I have never experienced before.
“Diem, it’s time for bed.”
I want to argue.
I’m a grown adult. He doesn’t get to order me to bed.
Except, I don’t.
Honestly, while my father is always a man in a suit who can be slightly intimidating, he’s never been rough with me. His tone rarely gets sharp, and the look on his face has never once been directed at me.
Therefore, I don’t argue that it’s only nine o’clock and not a practical time for any twenty-three-year-old to go to bed. Instead, I stand after giving my mother’s hand a squeeze and kiss her on the cheek.
As I pass my father, he reaches out and grabs my arm, stopping me. His eyes are like steel as he looks at me.
“Do not leave your bedroom tonight. No matter what you hear, you do not leave your room. Do you understand me?”
I swallow hard as his grip on me tightens painfully. Nodding, I don’t dare speak as he releases me, and I rush to my room.
In my entire life, I have never been afraid of my father until now.
What in the hell is going on?
The time passes. My room suddenly feels like a jail cell given my restriction to these four walls. With nothing on television and my mind racing too much to read, I finally force myself to sleep.
Only, I have a dream that takes me back to a time when I was little. Far too little to remember anything, but yet once again, I am in the same room as the dream I had the night before.
My bed feels too big, even though it normally feels small. Mom lays with me, rubbing my hair softly. The room around me is filled with colors, hot air balloons. Colorful hot air balloons paint the walls, and there are teddy bears of all shapes and sizes on the shelves and painted on the walls too.
“Momma, I hear something,” I whisper, turning to look at her.
Except the woman in bed with me, the one stroking my hair, isn’t my mother. She’s a beautiful woman with hair as dark as the midnight sky. Her brown eyes are golden globes.
“Shhh,” she consoles me, “sleep, my beautiful daughter. I promise to always watch over you. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
I toss and turn as I cling to the very words I dreamed from this same woman a night ago. I feel stuck in the dream.
“Diem Bella Reigns, you are my heart,” she whispers, and I ease back into slumber.
The sheets tighten around me as the dream shifts. I’m no longer in the dream, but rather, it’s like I’m watching a memory play out in my sleep.
“Diem, baby, wake up.” The woman shakes me gently. I’m three, maybe four years old. Like the other dreams, I’m in the bed surrounded by bears and balloons. “I need you to wake up, sunshine, so we can play a little game.”
“Momma,” I call out to her as I wake. There are strange noises and chaos somewhere else in the house. I can’t explain it, but the look on my mother’s face tells me something isn’t right. My chest tightens, and it’s hard to breathe as the fear climbs.
“Sweet girl, I need you to go to our spot. Listen to momma, you go and you shut the door. No matter what, you don’t open it until I come to get you.”
I struggle to sit up in the bed. I’m tired. I just want to sleep. She lifts me from the bed and places me gently on my feet. I hear noises. People are coming.
“Go, go,” she encourages, pushing me toward the small space. I rush to the little door built into the wall and climb inside my hideaway. I have a pillow, blankets, teddy bears, and books in here. Pulling on the string, the light illuminates the space, and I tuck my knees to my chest.
Fear.
This is real fear.
I try to listen to the noises outside, but being tucked away, I can’t figure out what is going on.
Helplessly, I sit in the cubby, hiding away from the world, wondering when my mom is coming to get me from here.
Jolting awake, I’m no longer a little girl in a hidden nook of a wall, but in my room decorated in muted grays and soft lavender shades without a single teddy bear in sight.
I look at the clock to see it’s only three in the morning. What is wrong with me that I keep having these strange dreams?
At first, I consider going downstairs for something to drink, but my dad’s instructions replay in my mind, keeping me in my room.
I wonder if my parents are going to be okay. Will their marriage survive? More than anything, I want to know what is really going on.