Page 61 of Knuckles

Knuckles – Four Days Later

I chew the inside of my cheek as I stare at the gravesite and men cover the large hole with dirt. My arm tightly around my girl's waist, who I know is blaming herself for this, and is struggling with guilt she shouldn’t be feeling.

The first night, the night it all happened, she tried to sleep in the guest room, which only lasted for about five minutes before I carried her to our bed. She complained about my wound, but to be fair, if she’d just gone to our bed, then I wouldn’t have strained myself.

She shouldn’t blame herself for the choices Masters made. She never gave him any indication that she wanted him. He listened to a concerned and fearful father, then went off the rails, plain and fucking simple.

My mother's death is not on her head.

I swallow hard as a few drops of rain hit my head.

Fitting, I guess, huh? For it to rain at a funeral, one I didn’t know whether to even do to begin with.

Years of abuse, of hurt, neglect, it’s so fucking hard to let go of, the resentment, the anger, the pain. She came to apologize, to beg for a relationship, but unfortunately, she was twenty years too late. I know that makes me sound like a prick, especially considering I’m now burying her, and I should forgive her so she’s at peace, but how do you forgive over fifty scars on your body?

It's hard because I didn’t believe her when she came to see me. I could see some truth in her words, but the trust wasn’t there, and I didn’t believe her. Now she’s dead, so I’ll never know if she truly wanted a chance, or if she was after money.

Kodi grips my cut as she lays her head against my chest and squeezes my arm tighter around her, keeping her close.

“I told you to stop fucking crying!” Mama shouts as she whips my back with the belt for the fifth time, and I scream, then flinch at the feel of the stinging. The urge to vomit is high, but I try to swallow it down, I try to bite my lip to stop crying, otherwise she’ll put me in the closet, and I don’t like the closet…

I didn’t mean to interrupt her day, and I didn’t mean to trap my hand in the door at school. I told them not to call her, I told them she’d be mad, but they didn’t listen, they never listen.

I feel Kodi gently cup my jaw before I feel her thumb moving over my cheek, wiping away the lone tear, and I lean into her touch as the memories swim, the pain.

“What did you do now?!” Mama demands as she storms into Principal Fawn's room, and I sit stoically, refusing to answer her. It doesn’t matter that she fucked one of the boy's fathers, then sucked said boy off, it doesn’t matter that said boy is showing everyone the video of her on her knees.

I’m a nuisance for her and for my father. They won’t care why I did what I did, they won’t care that I smashed any evidence of Mom basically doing sexual acts with a minor, she’s a club bunny, end of, but I don’t see it that way.

She’s my fucking mother and doesn’t even understand how it makes me feel when kids who are sixteen, my age, gloat about stuff that can get her arrested for statutory rape!

Mama glares harder at me, but I look away, still refusing to answer her, but it doesn’t stop my stuck-up principal from opening his fat mouth, though, does it?

“He attacked and knocked out two peers, and I understand what the club does for us, but we cannot and will not tolerate this kind of behavior!” he snaps, and Mama looks at me with such anger. I know I’m getting the belt and the closet tonight because it doesn’t matter how many times she hits me, I won’t hit back.

I blink as a figure stands next to me, a heavy arm going over my shoulders.

“I resent her,” I admit quietly as the men leave now that their job is done, and my brothers stay at my back, waiting until I’m ready to leave.

Dad tightens his hold over my shoulders, and I choke, “She came to see me to apologize. It took the club kicking her out for her to apparently see the error of her ways, and the one time she decides to finally be my mother, she gets herself killed. Years of abuse, years of being hurt and shoved in a closet no bigger than a fucking cabinet when I made a noise, years of kids in my class showing me proof that she had sex with them, years of the brothers fucking her in front of me… and the one time she sticks up for me, to protect me like she should have done from the day I was born, she’s killed,” a few tears fall as I drop my head and choke, “I shouldn’t even mourn her.”

“She was still your mom, son,” Dad rasps, and I nod as I tense my jaw to try and control my emotions.

“You’re allowed to mourn, brother,” Crusher says, and I shake my head and croak, “Even though she hit me? Locked me up for days on end?”

“Even then, because over the years, despite the abuse, she still had her moments when she was a mother,” Cage continues, and I swallow hard.

“You bought the gym?” Mom asks as she walks over me, and I tense from where I’m leaning on the bar but nod once in confirmation. Her eyes light up, and I prepare myself for her to demand a cut, to demand payment, but instead she shocks me.

“Oh, sweetheart, that is amazing news, well done,” she whispers, and for once, instead of seeing disdain, she’s actually looking at me with pride as she squeezes my arm.

Damn, I never realized how much I wanted to see that look, but as quick as it was there, it soon diminishes when a brother calls for her to their room, and she’s reminded that I didn’t get her that patch.

I pull Kodi into my side tighter and press a kiss to her head, needing to feel her, and she tightens her grip on my cut, knowing not to pull away, knowing I need her while my dad squeezes my shoulders tighter.

“How about a midnight feast?” Mom asks in a whisper, and I look up at her, wipe my tears, and nod, and she smiles slightly.

I woke up from a nightmare that someone had taken her from me, and it felt so real.