Petty Rage by Thandiwe Mpofu

Chapter 8

KIM

Past

ME: Are you out of your fucking mind? Student Body President?

Jerk: Badass isn’t it?

ME: Can you not read my anger through these fucking texts or are you choosing to be dense?

Jerk: I’ll take option ‘YOU’RE GOING TO DO IT’ for $500 please, Alex

ME: NOAH! This isn’t a joke. You put me up against that two-faced, conniving bitch.

Jerk: You can take her.

ME: Noah...

Jerk: Kim Possible…

ME: You don’t understand. That bitch… she’s vicious.

Jerk: What am I missing here? You stand up against King for Baby Blue. You always have a knife strapped to your ankle. You have one hell of a right hook and you’re ride or die! Am I wrong?

ME: We agreed not to talk about my right hook after I punched that guy the other night. How do you know about the knife?

Jerk: I see things. But now I’m wondering, what happened in your life for you to carry a knife on you all the time?

ME: Maybe I love knives.

Jerk: Why? Remember, we don’t fucking lie to each other.

Jerk: I’m losing my mind. Answer me or I’ll be right there in three fucking minutes.

ME: Don’t.

JERK: I’m outside. Come to me.

Present

Iroll over in my bed with a low groan.

I’m deliciously sore all over, which sucks because I can’t enjoy the feeling. Not after what happened soon after he gave me four orgasms that blew my mind, and now hours later, I desperately need to pull myself together.

We just had to be brutally honest.

“Oh God,” I whisper, images of the night—or early morning depending on how you’d like to time my stupidity—flash in my head. But unlike when you’re hungover from a pretty crazy party, this time the playback is excruciatingly slow, every image so vivid and so freaking clear making me feel the one thing I’ve never really felt with Noah.

Regret.

I’ve never regretted anything I’ve done with Noah until now.

Maybe we went too fast. Maybe we did things at a pace normal people wouldn’t find acceptable. The truth is, I’ve never been able to resist him and that’s always been a red flag.

And now, we say things to each other, do things that should, for all intents and purposes, draw the line, but not for us.

After the fireworks of last night—the part where I lost my job because of him and then took a bat to his favorite ride—we still fucked like we had a forever of some sorts with each other.

Last night, I swear he had me right where he wanted me.

The heated whispers in my ear, the way he looked at me as he fucked me in the back of that car, giving me power but still fully in control, it messed with my head.

For a moment I thought there might be more, that we were going to move past everything that happened in the past but fuck, the asshole made me lose my fucking job! What the hell was I expecting? A fucking forgiveness ceremony? That’s not Noah’s style.

And then there was that little piercing surprise.

Fuck. Me.

Noah Montreal is a sex machine. The guy knows how to fuck but that second time he came, the way his animalistic instincts kicked in, it made me lose my fucking mind; but no, that was his fucking cowardly exit stage left!

Asshole.

I kick my sheets away, knowing I have a million and one things to do today than dwell all my energy on that entitled jerk.

Thank God it’s over!

My sisters will be home in the afternoon, and they’ll be expecting a little something for the birthday girl.

Quickly, I grab a fresh set of clothes and make my way to the small bathroom we have in our apartment and shower. I keep the pocketknife close at hand, a habit that will never go away no matter where I go or how many locks the bathroom door might have.

I’m always on high alert, a little paranoid, but no matter what I do, I can’t seem to let my guard down. Especially when I’m a bit vulnerable like being in the shower.

But after a few minutes of listening attentively, the heat and steam of the water finally catch up to my racing heart.

I allow myself to feel the rush of hot water on my skin and examine last night’s trouble. Just as I suspected, Noah’s grip on my hips did leave some pretty little bruises.

I know I should hate it. A better girl with sensible morals would definitely hate it and curse his name to hell and back, but I’m just not that girl.

On Hell Day, there were no holds barred between Noah and me. He wasn’t particularly gentle as evidenced by the bite of pain that came with the way he drove into me even when I thought I was in charge.

I run my fingers over the bruises, images of the way he gripped my hair in his fists, pulled my head back and the way I rode him awakening something twisted in me…

Jesus Christ.

I shut it down immediately.

What Noah said last night fucked me up in the worst possible of ways. Not because he wanted us to stop a spontaneous twisted tradition we started years ago—I was okay with that. I needed to purge him out of my system after all— it’s the way he just dismissed my feelings after he had raised my hope that did it.

When I dropped off Emmett’s car, I had to go through the trouble of calling Astraea just to get his number—the god and his asshole best friend’s presence in a highly protected high-rise apartment building in the city was a secret apparently—and I know she’s expecting me to call her back with an explanation.

I finish my shower, brush my teeth, then wrap my now bob length hair in a towel for it to dry. It’s been over seven and a half months since I got high and set my own hair on fire.

In a way it was an accident due to my…clouded mind, but I knew better.

My hair has always been an issue for me. And even during that Christmas getaway with the gang, it was still dyed black just so I could hide my natural blonde locks.

Now here I am, not knowing what to do.

I look like I have an identity crisis and I’m tearing apart in the worst way possible.

Glancing at the time, I quickly dress, then clean up after myself in the bathroom then head for my room. Quickly making the narrow, uncomfortable bed, I pick up the clothes I was wearing last night to put them in the hamper only to pause when I see Noah’s shirt.

Seeing the shirt tightens my throat for a split second.

See, the thing is, I wanted him.

I wanted Noah so bad, but I messed up. I wasn’t on the inside with him anymore.

But then again, maybe that’s a good thing. After all, he’s no good for me.

He was trouble and I… I know all about trouble.

It has a way of finding me when I least expect it, so I didn’t need his two cents about it. And yet still, just seeing his shirt makes me pause.

Honestly, I could screw up my life on my own. I didn’t need any help.

I know I should toss the shirt out with yesterday’s trash, but instead, I find myself folding it neatly and then placing it in the bag.

The bag that’s always packed with everything I might need if push comes to shove. My emergency cash. An extra bag of toiletries. Clothes. Shoes and everything one might need when one is displaced without a moment’s notice.

As I make to close the big compartment, I notice the inner hidden pocket is… wide open.

“No, no, no.”

I open the zipper some more and dig into the secret compartment, but I know before my fingers grasp at nothing but air.

The money I had put in there… is all gone.

Stunned, I fall onto my knees, staring in horror at the empty pocket. I had over three thousand dollars that I saved from months of working and then hid it in here and now, it’s all gone.

“That bitch.”

I quickly get up, my body temperature rising with each elevated beat of my heart. I’m out of my room in a second and down the hall in the next.

I kick down the door, ready to scream the house down only to come to a dead stop when I see what’s in front of me.

“Oh God,” I gasp.

There are at least four men all passed out, naked and disgusting on the floor. It’s a tangle of limbs, flesh and the most appalling shit I’ve ever seen in my life.

Dread sinks into the pit of my stomach as I take a good look at this disgusting shitshow in front of me.

Driven purely by inexplicable instinct, I take my phone out and start snapping pictures of each tangled body on the floor.

I hold my breath at the stink in the room as I move, taking pictures of the men’s faces. When I get to the last one, I notice he has some sort of discernible tattoo on his chest but as I go to take a picture of it, I look up and straight into my mother’s hollow, almost dead eyes.

She’s in the middle of this fucked up circus all naked, and fully awake.

And she’s high as fuck.

“What did you do?” I seethe, trembling with rage as I look at her. Even with hollowed in eyes, a sickly, skinny frame, unhealthy hair and chapped lips, my mother was still somewhat beautiful. And I still see myself in her.

I step back, tucking my phone back in my pocket. I hope she didn’t see. But judging by her state of mind, I might be safe.

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” Luci snaps back, her words slurred, slow and venomous. “You’re a good for nothing piece of shit who ruined my life.”

I close my eyes, trying to regulate my breathing.

This isn’t the first time she’s said that about me, but I still don’t know why each time she says it… I feel like something in me rips apart. Why?

“You stole the money.”

“Watch your tone!” she waves a shaky, flaky finger at me.

“Where is the money you stole?” I demand, the hairs at the back of my neck standing up on end. I don’t even know why I’m asking when the answer is obviously right in front of me.

“I didn’t steal anything, you brat! Everything in this house is mine.”

She could’ve sucker punched me like she did when I was four, but I wouldn’t feel the pain like I’m feeling now.

“You stole that money and you went out to get high with these losers only to come back here and have a fucking SEX ORGY!” I shout. “There are little children that live in this house!”

My sisters like to wonder around the house, playing pirates, discovering the lay of the land. They could’ve come in here and seen this… Jesus.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do!”

I know shouting at a junkie is counterproductive. She won’t hear me and honestly, she’s never heard me even when she was sober.

“No, but you don’t get to do what the fuck you want! You’re going to give me that money back!”

“Give you the money back?” she scoffs, slowly getting up. She’s unsteady on her feet, woozy, and her eyes are fully dilated. “You think you’re better than me?”

“That’s not what—”

“Do you think you’re prettier than me?” she starts shouting, walking over to me. “Do you think you’re beautiful, you little slut?”

Something in me catches as I watch her. I swear my lips start trembling…in fear but I hold my ground.

“Tell me!” she shouts in my face. “Talk back, since you think you’re better than me.”

“I—”

I don’t even see the slap coming until it’s too late.

The pain starts off as a pinprick then it morphs into a throbbing annoyance. I guess that’s what happens when you’re slapped by a skinny palm. All you feel is the brittle hardness of her deteriorating bones.

“Oh my gosh,” she gasps, widening her eyes as if in horror but I can see the coldness in her gaze. “Oh God, what did I do?”

This also, is not new.

She says words that destroy another part of me. Then she slaps me across the face… then she pretends like she has no idea what she just did or why she did it.

So, I shift my weight, reign every fucking useless emotion in and ask her the one question I want an answer to.

“Where. Is. The. Money?” I bite out each word slowly, feeling the heaviness in me get even worse.

Luci looks away as she steps back. Then she looks around her room as if she has no idea what just happened.

“Listen, honey, I…”

“Where is the money you stole from me?” I demand again.

“I’m trying to explain. I didn’t…”

“I’m going to ask you one more fucking time or so help me God I’m going to beat you up and toss you out,” I whisper, stepping closer to her. I’ve never fought her back, not even when she hit me or when she made me leave. But today, it’s just too much.

Noah.

Hell Day.

The money.

Laura’s birthday.

The horrors and trauma.

“Kim, sweetie, I didn’t mean to, it’s just, you don’t understand!” she screams. “I needed…”

A fix.

“It was just for this…”

One time.

“I’ll…”

Pay you back.

“I…”

Promise.

I stare at her, but all I can see is how far gone she is. She’s just a shell of who she used to be and all because of a man.

Is this how I am as well? All bent out of shape because of Noah?

Will I also be high, strung out of my fucking mind, trying to deal with a heart that was broken by a man that was never good for me in the first place? A man who was dangerous and …

Noah isn’t Larry.

But Noah sees Larry when he looks at me.

“Now you listen to me,” I seethe. “I know these little orgy partners of yours are criminals, felons and fucking dealers. And what you’re going to do is, you’re going to get all that money that you gave them back! Do you hear me?”

She nods mutely.

“Every fucking penny, you’re going to give me back by the time I return, do you understand me?”

She nods again.

“Or all of you can kiss breathing free air goodbye.”

“Well, unfortunately, sweetheart, that’s not going to happen,” a new groggy, shiver inducing voice says.

Two things happen as soon as I hear that voice.

First, a nasty chill races down my spine, and then second, I realize that another familiar feeling that I’m supposed to have when danger arises is absent.

I forgot to grab my knife and without it, I feel… unsafe. But it will be a fucking frozen day in hell if I ever show anyone on this world that I’m scared.

I turn to look at the man with the tattoo on his chest. He sits up slowly, his fat belly hanging out.

“Oh good, you’re awake. Now get up and get your shit and get the hell out,” I snap.

“Is that how you speak to your elders, girlie?” he leers. “Who is this, Luci?”

“She’s—”

“No one!” I snap, my mind racing as I stare at my mother, my heart clenching painfully in my chest.

“Excuse me?”

I’m about to say something else but I hear the sound of a car horn outside. I know it’s not for this house, but the sound reminds me of the most important thing.

My sisters.

I look around the room, trying not to be so panicked, but I can feel the man’s gaze on me. There’s something about him. He doesn’t look like any of Luci’s regulars. He seems a bit rougher, more dangerous and I know I should proceed with caution.

“Who’s that?” Luci demands, walking over to the window but I know she won’t see anything. When we moved out here, I made sure that she got the room at the very back of the house. It just so happens to be at the back where her only companions are the trashcans that are out there.

“It’s my ride,” I lie.

“Going somewhere, sweetheart?” the man asks, standing up now, putting all his junk out on display. Bile rises up my throat as whispers of the past start in my head.

When I was younger, men would shake me awake and when I opened my eyes, they stood over me, buck-ass naked, with a foul smell reeking from them, waiting for me to be just like my mother and service them.

The car horn blows again.

I snap out of it. The man is still watching me. The rest are still passed out on the floor and my mother is struggling to stand up straight.

I’m pretty sure he’s the fucker with my money but I can’t ask him, not with the gun that’s lying right next to him on the floor.

Shit.

If I stay in here a second longer, I’m pretty sure something bad will happen and I can’t have that.

I can’t have the girls come back to this and see these men and their mother so out of it and abusive.

There’s no fucking way I’m going to stand here and let that happen.

“Or do you want to stay and join the party?” the man jeers. “Because the money that bitch gave me, she owed me.”

Shit, fuck! I thought she had gone out to look for these junkies but instead, she owed them? Then she was high this entire time while I was out working two jobs and feeling useless.

“Hmm, I don’t think so,” I say with my best fuck you smile. “But you better be gone when I’m back.”

I set that as bait, trying to see what he says. I’m trying to see what kind of douchebag he is and true to gang shit, he bites.

“Are you going to make me?” he sneers, giving me my answer. I guess he won’t be leaving anytime soon. Which means I have to do what I always do. Remove my sisters from the potential of any and all kinds of danger.

This bastard will not lay an eye on my sisters. Not after how they were kidnapped as bait a few years ago.

“I have to go,” I say, then look at my mother. A few months ago, after she did something like this, we had a very blunt, very short conversation and now as I look at her, she might’ve forgotten but I meant every word I said. “Luci.”

She looks at me. To be honest, I have no idea what she sees on my face or what happens in that moment, but she starts shaking her head, tears welling in her eyes that are eerily similar to mine.

“No, sweetheart, I—” she croaks, but I cut her off.

“We made a deal.” My voice is cold, emotionless, the complete opposite of the clawing pain in my chest as I look at my mother for what might be the last time.

“No, it was a mistake!” she cries, wobbling over to me.

“We made a deal and now I see you made your decision.”

The deal was simple.

If my mother ever repeated her drug binge, if she ever disappeared, if she so much as brings strange men into this house, then we were going to leave her behind.

It would be the last time she’ll ever see me or my sisters.

As it stands, she’s a danger to the girls but I have to admit, for a minute there I thought she was going to choose her children over sex, over drugs, and over Larry, but I see now that she can’t change.

Maybe I’m being unfair.

Maybe I’m being a bitch for not understanding how being an addict is a disease, but I’ve since learned that you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. Luci doesn’t want to change. She’ll always be the same and there’s no way I’ll allow this woman to keep breaking my sisters’ hearts.

I expect her to beg some more, but she doesn’t. Instead, in that moment, it feels like I have my mother back, that she’s present with me and she can comprehend what’s happening.

“Take care,” she whispers brokenly as a tear rolls down her hollow cheek.

Those two words knock the breath out of my lungs.

Everything in me tightens but all I can do is nod.

I take her in for as long as I can. Her beautiful face, sullen by an illness she never wanted to fight. Her eyes, so heavy and lifeless with longing for a man who hurt her, used her, and in turn did the same to me.

I’ve been with my mother almost all my life but now…

I turn on my heel to leave.

“We’ll be seeing each other soon, sweetheart!” the man calls out, but I don’t stop moving.

Instead, I back out of the room and run straight for my room, the one I’ve been living in since moving to Westbrook Blues with my one assignment—follow Astraea and her Boys then report back.

I’ve lived life on the run for a while, so I don’t hesitate as I start packing with quick, efficient movements, making no noise at all.

I grab the to-go bag that I always keep at the back of my closet. I thought it was well hidden but unfortunately not, since Luci stole the money.

But I don’t have time to dwell on that.

I grab the bag that has everything important of mine and my sisters, all our documents, including our passports, the various medicines that my sisters need and all the portable equipment that one of them needs to stay alive.

I grab it all and stuff it in the big bag then zip it closed.

I go straight for the girls’ room and grab some of their clothes, not all, then run back to my room to stuff it in the other bag.

Maybe I’m being irrational. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I can sense trouble in the air.

I saw the way that man was looking at me. I saw the gun on the floor.

We have to go.

Thank God I always keep these packed.

I chuck the bags through the window, then I crumple the place just a bit to make it seem like I’ll be back, but the truth is, I have no idea.

I head out, acting as normal as I can without raising suspicion. For all I know, someone is watching.

As soon as I’m out the door, I dial Ivy’s number.

“Hey bitch! I’m getting stuff ready for baby Laura’s party. I’ll be right there.”

“Change of plans, Ivy.”

I can almost feel her snap to attention.

“What do you need?”

“Can you do the party at your place? Would Marie mind?”

“Not at all. What else?”

“What?”

“You sound out of breath and your voice is strained. What else do you need?”

“I just… her friends… we can’t…”

“I’ll cover that.”

“I don’t have an excuse.”

“Kimberly, listen to me. Everything’s going to be just fine. All you need to do is be here.”

“Nothing will keep me,” I vow. “Is your brother home?”

“No, but let me text you his number.”

“Thanks bitch! You just saved my day.”

“I got you, bitch!”

We hang up. Ivy is one of the most unexpected gifts this life has given. She’s always there. Reads people like she’s reading one of her thousand books per week. She’s incredibly smart, graceful, elegant; but I knew there was a bad bitch just underneath that sweet exterior.

I’ve seen the girl knock a douchebag out and pretend like nothing happened.

I get to the car, open the trunk and stuff the bags in.

But I know one thing, any one of the goons in Luci’s room might’ve seen this car, which means I need to get rid of it.

All those years being trained to be a killer kick in.

Getting in the car, I peel out of there like I’m being chased by Formula 1 cars. I can’t help how sweaty my palms are or the way my heart is racing.

As I drive, I dial Spider’s number.

“Yo!”

“Spider. I need your help.”

“Anything.”

I tell him everything. The men in my mother’s room. The tattoo I saw on that douchebag’s chest and what he said about the money.

“Did you I.D them?”

“I have pictures,” I say in a rush.

“Send them to me. Do you have a picture of the tattoo on the guy you were talking about?”

“No. Spider, he might be…”

“One of Larry’s guys? I don’t think so.”

“You should’ve seen the way he looked at me. He even had a gun!”

“Where are the girls?”

“At a friend’s home. I’m going to pick them up and head to your sister’s.”

“Good, but, Kim…” his voice trails off, but I already know what he’s going to say. “You can’t go back there.”

“I know, but my mother…”

“I’ll send some people over but, Kim, you can’t save everyone.”

I know that should be a huge weight off my shoulders. Luci is nothing but a burden to me. She’s never fought for me. She’s never been a mother.

“But…”

“For the sake of your sisters, you can’t go back there. I’ll deal with it.”

“Spider, she’s my mother.”

“Yeah well, Ivy and I had a mother once upon a time. Guess what happened to her?”

Silence stretches between us. I’ve heard bits and pieces about Ivy and Spider’s mother who abandoned them in the dead of winter. Just another fucked up thing we all have in common.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“You know what to do. First step is?”

“Relocation.”

“Do you have a place?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

How, when Luci took the money I had saved up? Living in Westbrook Blues is not cheap.

“You can’t leave this town.”

“Wait, what?”

“Kimberly, your life is under threat, but this is the town you’ll be safest in.”

“Why? Because of the fucking Phoenix Corp?”

“Precisely, but also because this is the last place they’d think to look for you.”

“Spider! They just found me! What would’ve happened if my sisters were there?”

“No, we don’t know that for sure. For all we know, they might be random dealers without any ties to Larry.”

“We don’t know that!”

“Hey, calm down,” Spider says soothingly. “We’ll figure everything out. Just take the girls to Gran’s place and I’ll meet you there later.”

That’s the thing though. I’m not comfortable crashing on other people’s sofas.

All I remember are the times when my so-called friends agreed to let me couch surf, only to overhear them planning to do something to me that would embarrass me for the rest of my life.

So, I picked my already packed bag and looked for habitable abandoned cars, trucks, under bridges, anything that I could sleep in.

I’d wake up really early to use the showers at school to clean up and wash my clothes and face every single day then go on pretending like nothing ever happened.

“I don’t think that will work.”

“Kim.”

“No, Spider, my sisters are MY responsibility. They are my entire life now and I need to find them a place to stay. A place they can feel comfortable and free in.”

“You can’t leave.”

“I heard you! So where can I go?”

“Okay, I know of a place. A little two bedroomed apartment.”

“I’ll take it.”

“It’ll cost you a pretty penny.”

Fuck. I’m three thousand short and I don’t have a job anymore.

“I can cover that.”

I hear him blow a breath through the line.

“Listen, Kim, you have friends. I’m sure if you…”

“No!” I snap. “I’m not asking anyone for a damn thing. This is not their problem, this is mine!”

“It’s not weak asking for help.”

“I never said it was weak, I said I can cover the rent.”

“Okay, okay,” he concedes reluctantly. “I’ll see you later then.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in New York.”

“You’re in New York? Please don’t tell Astraea or King anything.”

“I won’t, but I have to go. Calm down and don’t, for the love of God, don’t take a tire iron to anyone’s kneecaps.”

With that, he hangs up.