Finding London (Flawed Heart #1) (4 page)

Loïc

Age Ten

New Hope, Mississippi

“In the stories, the bars would keep the bad guys in, but I’m praying they’ll protect me, keeping the most evil man out.”

—Loïc Berkeley

I spy with my little eye peeling flooring, dust bunnies, and a crack running up the cupboard—three things that don’t matter, yet they calm my racing heart. The circumstances I’m in aren’t the best. Actually, I can’t think of much worse. But I know I have to continue to fight until they come.

They will come.

That’s what I’ve been telling myself for 1,029 days. I’ve been here in this evil place for almost three years. I’ve been trying very hard to be patient, to wait…but it’s difficult, and every day is so scary.

They will be here soon.

Until then, I play my game. I’m not sure why it helps, but it does. It reminds me of Daddy, which gives me strength. But it’s more than that. I guess it forces me to focus on something that won’t hurt me. There is so little that I have control over in my life, and so much of that unknown is painful.

I can’t do anything about the crack running up the fake wooden cupboard door, but staring at it takes my attention away from the other things in the room that will hurt me. The dust bunnies—although, I suppose, if I inhaled them, they could present a problem—are safe. But the man standing in the dirty work boots next to the piles of dust and hair is anything but.

The kitchen, under the metal card table, is where I’ve chosen to hide. I close my eyes and imagine myself shaking my head.
Not the best choice.
I don’t dare actually move though. I’m too afraid.

In all of his rage, he hasn’t seen me yet, and if I get really lucky, he won’t.

Please don’t let him see me,
over and over in my head, I pray…to whom I don’t know.

I cautiously open my lids and see his worn leather boots. Once brown, they’re now so caked with mud and dirt that they look a sad gray. He’s facing away from the table. I listen to the familiar sounds of cupboards creaking open and being slammed shut. I hear the
glug-glug
of liquid falling into a glass. He gulps it down his throat, sighs, and pours another. He’s swearing, ranting, and raving about something I don’t understand. He’s real mad tonight.

I shrink my shoulders down and pull my legs even tighter against my body. The smaller my presence, the less likely he is to see me. I’d disappear if I could.
I wish I could.

As always, I continue to take stock of my surroundings. The rusted folding metal chairs that circle the table block me in. They remind me of what jail bars from long ago might have looked like in all the stories that Dad used to read to me of cowboys, Indians, pirates, and explorers. I loved the voices Dad would make when he told the stories. I especially loved the bad-guy voices he would use. He did the best at those. Lots of times, the mean men would end up behind bars, kind of like these rusted chair legs. In the stories, the bars would keep the bad guys in, but I’m praying they’ll protect me, keeping the most evil man out.

There are flakes of green left on the chair legs, too. I guess they used to be green…at some point. It’s hard to picture anything new and shiny in this house. Everything within these walls appears to be so old, so miserable.

I start counting all the tiles that I can see on the floor. I believe each square used to have a flower pattern, but those designs have all worn off. The flooring is like a big plastic piece of paper that was rolled across the kitchen. It’s peeling back, curving up where it meets the walls. I could be imagining it, but I think it curls up a little more every day. Perhaps, one day, it will be lying in the center of the room, all rolled up, like a big treasure map. But there’s no treasure here. There’s nothing good at all.

In the corner of the room is one of Stacey’s hair ties. I’ve never seen her wear her hair down. It’s always wrapped up in a tie. Though I rarely see her. She’s sad. I’m not sure why, but I know she is. Maybe it’s this house? It’s probably Dwight. He isn’t nice to her either, and she’s his wife. She stays in her room all the time, like she’s hiding away.

I wish I could hide in my room, but he always finds me there, especially when he’s mad. I have a better chance of avoiding him if I stay out of his sight. He’s too lazy to actually look for me, but I’m sure he knows I’m here somewhere. But if I’m not in my room and he doesn’t stumble across me in his rage, he usually just heads to his bedroom. I hope he doesn’t hurt Stacey. He yells at her a lot, but I think he only hits me.

Dwight is looking in the refrigerator now. He’s yelling about the lack of food. He’s always screaming about something. I can see the side of the refrigerator, and I take note of all the hair balls wedged between the floor and the white appliance.

I memorize every little detail of my surroundings, and in this place where it is hard to find anything to be thankful for, I’m grateful that it’s such a mess. There is so much here to see, so much to pull my attention away from the what-ifs, which are the scariest thoughts of all. In the time that I’ve been with Dwight and Stacey, this depressing I Spy game that I play with myself has proven to calm my fears the most.

I usually think about Mom and Dad, too. But dwelling on them makes me so sad. My chest has hurt since the day they died, and it seems to hurt more when I remember them. Some days though, the only thing that keeps me going is the memory of them. Although the memories hurt, they remind me that there is good and love in this world. It gives me hope that, if I’m strong enough, then Nan and Granddad will come, and they’ll take me to London where I’ll be happy.

I just have to wait a little longer. I just have to be brave.

Loïc

“I hate the fact that I’m in this dark bar with endless things to look at, yet all I see is her.”

—Loïc Berkeley

“Enough, dude. The truck will still be there on Monday. Let’s go.” Cooper’s voice cuts into my thoughts.

I had a dream about Dwight last night. I haven’t thought about him for a while. But, like all my nightmares, they don’t stay hidden forever. When I least expect it, they throw their ugly heads into my life in a way I can’t ignore, and more often than not, it happens when I’m sleeping.

I slide out from under the Humvee that I’ve been working on. “Yeah, okay. I’ll finish later.” A change of scenery is welcome at this point.

“Good ’cause I promised Maggie we would go out with her tonight. She’s been looking forward to it all week.”

He casually snuck that in, but I know he conveniently waited until the last minute to tell me of our plans.

“Seriously, Coops?” I eye my best friend, David Cooper—aka Cooper, Coops, or at the present time, Dumb-Ass. “I’m really not in the mood to go out tonight.”

“When are you? If we based our decisions on when you were in the mood to go out, we’d be hermits.” Cooper shakes his head and hits me on the back as I pass. “You’ll have fun. You always do.”

I quirk my eyebrow up, looking over to him with a scowl. “I do?”

He laughs. “Yeah, of course, man. You just don’t realize it.”

Cooper is the only person in the world whose shit I’d put up with. He’s more like a brother than just a friend. He’s family—my only family.

I joined the Army on my eighteenth birthday and met Cooper during basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Our cots were right next to each other. I’ll never forget Cooper’s incessant talking. He yammered on about this or that at any chance he got. I completely ignored him for the first week.

I remember wondering,
Who does this kid think he is? And, for God’s sake, can’t he take a hint? Who holds a one-sided conversation for an entire week?

David Cooper, the skinny kid from the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan—that’s who.

I was a loner, had been for a long time. I didn’t want or need relationships, but Cooper changed that. I found myself looking forward to our chats even if my responses were only in my head. Then, one night, I answered him out loud. Cooper didn’t even miss a beat. He just kept the conversation going, as if I had always participated. And, since that night, I have—for the most part.

After basic training, we followed the same path, going to Fort Knox for AIT—Advanced Individual Training—then Fort Sill, and finally Iraq. After six years of active duty in the Army, we got jobs in a Special Forces unit with the National Guard in Ypsilanti, the city directly east of Ann Arbor. We have drill once a month and a two-week-long annual training, but other than that, we’re stationed here in Ypsilanti. Our unit is up for deployment at the end of the year, so we’ll be going somewhere else soon—at least for a little while.

Cooper convinced me that settling here, with this unit, was the route to go. I now know that, on one of his leaves home, he hooked up with his high school crush, Maggie, and fell hard. So, now, the three of us are playing house in the modest home we rent in Ypsilanti. I tried to move out into my own place, but Cooper insisted that I stay. I will for a bit, but once he proposes marriage and babies come, I’m out.

When we get home, Maggie is blaring music and dancing in the kitchen, putting away the dishes. Her face lights up when she sees us. “My boys!” she yells over the racket.

Cooper pulls her into an embrace, locking his lips with hers. I turn my attention to the stack of mail on the table and try to block out the smacking noises.

“Loïc,” Maggie squeals my name. “Thanks for going out with us tonight.” She hugs me from behind.

I tap my hand against hers that are splayed across my stomach. “You’re welcome, Mags.”

She lets go.

“I’m gonna go shower,” I say.

I suppose, as far as female roommates go, Maggie is the best I could hope for. Cooper’s a lucky man. Maggie’s awesome. And I lied when I said that Cooper was my only family because Maggie is, too.

After my shower, I throw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and then I make my way toward the laughter in the living room. Cooper is sitting on the couch, freshly showered and ready to go. He and Maggie are cracking up over something.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, Berkeley, man…we were just talking about you.” Cooper calls me by my last name as well.

“Oh, yeah? What about?”

Maggie chimes in, “Remember that time we went out and that stage-five clinger would not leave you alone?”

“The redhead?”

“Yep,” Cooper confirms. “The one who was as hot as she was crazy.”

“Hey.” Maggie hits him in the stomach with a disapproving look.

“Babe, you know she was hot but not as gorgeous as you. No one is.” He smiles sweetly at her before kissing her on her temple.

“Aw, thanks, baby,” Maggie addresses Cooper before turning her attention to me. “Remember how she wouldn’t leave you alone, no matter what we did?”

I roll my eyes. “How could I forget?”

I think back to the night that I just wanted to spend with Cooper and Maggie, and this chick wouldn’t leave. She was so brazen, too. At one point, underneath the table, she grabbed my dick outside of my jeans.

I shake my head and chuckle. “Oh, the beer.”

“I know! That’s what we were just talking about!” Maggie laughs.

Cooper
accidentally
spilled his beer on this chick’s shirt because he was so sick of her hanging around our table. Yet, instead of leaving, she simply took off her tank top, leaving her upper half in only her lacy red bra. She claimed that the bra could double as a shirt.

“After all, girls wear tube tops all the time,” was her reasoning.

“You’re like a magnet for crazy chicks,” Cooper states with a chuckle.

“It’s because he’s so damn hot,” Maggie says.

Cooper whips his head to the side and gives her an accusatory stare.

“Not hotter than you, baby, but the girls know you’re taken.”

“Damn straight,” Cooper answers.

Maggie has a point in that clingy girls tend to find me and have a difficult time in letting go of me. I’m not a prude when it comes to hook-ups. Depending on my mood, I’m game for a night with a hottie in my bed, just as any other twenty-five-year-old guy would be. But, when a girl has a certain look in her eyes, I stay away at all costs. When her eyes are screaming
more
, I run.

I don’t do relationships. I never have, and I’m not sure I ever will. It’s just not me. I know what it feels like to be heartbroken, and I don’t want to make someone else feel that way. So, if I get the vibe that the girl is looking for more than just a night, I steer clear.

The three of us hang out, chatting and laughing at one story after the next, while Cooper and Maggie have a few beers. I’m always the DD, and that works for me since I don’t drink. I have no judgments toward people who do, but I decided a long time ago that it wasn’t something I would do.

Growing up, I lived with a heavy drinker for a period—three years, to be exact. It was not only the longest I was ever placed with someone, but it was also, by far, the most difficult time of my life. At the age of seven, I learned what alcohol could turn some people into. I know it wouldn’t have the same effect on me—I would never allow that—but getting drunk and losing myself has never interested me. Not only can the smell of liquor take me back to that very dark time, but the thought of losing any of my control is also terrifying. I need power over my life, my actions, in order to function.