Threat (16 page)

“I could ask you the same thing,”
she replies.

Wow. That list is so long I don't even know
where to start. Threat's eyes are on me as I sit here in shock, which
is only broken by the sudden sound of young boy who wanders into the
room. He looks to be about ten.

When he looks at me I instantly see the
resemblance.

“Mom?”

“Not now, Thomas,” she says, “How
many times do I have to tell you boys to stay in your rooms when we
have company?”

The boy glances at us and then back to his
mother. “Who are they?” he asks.

She gets up to usher him into the next room.
“No one, sweetheart,” she tells him. “Just some,
um, old friends.”

No one
.

Who knew two little words could hurt like those
do? I've imagined confronting my mother. Somehow, out of all the
scenarios I've come up with in my head, none of them were as bad as
the reality.

She turns back towards us. “My oldest
will be home soon,” she states.

So that's it? I'm at a loss for words as she
stares at me like she's staring through me, her eyes devoid of any
warmth.

“You're a real cold-hearted bitch, you
know that?” Threat says.

Her mouth drops open and her eyes narrow. “Get
out of my house. Right now,” she seethes. She looks at me and
adds, “Both of you.”

“Gladly,” Threat replies. “Come
on, Leah.” He takes me by the hand and leads me out of the
living room, to the front of the house.

“Wait,” I hear her say as we're
half way out the door. “I want to talk to Leah. Alone.”

When Threat looks down at me I can tell he
finally understands why this was such a bad idea, but the damage is
done.

“It's fine,” I tell him, but he
still seems apprehensive. He slips outside and I close the door
behind me. With my arms folded defensively across my chest I turn
back towards my mother—for lack of a better word—refusing
to look her in the eye.

She sighs, cupping her forehead with her hand.
“Look, I know this meeting didn't go as you expected—”

“It was Threat's idea,
not
mine.”

“Regardless,” she continues,
“I...I'm glad you're doing well in life, and I hope you
continue to do so. But please understand that I have my own family
now. They mean everything to me. And I won't have anyone coming along
to ruin that.”

The message couldn't be clearer. “All
these years I thought if I proved you wrong, if I wasn't like my
father, then maybe you'd come back. That maybe you'd show me some
sort of love,” I say. “You know it hasn't been easy
growing up without a mother—”

“I'm sorry Leah. I don't know what to
tell you,” she explains, her shoulders slumping.

I hold up a hand to stop her. “No, I
wasn't done. I was going to say, it hasn't been easy growing up
without a mother, but you know what? I did it, and do you know what I
realized?”

Her eyes flutter and she crosses her arms,
mimicking my posture. “What?”

“That I don't need you. I never really
did. And you know what else?” I don't let her get a word in
edgewise this time. “I
am
like my father and I'm okay with that, because at least he's a good
person. Which is more than I can say about you. So you don't have to
worry about me ruining your perfect life. I won't bother you again.”

She defiantly raises her chin, but remains
silent.

“Oh, and Threat was right about you. You
are a cold-hearted bitch.” She reacts like no one has every
called her such a name, let alone twice, despite the title being more
than apt. “Goodbye, Mother.”

I exit the house, slamming the door shut behind
me. Threat is waiting for me right outside, wringing his hands. I
brush right past him and head for the car.

“Hey, are you alright?” he asks,
his voice is sullen and surprisingly sincere. But that's not enough
to make me care.

“I'm fine,” I reply. He follows me
down the drive way until I stop at the car door. That's when I
realize he's planted himself beside me and won't budge. “Can we
go?”

He studies me like he can read my mind or
something. “Are you
sure
you're
okay?”

My mother just rejected me for the second time
in my life, referred to me as “no one”, and warned me, in
more or less words, to stay away from her new family. But yes, I'm
okay. I'm fine and fucking dandy.

“I said I'm fine,” I repeat, my
voice so low and pointed I think it even scares Threat. Almost. “Now
let's go.”

He doesn't protest, thank God. He drags himself
around to the other side of the car, unlocks the door and we both
pile in.

It's dead silent inside. We don't speak and
there's no music blasting from the stereo. There are no sounds coming
from outside either, beyond the low hum of the engine, as we leave
the idyllic town behind us. Threat glances over at me more and more
often the farther we drive, but so far he knows not to say anything.

But that, of course, doesn’t last long.

“So, I'm...” his voice trails off
as he struggles to speak.

“Just shut up, okay?” I mumble
back. It's rude and brash but I can't help it—frankly, I blame
him for this whole shit-show.

He sighs beside me. “I'm sorry. Okay? I
mean it, I'm sorry I put you through that.”

“Doesn't matter,” I reply, angling
myself away from him because. “And don't talk to me again until
we're back we get to SLC.” Because, seriously, he's the last
person I want to converse with. And I fully realize I'm taking all
this out on him when he's not the one I should be angry with, but you
know what? He deserves it.

Even though I get the feeling he's never
sincerely apologized to anyone ever in his life.

THREAT

“What are you doing, dumbass?”

Leah Parker slaps me on the shoulder after she
unfurls herself from around me, jumping off the back of my bike.
After a grueling, emotionally charged day we finally arrive at our
final destination, and it's the first time she's spoken to me in
hours.

“I'm revving my engine, what does it
sound like?” I let the engine roar, one last time, just because
I like the sound. “Besides, this way they'll know we're here.”

“Yeah, them and everyone else in the
neighborhood,” she says with a roll of her eyes. She's still
ticked off from earlier. As much as she tries to hide it, she can't
hide it from me. And I don't blame her one bit.

I plant the kickstand in the dirt. “I
thought you weren't talking to me?” I ask.

She grabs her over-nighter from the back of my
bike and looks back at me from over her shoulder. With a cheesy
plastic grin stretched across her face, she says, “We're here
now, so we're talking again. Because everything is fine and dandy,
remember?”

Oh.
I see
how it is.

I lean in towards her and whisper, “You
know, bottling everything up is never healthy.”

She glances up with eyes narrowed and aimed at
me like lasers. “You're right. Someone could get hurt.”

Well shit
. The one and only quality Leah
inherited from her mother was the ability to threaten you with
seemingly malevolent warnings.

Before I can respond the front door of the
cabin opens and out comes Colin himself with my mom just a few steps
behind him. The second I see her it hits home that we really have to
spend the rest of the week under the same roof. Good God, this is
going to be a nightmare. At least when I move in with them, I can
come and go as I please. But here, I bet someone is going to try and
come up with some lame family bonding exercises or some shit.

Colin is beaming. “Hey, champ!” he
calls out as he makes his way towards us. Leah manages to look
genuinely happy as she greets her dad back and embraces him. Maybe
it's not all an act; the two of them seem to have this weird bond. I
guess that's what functional parent-child relationships look like?
Wouldn't know from experience.

My mom stops just a few feet in front of me—I
have to admit, this whole marriage thing looks good on her. For once,
she's actually dressed like a woman pushing forty and not a teenager;
I think she's even glowing. But if she thinks I'm going to hug her or
something she has another thing coming.

She smiles wide but there's still a look of
hesitation in her eyes. And rightly so. “Hi, David.”

“Hey,” I respond plainly. She looks
disappointed by my lack of enthusiasm, but what the hell did she
expect? For me to forget the last twenty years just because she
cleaned up her act?

Colin turns and extends his hand to me. “You
must be Dav—uh, Threat,” he says as we shake.

“I am, it's nice to finally meet you,
sir.” It almost feels silly calling him sir but I have to
admit, Colin seems like a good enough guy. Probably a hell of a lot
better than Mom deserves, the poor bastard.

“Aww, come here, you're family now,”
he says as he pulls me in and pats my shoulders. Mom clenches her
hands beneath her chin when she sees us. Oh God, I think she might
cry. Over a hug, seriously?

When Colin lets me go his eyes dart to my bike
and his smile starts to fade. “You came all this way on a
motorcycle,” he states.

It didn't take long for me to get myself in
trouble, now did it? “Yeah, my bike is my prized possession.
She's safe, I promise.”

He doesn't seem impressed. “And you had
my daughter on the back. For five hundred miles. That seemed like a
good idea to you?”

“
Dad
—”
Leah chimes in.

I nod. “There's no better way to see the
open road than on the back of a bike.”

“There's no better way to become road
kill either,” he replies wryly.

“It was my idea, actually,” says
Leah. Her dad automatically shoots her a confused glare and she
shrugs. I think I'm just as shocked that she's actually taking the
fall for me. Did I hear that right? “I thought it would be fun.
Yolo, you know?”

Colin lets out a nervous, stifled laugh. He
draws her in close against his side. “We're going to have to
talk about this later,” he whispers to her out of the side of
his mouth.

“You kids came just at the right time,
we're almost finished with dinner,” Mom says.

“Come inside, get settled,” Colin
says as we follow him up the drive way. “I'm sure you two are
famished. We eat in fifteen.”

*

As it turns out, Leah lied to me. All this time
I was under the impression that we were venturing to her father's
cabin in the woods and not a fucking
palace
.
I got a mini tour of the house before Colin showed me to my room. It
doesn't look huge from the front but it's actually built over the
side of a cliff and has a hidden second story—I've never seen a
house like it before. But it looks like a woodsy, rugged bachelor pad
on the inside, with all kinds of fur rugs, leather furniture and
animal skulls hanging from the walls and shit. Hell, there's even a
man cave down stairs with a fucking huge 60” flat screen TV and
a sick ass, pub style bar. In his
house
.
Who the hell lives like this? Oh, that's right, Threat does from now
on. What boggles my mind is that my mom actually,
finally
,
did something right. It's almost enough to make me forgive my mom for
being completely useless for the last twenty years.

Colin conveniently places me in the guest room
right next to Leah's, which confirms he's completely oblivious to the
things we've done over the past couple of days.

After unpacking half of my shit the hearty
smell of beef stew hits me, making my stomach growl and reminding me
just how hungry I am. We barely stopped to eat today past
breakfast—not when we headed back to get my bike out of the
shop, and only once the rest of the way to Salt Lake City. Leah
didn’t touch her food, and I wasn’t going to push her.

I head for the kitchen but stop in front of
Leah's half cracked door. She's sitting on the bed, flipping through
a notebook with a pencil in her mouth.

I nudge the door open with my knee, rapping my
fingers against the shallow wooden pane to get her attention.

“You poor, poor little rich girl,”
I say when she looks up at me.

Her eyes go directly back to her notepad. “What
do you want, Threat?”

“When you said 'cabin' I didn't exactly
expect a cliff side mansion.”

She rolls her eyes. “It's not a mansion.
It
was
just a regular cabin, dad remodeled and added an extension a few
years ago.”

“I guess it shouldn't surprise me at this
point.”

Her fake smile returns. “You should be
happy. Now you can freeload in not one but two houses my father paid
for.”

“Nice one, kid,” I remark. I'll let
that one slide. She's had it rough enough today. “I'm pretty
sure dinner is ready.”