Sweet Dreams-19.. So Snow White; Are you going to order the apple? Part2

Chapter 19 part 2

* Alex’s Part……

Everything had started off really good and then Dad started in with his snide little remarks in the limo it was really cool seeing her fire right back at him. I was so proud of her for pretty much breaking her entire pay check to pay for all of the things tonight without dipping into anything else.

We ended up picking up some of my dad’s cronies Leon Panichi and his wife and their twin girls, Geoffrey Scanta and his mid life crisis. Then there was Aubrey Zane and his wife Debora, Deb was still someone I knew a little older than Geoff's mid life crisis but only a little. It must be a "thing" really only Mrs. Panichi and April were over thirty, but not over thirty five.

I knew the girls from the early days at the club and they went to a different school than I ended up going to and Scantha’s mid life crisis Anna was likely only around twenty if that I was soon getting barraged by questions and they had said they had spent the summer in Italy and started showing off just how good their Italian was.

The other’s joined in and I was fending off questions about me and Hunter and football and school and…Yeah…I fell for it.

The little look on Debora’s face as Hunter excused herself and left looking for the bathroom and the cutting little remarks. I see there’s these coy and bitchy little smirks between her and the twins.

April gets up and follows and Adam goes to catch her wrist and I reach over at the same time and I grab his jacket sleeve and with a sharp tug I pull him hard enough he misses her.

He shoots me a look and I ignore it instead I’m looking at Debora. As I get up.

“It’s just a spade calling a spade when you’re the one bringing that up Deb. I mean other than Zane’s account balance just what really do you two have in common?”

Her eyes went wide and she looked to Zane like as to say do something and he looks at me and I lean past him as I’m going. “You knew, he told you to tell her what to do so…go ahead Aubrey… give me a reason…please.”

I move towards the bathrooms and look at the twins. “No…You’re just not fucking worth it.”

I get to the bathroom and see Hunter coming out of the bathroom. She gives me this look, she got her make up fixed up and we stop and stare at her eyes and she’s looking at me and I can see a lot of hurt there but determination too. I see the redness on her knuckles instead of just her eyes and they’re skinned until they’re bleeding, not a lot but it’s just I can see the red seeping into the spiderweb of skin around her knuckles. I step up and hold her and she’s tense for a terrifying few minutes… I think when she didn’t feel like she usually did I stopped breathing and when she lets out this little sigh and presses against me I think my heart started back up.

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be, you volunteered me for this whole set up.”

“I’m really sorry? I should’ve seen all of it coming.”

“It’s okay; he obviously put a lot of effort into this. Alex, the fact you didn’t clue in’s a good thing. Okay? I like you’re not like him and not into the head games.”

“I still should have kno…” she cuts me off by kissing me long and slow and deeply right there in front of everyone in the place including the ones at our table. She breaks the kiss and I reach into my pocket…

* Hunter’s part……

I run into the ladies room and into a stall past several women and hit the floor on my knees and I can’t help it. I start to hyperventilate a bit and I’m trying to cry but instead of crying I’ve got the super blurry watery eyes…it’s just not the same and drops of blood are dripping from my nose into the bowl and the headache just gets to the point of the lights in the bathroom just seem to get brighter and brighter until they almost flare and it’s like a balloon or something got popped and the little bit of food I’ve already had comes up in a rush.

I really don’t have to get too descriptive there right, just thing a bit of the rice stuff and soup and fancy Italian salad.

The worse is the nosebleed mixed with the water or whatever from nearly crying stuffing me up just as bad as if I was crying. Getting sick and not being able to breathe through your nose is not a great experience.

Then just like on TV or a book and stuff April’s there and she’s holding my head, and has my hair pulled back for me and she’s rubbing my back making these soothing sounds. That has me lose it.

I mean It hits like a heart attack and a migraine…just her doing this being this human to me, being a fucking hundred times the woman my own fucking mother was just by doing this…

I really get upset, and I would be bawling my eyes out if I could and part of me wants to, needs too but it just gets to that point and Cliff’s in my head again and he’s sticking the pins in me, hurting me and telling me.

“You fuckin cry baby, I’ll give you something to cry about!”

I have a flashback right there and then of being seven and I’d been upset, hungry…there wasn’t anything in the house and what was there Cliff ate…he put his foot on my chest and pinned me to the couch and ate the last of our food stoned and laughed at me

And when I cried he tortured me until I stopped. I remember in that haze of PTSD flashback the smell of meth burning as Mom was lying on the couch sparking up a crystal and giving us this goofy she’s not there grin and smiling as Cliff’s shoving a safety pin into the meat of my foot.

“Stop it, stop it, you little fuck, it ain’t going to do you a bit of fuckin good, nobody cares, nobody cares and no one eva will.”

Well fuck you Cliff.
Fuck you Mom.
Fuck You Cliff.

If those ingrained pains are what’s in my head keeping me from feeling then I’ll just have to do better.

I sit up and away from April and haul off and punch the wall of the bathroom stall. It hurts…good…I punch with the other hand one after another not caring that it hurts but caring that it needs to hurt. It’s denting in a couple of places and April’s trying to pull me back and I’m saying it out loud in that sort of hurting raw from being upset so much kind of way.

“Fuck you Cliff, Fuck you Mom, Fuck you Cliff! Fuck you! Fuck You! Fuck you!”

April backs off freaked I think as I hit the wall of the bathroom stall about a dozen times until the pain I’m feeling is even more than the pain that Cliff had inflicted on me and overrides it and the tears start to run and flow down my face and I start crying.

I cover my face with my hands and start sobbing and that’s when April pulls me onto her lap and I cry into her stomach a bit. It doesn’t last that long really and I think that part of it is that I’m just so unused to crying that it stops so fast but I feel like…

I feel like the screws that someone has been turning into my skull all evening have been removed and I can thing and I can breathe.

I look up at April and I give her a smile, or as much of one as I have in me. “Oh I bet you’re regretting saying you’d help me out.”

A couple of these great big tears roll out of her eyes and down her cheeks and more follow as she kisses me on my forehead.

“Not on you’re life kiddo; you wanted my help….well you got it…forever…” She’s all sniffly and everything but she pulls me into a hug and flushes the toilet. “C’mon lets get out of here; I don’t want to be here.”

“No…” I say it and sniffle and rub at my eyes.

“Adam went too far Hunter, I’m really unhappy with his ass and you don’t have to stay here and put up with it.”

“Yeah, I do have to stay April. I have to show him that this…that this is nothing. And it is…” I hold my hands up covered in my own blood. “Adam has no idea of the hell that I’ve already been through.”

April locks eyes with me after she too took a long look at my hands. “You want to talk about it?”

I nod. “Someday, when I’m in a time and a place were I can get it out right. I’m all sorts of fucked up but I know that I’m all sorts of fucked up. I figure at some point I’m going to have to deal but right now I’m still in survival mode.”

“Okay, but the offer’s open.”

“Thanks April, other than Alex you’re probably the person who’s actually done the most for me in my life…ever…”

That makes her cry again and she’s got that look that once in a perfect stone mom would have on her face and that’s that look that most kids get from a parent who cares about their kid.

It’s so bittersweet really.

We take a few minutes just being quiet as I go out to the sinks and the mirrors and wash the blood off my hands. I don’t even feel the sting of the soap. I blow my nose which was really bad and there’s all the stuffy stuff from my crying all mixed in with the blood from my nose bleed.

“That doesn’t look good Hunter.”

“I’m used to it.”

“How long have you had them, the nose bleeds?”

“Probably since I was ten or so, usually when I’m upset.”

“Have you seen a doctor about them?”

I just gave her this look. She actually gets it. “Okay, we’ll have to get you on my insurance.”

“Maybe…I dunno, can we talk about it later?”

“Sure.” She got that look on her face and was smiling without knowing it. I could just not be all into her having a Mom/Big sister moment but really…Her and Adam don’t have kids. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist does it?

I let her fix my face and she has one of those magic stain pen things and she fixes the spot on my dress from where I dropped the bit of salad. While she’s doing that she gave me a toothbrush and paste from her purse to use.

Apparently a lot of girls bring stuff like that when they go out places in their purse. It makes a lot of sense and I won’t be going back to the table with puke breath.

***

I smile a bit relaxing into Alex’s arms as he’s holding me with a lot of people watching us. Yeah I was mad and hurt by what happened but I meant what I said. I’m glad he’s not the kind of guy that would have stuff like this thought out, I like the fact that I’m more the cynical ass in the relationship and even if he’s damaged too he’s Still my Alex and he’s still so sweet.

There’s this little goosepimply moment when he reaches into his pocket after we’re done kissing and yeah I know it’s so very girly kind of cliché but I was even if a little bit expecting a ring or a box for jewellery or something.

But no it’s his phone.

Most people don’t really think how loud the speakers on their phones are and I’ve no idea what he’s doing when he takes it out and set’s it on the table of this couple having supper closest to us saying “Please, excuse me.”

He turns to me and he takes my arms and he holds me, kisses me as these sort of familiar guitar chords start to play. Then right there in front of everyone we start to slow dance as the song… “More than words.” Starts to play from his I-phone.

And…

And sniff…

He’s got his head nuzzled close to mine and he’s singing to me. He's not that good, but he's doing it for me...he's so close off and he's singing to...

To me…

I really, really don’t know how to put how I’m feeling but what’s the complete opposite of every shitty moment of my life called?

Who…?

I means seriously who…?

I’ve got to be a girl because this…him…doing this totally makes up for everything that happened so far tonight…

I’m so in love with him right now it feels like…

If love was light, I’d be shining like the star that shone then night Jesus was born.

Okay… Bring it, I can face anything.

(Chapter 19 to be concluded in part 3.)