Tore Up (Mississippi Smoke Series Book 1)
Tore Up: Part 1 – Chapter 1

Part 1

“From the deepest desires often comes the deadliest hate.”–Socrates

Two Months Later

The house was almost empty. I stood in the living room. It was the center of our three-bedroom house. The kitchen was directly behind me. To my right was the master bedroom, and to my left were the other two bedrooms and only bathroom. There was nothing left of our family who had lived here, except the things that belonged to me and to Nick, my father. It still smelled the same without them here.

Iris, my stepmother, had packed up all my sister’s and brothers’ things and left. Tears stung my eyes. Would I get to see them again? She hadn’t even told me they were leaving. I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to stop the tears for the second time tonight. Crying was not going to fix anything, but I wasn’t sure how much more I could take before I cracked.

The fighting between Iris and Nick had gotten worse lately. I’d been worried about it and even mentioned it to my brother Ares when he called last week. He had said Nick was a bastard, which was his normal response to anything involving our father.

Two months ago, Ares had left for boot camp. He’d enlisted in the Army right after graduation. Nick hadn’t bothered to be here to tell him bye, wish him luck, tell him how proud he was, or any of the things a good father would do.

I had thought that was the last straw for Iris. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my own problems, then I might have realized she was planning on leaving.

She was the only mother I’d ever known. My mother had taken her life when I was three months old. Nick never would talk about it or give me the details.

All I knew was that he’d met Iris and knocked her up months after my mother’s death. Ares was only sixteen months younger than me.

Three days before I turned four years old, Carina was born. Two months after I turned nine, Alvin was brought home from the hospital. Dennis was the last of Nick and Iris Talley’s children. I had been thirteen years old when Dennis was born.

Nick adored Carina. She was his princess. He claimed she was the prettiest girl in the world. I couldn’t even be jealous of her because I agreed. Her pale blonde hair and bright green eyes were angelic. She looked a lot like Nick.

Iris often said that she’d been fooled by his handsome face. The bitterness in her tone when she said it made it clear she wished she hadn’t fallen for Nick’s looks.

Had my mother felt the same way? It was something I often wondered, but would never know.

Alvin and Dennis soaked up any attention Nick threw their way and did everything they could to gain his approval. I just tried to keep out of his way, and Ares ignored him. To the three youngest Talley kids, Nick was Dad, even if he did little to earn that title.

Like me, Ares called him Nick. I did it because that was all he would allow me to call him.

When I had heard Iris referring to Nick as Dad to Ares when we were young, I had called him Dad one day. Although I had only been three, I still remembered in detail the scowl he’d given me when he told me that I was to call him Nick. Ares had copied me and began calling him Nick too. The more Nick looked right through me, the bigger the strain on his relationship with Ares. There were times in my life I’d felt guilty because of it, but there was nothing I could say or do to fix it.

Even when Carina came along and called him Dad, Ares never did the same. Carina was almost three when she called him Nick the first time. He picked her up and held her in his lap so lovingly, telling her she was his little girl and that he was her dada.

That night, when we were in bed, Ares asked me why we didn’t call Nick Dad. I explained that I wasn’t allowed to call him anything but Nick, but I was sure that he’d like for Ares to call him Dad.

Ares had shaken his head as he narrowed his eyes, then reached for my hand. “No. If he is Nick to you, then he is Nick to me too.”

At my loneliest, I’d always had Ares. If he were here now, I didn’t know if his presence would give me comfort. Not this time. He was going to be upset about this. The older he got, the worse his temper seemed to get. Iris had said the Army would be good for him. Keep him out of prison one day. I wasn’t sure where his short fuse, which exploded when lit, had come from.

Nick wasn’t one to lose his temper. Why would he when his silence could break you? His ability to walk off as if you’d said nothing of importance and meant so little that you weren’t worthy of his reaction was more powerful than anything else.

Iris had gotten meaner over the years. Yelling more and staying angry were her norm now. She hadn’t been that way when I was young. Nick had broken her. Taken away any and all joy in her life.

She had screamed at him about his whore last week. Carina cried into her pillow. The house was small, and the walls were thin. We always heard every word that she said to him when they fought. She had accused him of leaving to go stay with his whore and her kid. I was going to ask Ares if he knew what she was talking about, but he hadn’t called. Was that why she had left?

I turned and looked back at the bedroom door that held only my things now. No sign of Carina remained. It was bare without all her stuff. I didn’t have nearly as much as she did. Nick rarely told her no and barely acknowledged me. The last time he’d spoken to me was when he barked at me to get him a beer two weeks ago while he sat on the sofa, watching a basketball game on the television.

We didn’t have that television anymore. Iris had even taken that with her. How had she had the time to get everything out of here? I’d worked a double shift today. I did that every Saturday at the fairgrounds. Urban Bistro was a food truck that moved around the city to different events. Tember and Alf, the owners, were successful because they didn’t just wait for customers to come to them. They hired servers to walk around with food items, making the purchase more convenient.

Had that really been all the time she needed to clear the house out and leave? Or had she been secretly packing up and I hadn’t realized it?

If Ares had been here, he would have noticed. He was perceptive about things. He’d have warned me. It would be four more weeks before I could contact him. Even when he got a break to call home, it would be Carina’s or Iris’s phone he called. I didn’t own a phone. When I needed to use one, I always borrowed Carina’s.

The double-size bed that I had shared with Carina was gone. Iris hadn’t even left me a blanket and pillow. She had taken her and Nick’s bed too.

I sank down to sit on the floor, wondering what he was going to do when he returned from storming out after their last fight. He’d be furious. I would be the only one here. Instead of being invisible to him, he’d have to talk to me. Ask me where she had gone. Not that I knew. She’d not even left a note.

I wanted a shower, but I was sure there were no towels or soap left. She’d been thorough in what all she took. I missed Carina’s bubbly voice telling me about her day. I missed the sound of Alvin and Dennis arguing over what they were going to watch on the television next. I even missed Iris yelling at them to shut up. Dropping my head into my hands, I finally let the tears fall.

Would I have caught them before they left if I’d not spent that extra hour after work waiting on Crosby again? It was pathetic at this point, and I knew it. I had to stop, but if he didn’t come to the fairgrounds, I had no other way to contact him. Although it had been two months since he’d said he’d meet me after work and never shown up. I texted him from Carina’s phone when I got back home that night, but he still hadn’t responded when I woke up the next morning. I always deleted the things I’d texted him, not wanting Carina to see it, and he rarely texted back if it wasn’t an immediate response because he knew it wasn’t my phone. But the times he couldn’t text back right away, he would come replace me at work. I thought he would show up eventually with an apology and explanation. Maybe he had panicked and needed time to let it all sink in, but he’d had plenty of time to do that now, and still, no word.

He had told me not to worry, that he loved me, when I last talked to him. I was so scared, but I’d believed him.

He had walked into my life and charmed me. I’d never been one to fall for a guy’s good looks and pickup lines. In school, Ares had made guys nervous and kept them from approaching me, but I’d been okay with that. I never had time to date anyone. When I wasn’t working, Iris kept me busy in the afternoons with the younger kids, cleaning and often cooking dinner. Crosby was different. He made time to see me even though it was often late when I got off work. He waited.

For a moment in time, it was like I’d found my very own Prince Charming. But I had to face the brutal truth in front of me now. He had never introduced me to any of his friends. We had never gone anywhere together in public. Our dates had been limited to places that I thought were romantic, even after the time he came to pick me up after work and actually hid from someone he knew that he had seen in the parking lot. I’d been left standing there, alone and confused.

That experience should have been a wake-up call for me. He had spent the evening swearing he loved me. Telling me I didn’t understand. There were things he couldn’t tell me. He pleaded with me to trust him, and I finally relented.

I gave him my virginity in the back of his truck the first week I met him. That wasn’t like me. I’d not even let a boy touch my boobs before him. But Crosby managed to get me to do things I’d never imagined I would.

But I hadn’t given him my heart yet, and I guessed, for that, I could be thankful.

I lifted my head from my hands and sighed, then placed a hand on my stomach.

I had accused him of being ashamed of me, and he promised me that no one would ever be ashamed of me. He held my face and kissed me, telling me how beautiful I was. That he spent his days distracted, thinking about me. He made me feel special. For the first time in my life, I thought I meant something to someone.

When I told him my period was late, he gave me money to get a pregnancy test and assured me that if it was positive, he’d be there for me and the baby. He talked about us getting a place together, and although I wasn’t sure I was ready for that, I knew living at home might not be an option. When the test came back positive, I tried not to panic, but I got very little sleep. That next morning, I used Carina’s phone to call him. He said he would be waiting on me in the parking lot when I got off work. He promised he was going to take care of me and told me not to worry.

That had been two months ago.

Crosby never showed. Not that night or any night since. Before then, he had always been early and would tell me he couldn’t stay away any longer. He just needed to see me, even if it was to watch me work. His absence and silence were loud and clear. I was alone in this. All that excitement in his voice about living together had been a lie.

Crosby was never coming to replace me. He didn’t want me or our baby.