Resisting Love: Behind Blue Lines Series Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Resisting Love

  Behind Blue Lines

  Christine Zolendz

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  21. Searching for Love

  22. Free Book!

  Also by Christine Zolendz

  Copyright © 2017 by Christine Zolendz

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover by Christine Zolendz

  Blurb by The Blurb Bitch

  Created with Vellum

  For everyone who likes a little love story.

  Chapter 1

  Liv

  It was a butt dial that changed everything—stunning me awake from some obscure unsettling dream—scattering it into a kaleidoscope of colors and emotions. My eyes snapped open, my breath sucking back into my throat so violently fast my lungs almost burst.

  An icy layer of sweat broke out across my skin as I clawed senselessly at the tangled sheets around my legs. For a moment, I sat, panting, stomach twisting sickly, peering into the dark, wondering where I was.

  A sliver of pale yellow light poured in from the window, falling softly against my desk. My eyes traced its path to my cell phone just under its glow, buzzing with lights and sounds.

  I ran my hands over my face and took a slow deep breath. Cursing, I climbed to my feet and staggered over the soft rug, my hands fumbling for the phone.

  My mother’s face popped up on screen.

  “Hello?” I said, quickly answering the call, stomach rising to my throat.

  A blur of noise and music spiraled out from three hundred and two point eight miles away.

  “Hello?” I asked, louder. “Mom?”

  On the other end, glasses clinked together, and my mother’s voice muttered incoherently about tequila and the greatest love of her life. Someone laughed deeply and answered her. Muffled voices in the background cheered and someone asked for a cigarette as my mother slurred a sad rendition of what she always thought should have been her wedding song.

  “Mom? Hello?”

  She was still singing.

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it, exhausted and angry.

  My mother was drunk. Drunk—in some crowded bar mumbling unintelligibly to some poor sap about how much she still loved my father—a man neither of us had seen in years.

  “Mom!” I shouted into the phone.

  She slurred the chorus to the song, mixing up the words pitifully.

  “Mom?” I said more softly, squeezing the phone against my ear. “Mom, please go home.”

  Memories ricocheted through foggy fragments of my childhood—playing all the same images—a broken story that was once my life. Olivia Rhys was a mistake born to a sixteen-year-old with two drinks in her hand and the older boy who broke her heart. The greatest love story that never got finished, she would tell me, her breath the flavor of cheap tequila. It was a love that was so consuming, you couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. Except, he ended it by leaving her with me, and she never began anything, but another bottle of whatever she could get her hands on.

  Maybe she was right about love, who knew? I certainly didn’t.

  “Mom?” I asked into the phone again.

  Someone answered her song with some drunk pearl of wisdom that had something to do with a fish and a telephone pole. I sighed heavily and cut off the call.

  My mother and I were as emotionally distant as the miles we put between us. For the last few years I’d been gone, we’d seen each other less than a handful of times, each visit ending in tears.

  I was probably the worst daughter in the world. But I figured it would equal out in the end somehow, since I practically raised myself, and the mostly unconscious woman hovering over the toilet every night.

  The dim colors in my room blurred, dissolving into a teary darkness. Something with her always tugged at my insides. No matter what the past was and how much I’d tried to forget my lonely childhood, I couldn’t shake the fact that something was always pulling me back home.

  That, and her ass called me four more times.

  She always needed someone to take care of her. She always made the wrong choices and never worried about consequences for anything. What she really needed was a full time babysitter.

  Guilt kept me up for the rest of the night—it took over my body—my mind. My arms and legs became puppet limbs, packing an over night bag, dragging my exhausted body down the steps of my apartment, and into the car. Five hours and four spilled coffees later, I found myself walking up the overgrown pathway to my childhood home wishing I’d just stayed in my own damn bed. This was supposed to be my winter recess from work. For twelve days, the schools were closed, and I planned a staycation that included books, parties, and sex with strange men. Yet, there I was, back at my horrible childhood home on a guilt trip for one.

  I hesitated at the bottom step, hands wrapped around the rusted railing, tired eyes squinting into the bright morning sun. Why was I even there? Thinking I could do anything there to make a difference was absurd. I’d spent my childhood trying; it was never good enough. She loved her broken heart and her sad life more than she ever loved me.

  My insides knotted with nerves, fighting the urge to turn around and drive all the way back home. Surprise visits never ended well in the Rhys house. Trying to calm the tension in my shoulders, I leaned back against the rail and took in a slow deep breath. It puffed back out in a pale mist; the air tasted like sea salt and filth, New York style. From the porch, I could hear Jamaica Bay a few blocks away, dark and violent, beating at the sand with its high tide.

  Even though I had my own key, I rang the bell and peeked through the smudged-glass panels of the door. I couldn’t see past any of the grime, but I could hear the television clearly through the thin wooden door.

  After pushing the buzzer a few more times, I rummaged through my bag and pulled out my keys. “Mom?” I called as I opened the door. “Don’t get scared. It’s me, Liv.” And just so she remembered correctly, I added, “You know, your daughter.”

  She didn’t answer. There was nothing but the loud voices of a bunch of women on some morning talk show discussing some new political catastrophe. I tossed the keys into the small basket on the table in the foyer, and leaned my bag up against the wall. “Mom?” I called again, walking deeper into the house. The stench of stale cigarette smoke and burnt fried onions hung heavily in the air. It was
enough to make me swallow back a gag. I held my nose and called out to her again.

  Still no answer.

  Glancing toward the living room, a hot flash of nostalgia hit me—the house hadn’t been changed in years. The same worn brown couch sat forlorn up against the far wall decorated with the same old mismatched pillows. One sole picture hung crookedly on the wall, taken when I had to be about six, my two front teeth missing. The curtains were open, a fine grayish dust covering the tops of them. They probably hadn’t been cleaned since the last time I was here. The only difference I could see from my childhood was the small water stain on the ceiling had grown into an enormous discolored lumpy mess that offered a steady drip across the now peeling linoleum floors. She didn’t tell me about it; I was going to need to call a plumber for her. Again. There went any vacation ideas I had for next spring break. My money would once again be handed right over to my mother.

  Sighing, I walked toward the windows and opened them wide, letting some fresh air in. The screens were torn, but the breeze was cold and clean. I could even smell the big old pine tree from the neighbors’ yard—a yard I spent more time growing up in than I did in my own house. Next door, the Fury family had been my refuge from loneliness—a sister who was my best friend, an older brother who was my secret crush, and parents who held hands and took their kids to the movies in a big suburban. My mother was always just some shadowy silhouette at my door at three in the morning. My father was just a story to me, told in late-night drunken monologues that would make Shakespeare cry. The Furys sort of pulled me into their home and made me feel like I belonged. They tried to, anyway.

  It had been years since I lost touch with them. Every few months, Brooke and I emailed or messaged each other on social media, but I moved on, left this place and made a life for myself that was a great deal more stable than the one I was brought up in.

  I let the curtain fall back in place and wandered my way into the kitchen. My chest tightened as I stepped through the doorway. It reeked of cheap whiskey and seared onions—a charred pot sizzled loudly over a low flame on the stove—thick gray smoke billowed out around it.

  Something lay still on the floor in front of the stove.

  I stepped closer.

  It wasn’t a something.

  It was a someone.

  My heart thudded hard across my chest. I heard it, thick and wet, slamming around inside me.

  Utterly still and limp, her legs at a curious angle, dark dried blood and vomit haloed around her head, lay my mother.

  I stumbled closer, collapsing my body against a table piled with jagged sharp edged bottles and ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts.

  Bloody, bleached-blonde hair knotted across her cheeks. Tiny shards of glittery glass reflected swirls of light across the floor. A broken bottle—a quarter full—still clutched tightly in her hands and dark brown urine colored her creamy white leggings.

  Nope, surprise visits never ended well at the Rhys house.

  Chapter 2

  Liv

  I dropped to my knees next to her and brushed the hair off her face. Pain seared through my insides, wildly screaming down my legs. The bits of broken glass around her sliced like razors into my skin, and something sliced sharply into my upper thigh. I cried out her name as I slipped my fingers along her neck, checking for a pulse. I could barely feel the weakest thrum of movement beneath her skin, but I continued to call out her name as if she’d wake up the minute she would hear it. “Mom,” I yelled, “Mom, get up.” Instantly my eyes blurred with tears. “Mom,” I said again, shaking her shoulder, “Please wake up.” Red drops of blood speckled across her sunken face, deep dark hollows of skin and bones.

  Something popped loudly on the stove and a burst of sparks whooshed up from the charred pot, engulfing the entire burner in flames. I bolted up instantly.

  I lunged for the sink, still screaming at my mother to wake up. The smoke alarm went off, with its sharp piercing wails, as I turned on the faucet and let out a stream of water from the side sprayer. It splashed along the backdrop of the stove and across the top of the range, dowsing out the fire with loud screaming hisses.

  My hands trembled as I dropped the sprayer and gasped for air.

  The alarm screeched, screeched, screeched.

  At my feet, my mother coughed and her eyelids fluttered open. “Stop that damn noise,” she croaked, hoarsely. She twisted her neck and blinked sluggishly in my direction. “Liv?” she choked, “Livie, is that you?”

  My body slumped toward the counter with relief, then instantly filled with a rush of white-hot anger. The alarm still howled and pulsed through the kitchen.

  Thick, gray smoke drifted between us. I looked down at my mother wanting to scream at her, curse at her, shake her until she acted like the adult she was supposed to be, but all I could do was stand there, fists clenched, holding back tears.

  I slipped and slid on the glass and water, falling once, knees hitting hard on the sharp pieces of bottles. Growling out a scream, I pulled myself up and yanked the fire alarm from off the wall, slamming it onto the countertop until the batteries exploded out of the back of it.

  I whirled around, panting, ready for whatever excuse she’d come up with this time. Oh, no Liv, I wasn’t drinking; someone must have come in and borrowed my kitchen.

  Her lips parted to speak, but a sudden sharp crash exploded behind her, shattering glass everywhere. Both of us flinched from the noise—my mother yelping out a broken scream. The side yard door had busted open and rushing in was a man, sliding over the glass and reaching out for my mother. “Ms. Rhys?” he shouted.

  “Dean?” she asked.

  “Shit,” I said, standing straighter.

  His hands batted at the smoke, waving it away as his eyes scanned the entirety of the situation. He rushed to her side, bending down, knee-deep in vomit and blood, gaze focused and professional. He was wearing his uniform, head-to-toe blue, making my insides soft and fluttery.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Looks like you gave yourself a nice gash there, Ms. Rhys. I’m calling an ambulance for you,” he said, pulling out his phone.

  Her eyes turned watery, the whites of them webbed ruby red. She tried to move and moaned in pain. I couldn’t tell if the moan was fake or not, but I was betting she was still so drunk that she couldn’t feel a thing.

  “Don’t try to move,” he said, sweeping more hair off her forehead, “Wait until help gets here, and then we’ll get you up. Okay?”

  “Liv is here,” she whispered, crooking one finger in my direction.

  Dean’s head turned toward me, his body suddenly stiffening. “Liv,” he said, with a quick nod. His gaze swooped down my frame and stopped abruptly at my knees. “Whose blood it that? Are you hurt too?”

  The moment he called attention to the bright red trail up my pants, fire burst along my skin underneath. I looked down and felt my eyes widen. “It…must be from all the glass,” I stammered.

  His gaze snapped up to mine, pinning me with a steely look. A shiver ran through my shoulders, pins and needles and razors nipped at my legs.

  My mother moaned again. He gently grabbed her hand, but his eyes never faltered from mine. “What happened?”

  Was that why he was looking at me like that? He thought I had something to do with this? “I have no clue. Last night her phone kept calling my phone, and I drove all night to get here to see if she was okay.” I waved my hand out in front of me. “This is what I walked into. Same thing as you. Except I had to put out the fire on the stove.”

  “I didn’t call you,” she groaned from the floor.

  “Yeah, well your ass did. Numerous times,” I said, trying desperately to keep my tone even and calm. I should have never come—but if I didn’t—I didn’t even want to think about it. Besides all the smoke, the kitchen was already so thick with guilt and disgust, it was a wonder any of us could still breathe.

  “Enough,” his voice ripped through my thoughts, rocking me back on my h
eels. “Go outside and wait for the ambulance,” his eyes serious and dark.

  I obeyed like a little girl—not a twenty five-year old woman.

  At the door, I glanced back, his eyes were still on me, a sharp, sinking feeling weighing against my chest. It ballooned out and spread like liquid heat over my shoulders when I watched his eyes narrow, one eyebrow arched in annoyance.

  I dashed through the house, grabbing my purse and my keys—only skidding to a stop on the front steps when I heard the first sound of the sirens. My pants were a bloodied mess, raw and gritty, just like my life. I sank down hard, hitting the last concrete step with my bottom so roughly that it rattled my teeth. The stones were so cold my bones turned brittle.

  Flashing lights, red and blue, came speeding down the street. Two emergency workers met me at the stairs, and I led them inside.

  There were more people in the house then, voices and chaos; my mother shouting out she was fine. “Don’t touch anything,” she yelled, her voice shattering like glass. The fire department rolled up next. Giant beefy men, wearing full gear, stormed through the house, tracking mud, snow, and ash all throughout.

  I turned off the television in the living room, crossed my arms around my torso and watched in the background as they worked on helping my mother. She still held onto the broken bottle, white knuckling the glass. “Don’t touch my shit, you motherfuckers,” she screamed over their radios crackling static into the air. “Can someone get me a drink? A goddamn cigarette at least?” She pulled the nearest bottle up to her lips and one of the emergency responders slipped it agilely out from her fingers. “I…I need that,” she said grabbing for it. “Cocksucking thieves! Stop stealing my booze!”

  Her arms were so thin, frail and birdlike. She’d changed so much since the last time I saw her. Her face was so much older, worn and tired. Dark brown liver spots darkened her skin like some invading army of age. She looked so much older than her forty-one years.