Steel Me Away by Vivian Lux

temple again, squinting with the effort.  "Way I see it, both of them has good and bad.  I'll tell you one thing," Crash looked at him shrewdly, "we become a prospective club, your new girl prolly ain't gonna like it." He cocked his head to the side, his finger still prodding the ideas loose.  "She's already pissed at you for not giving her enough time."
    His girl.  "Fuuuck," J. breathed.  He looked at the closed office door.  Emmy had grabbed her backpack.  "How long was the meeting?"  he barked at Crash as he stared at the door.  He didn't want to open it. 
    Crash looked confused.  "We started when it was still light out.  I know cuz I didn't feel bad kicking that fine little bitch outta here. I may be an asshole, but I don't send ladies out into the dark unescorted." He puffed up a little as some of the manic energy started to light up his eyes.
    "It's dark now," J. realized.  "Wait," he looked at Crash and furrowed his brow.  "What do you mean she's pissed at me?"
    "You dumb fucker, didn't you see her face when you got back here from your mom's?  She was all hanging around you, waiting to go off alone.  You blew her off like twice in a row."
    "I did not."
    "Prison fucked up your game something fierce," Crash observed.  "First you partied, then you kicked her out for the club meeting." He shook his head, "No game at all."   He turned to the closed door.  "Wonder if she's in there."
    "Yeah me too." J. felt his heart pounding in his throat.  "I told her to find someplace else to be for a little while."
    Crash sucked on his teeth.  "You are one dumb piece of shit," he observed.  "If she's still waiting, then you owe her a good hour of pussy-licking."
    J. was at the door.  "Emmy?" he croaked, pushing it open.  His head was whirling.  There were too many thoughts, too much shit vying for his full attention.  The Storm Riders, the Sons, his sorry excuse for a mother and his crazy bitch of a sister.  Case's melodramatic stories and his hopped up imagination.  It had all taken over and shut out the one thing that was most important. 
    The minute he saw her again, he would tell her that.  He would beg her to understand and swear to her that there was nothing more important to him. The idea gave him a slight bit of comfort.  A plan.  He needed a plan. 
    He opened his eyes, not realizing he had closed them in the first place.
The room was dark.  The stool by the phone had been pushed back, like she had sat there and then got up quickly.  The front door was unlocked.  Her small, inadequate backpack wasn't anywhere to be seen.
    She was gone.

Chapter 20
     
    Emmy
     
    She never gave me time to reply.  My mother is that quick with her insults.  One brief, blinding flash, like a lightning strike, and then it was over.  Only the gaping, smoking hole inside of you remained.
    She moved on, already done with me. "Go wash your hands, Emilia," she huffed.  "I held dinner for you."
    I ducked into the tiny powder room set off the hallway and tried my hardest to regroup.  I wasn't stupid.  I knew that.  But there was still that old part of me, the one that wanted to be agreeable to everyone.  That part wanted desperately to agree. "Yes mom, I'm sorry.  I broke off my engagement to the handsome, wealthy man you wanted for a son-in-law.   It was stupid, you're right."
    The mirror was still warped in the same place, rippling my reflection into something that didn't look like me.  For the longest time growing up, I had thought it did.  I wondered how much of my low self-esteem stemmed from that silly ripple. 
    I ran the tap, smelling the slight mineral scent of the well water. The pipes creaked, just as they always had, but the noise sounded in my ears like the clanging of a bell. All these things that I had grown up thinking of as normal and commonplace now seemed foreign and odd.  Coming back here was making little things stand out in a big way.
    Like my father's tread upstairs.  He hit the