Runaway ✔

041 • Dana

It was during breakfast – two delicious sandwiches from the roomservice cart, which she ate in bed – that the screen of her cell lit up. The bite she'd just taken, stuck in her throat, and she swallowed once more before she opened Juice's message. 

- Hey. You've had some sleep tonight?

Her lips curled up. She had the idea anything he would type could cause this warm feeling in her chest. 

- A little. Happy snores.

She saw he typed something, removed it, and typed again. A nervous knot arose in her stomach. He wouldn't say that he had to stay at the clubhouse during the funeral, would he? 

- You holding up?

A little relieved she breathed out. Don't worry so much. 

- I'm OK. The whole thing is still very unreal. This afternoon I'll go to a florist with Opie.

- Okay. It's all so tough. :/ 

Yeah... Dana sighed internally. She didn't know what to answer, though she didn't want this conversation to be over. Her fingers felt cramped, they only seemed willing to type five words. I wish you were here. She didn't give in. She typed nothing. 

- Good luck today!

And that was it. She typed back "Thx" and laid her phone aside to finish her breakfast. 

They'd a lot to do today. 

  💀   

Around two o'clock they left the hotel. It was an average hotel, where Opie and Happy fitted in. It however wasn't in a seedy suburb, but relatively safe in the center.

Opie caught a taxi and they sat down in the back. 

"I wonder when it was the last time you've been in a cab," she said with a smirk. 

"I have no idea." His eyes were aimed at the driver, as if he still had to figure out whether he found it a reliable type. In the end he relaxed a little and leaned against the seat back. 

"How was your ma?" he asked after a while.

Dana looked shortly at him. She'd never talked about her mother to anyone. Not with Maddox, not even with Happy.

"When I was six, my father went to prison. Got life. Happy was sixteen, and well... he dealt with it badly. Got anger issues, was aggressive... and my mom was just the same. Two walkin' bombs at home. He often stayed away for nights, pissin' my mother off and encouragin' her to drink." She sighed. "One day my mom ended up in a church during rehab, and she changed. Calmed down. Meanwhile Happy got over his puberty, made up with mom..."  

She turned a little more to Opie when her neck started to ache. 

"But it was like she didn't dare to lay down rules anymore, because things had become so shitty between my brother and her. I could do everythin' I wanted, there were no boundaries. And, well... unfortunately I was the type of girl that immediately did everythin' her stupid brain could think of." 

She chuckled quietly, even though she felt ashamed. 

"Things were fine at home, there was no fight. But we lived past each other, we shared nothing, and when I had somethin' on my plate, I didn't feel I could talk to her. She never intervened, and often I had the feeling she didn't give a shit about me." She searched for words. "But she hated Maddox, ever since the first time she saw him. She tried to keep it secret, but I wasn't blind. Of course I sensed it. And for the first time, we had a massive fight, and she couldn't bring herself to say one good word about him. I hated her for that, and made that very clear. To make a point, I slammed the door behind me and moved into Maddox' house." 

She dropped her eyes. 

"That was five years ago. I've never seen or spoken to her again, I changed my number and wanted nothin' to do with her anymore. I was convinced Maddox was enough to make me feel happy." She laughed, cheerless. "I was a crazy bitch, I really was. Hap came after me once, but I beat him and screamed he could go to hell if he even called Maddox' name. Of course he didn't give a fuck, he grabbed my arm and wanted to drag me home. I screamed bloody murder, I yelled at everyone that he was a rapist. And you know... with his bad ass reputation... people easily believed me in our little town. So he let me go." 

She clamped her lips, tried to keep herself from crying. She felt so ashamed. 

"I hadn't seen him in years. Only a month ago, when I came to the club house. I thought he would laugh at me, that he would send me away and claim it was exactly what I'd deserved. But I didn't know another place to go. All I could do, was hopin' he'd remember he'd been on the wrong path too, and that mom had forgiven him. And that he would forgive me as well."

Opie raked his hand through his hair. "Hell, that's serious shit, man. No wonder we'd never heard of ya." He watched her from the side. "I can barely believed you wanted people to think your brother was a rapist. You... you seem a whole different person now. Happy must've seen that immediately."

She sighed deeply. "Yea... it was a harsh lesson... that eventually brought me back with my feet on the ground."

And far, far beneath the ground, for a long time.