Holding On Read Free

the
spotlight, but she was so insistent that I play dress up that night
and after listening to her beg without remorse, I allowed her to
dress me up.  I was determined to spend the whole night away
from home and in a hotel with Mark, my date.  He wasn’t
anything special but all the other girls had the same plan, except
Sadey, she was too afraid of the opposite sex and had lived by the
mantra ‘I’m saving myself for Hem, he will finally see me one day’.
 At the time she said this, Hem was 26 years old and on a fury
of sex, drink, and drugs.  She only saw Hem as she had when we
were kids.  To her, Hem would always be perfect.
    Well so my prom date got sick with
something horrid and cancelled last moment and ruined my plan of
becoming a woman that night. Shame had come to my rescue though and
escorted me to the dance so that I wouldn’t miss out on that rite
of teenage passage. He has no idea which rite of passage I was
looking forward to and if he ever had found out, he would have beat
my ass... after Hem was done with it.  Being that Hem trusted
that I was being protected by Shame at the dance, I was able to go
and enjoy the evening with the only grown man in attendance that
wasn’t faculty.  
    People probably stared at
us being that Shame was 12 years older than any of my classmates,
but I don’t remember caring.  The girls swooned at the first
sight of him.  He didn’t even have to dress up.  He was
in his signature ripped at the knee, low hung jeans and standard
issued black tee with his cut hugging close to his upper
body.
    I remember when it was time
for the slow coupled dances that Shame would put his hand on the
middle of my back and move me on the dance floor effortlessly.
 My body progressed with his as if his was an extension of
mine. I trusted him and was familiar with him. Sadey had said to me
that night, “He looks at you Mace, like he has stars in his eyes.
 Can you see it?  That man will be yours one day.”
 I wanted to believe that.  I really wanted to believe that maybe I
was Cinderella and that my Prince Charming that I had crushed on
all the years before had finally come to take me away.
 
    When Shame dropped me off at my house
that night, I remember sitting in his car and mentally I was
refusing to get out.  He said “Goodnight Sweetheart, be good
and remember how much I love your face”.  I didn’t want to go
inside and end this evening so I mentally stopped time at those
words.  He’s always said that to me about my face though, so
hearing them was nothing new.  They were Shames words and his
way of loving me, as the kid sister that the thought me to be.
 He isn’t exactly the mushy or romantic type so when he
uttered those words I closed my eyes and imagined he meant them in
another way. I had wished to pretend for just a few minutes that I
was one of his girls and he wanted me as much as I wanted him.
 
    I look up to all that is Shame and I
instantly blush as I step back from memory lane.  He gives me
a half grin and nods for me to follow behind him.  Of course
he doesn’t have to pull at me much as I am following with vigor
because I’m still lost in my memories.
    “ Give him a break will you, Mace?
He’s feeling a little lost and threatened right now with it being
the one year anniversary of Doc’s death and nothing has been done
about Switch and his crew. We are one year into this and no
retaliation or revenge is even in play.  Doc was a peacemaker,
Mace. So now he’s worried about the Club and its structure.
 We are proving a weakness to them with no revenge for Doc.
Now Hem is attempting to fill in the blanks to ensure its success.
 So far the only plan that we have in place is patching in
Ace, as soon as he starts taking shit more seriously and Gunner,
but damn if he ain’t green and so damn young.  We have other
prospects being considered but this always fell on Doc and now Hem
has to deal with this shit on top of having to deal with