Unattainable Read Free

way
through life.
    And that was it. I had no one else, no
other family to turn to.
    I left Miles City, desperate to get
away from the club life and all it entailed, the day after my high
school graduation. With a full scholarship to San Francisco
University and an internship already in place at a small newspaper,
I had no plans to ever return.
    After leaving, I’d been more than ready
to get rid of “the look” that had defined me all my life, that look
consisting of braces, glasses, secondhand clothing two sizes too
big for me, and wiry red curls that took a day and a half just to
tame in any sort of way.
    One of my first friends in college,
Grace, a true hippie raised on a commune in Northern California,
had taken me under her wing and “crazied me up a bit,” as she liked
to call it. So now I was free of both glasses and braces, my crazy
hair had no choice but to remain in dreadlocks, and my body was a
work of fucking art. Every single one of my tattoos I
loved—colorful, large, and intricate, taking up both my arms, my
back, chest, stomach, and both thighs. And my piercings…eh, I was
fickle. Aside from getting my ear holes stretched a little more
every so often, I’d alternate which ones I wore because I liked to
change it up a bit every now and then.
    In San Francisco, nobody gave me a
second glance. And I loved it. There was no reason to ever return
to Montana.
    Except, that wasn’t in the cards for
me. No matter how hard I tried to cut all ties with Miles City and
its merry band of chrome and leather criminals, they just wouldn’t
let me go.
    After my mother was shot, Jase’s wife
was tried, convicted, and shipped off to prison. My mother
survived, obviously, but the damage had been devastating. Her
memory had suffered, and at first she didn’t remember anyone or
anything. Then, slowly, her memory began to return.
    She remembered her childhood, her
parents, and old friends; she even remembered my father and
eventually me.
    Then the progression came to a
screeching halt. Her last memory of me was as a toddler.
    My entire childhood, my teenage years,
her meeting Jase and leaving my father, the many years of service
she’d devoted to the Hell’s Horsemen Motorcycle Club…all of it was
gone. Forever, it seemed.
    Where did Hawk fit into any of
this?
    Well, as it turned out, my mother, in
the midst of her already fucked-up love triangle, turned to Hawk
for the comfort she couldn’t find with Jase.
    No one had known.
    After my mother had been shot, Hawk
appeared at the hospital in a fury. He beat the crap out of Jase,
during which he spilled the beans about him and my mother, crudely
bringing to light Christopher’s true paternity.
    And now…
    My mother still didn’t remember either
of them. To her, Jase was just some pathetic, broken man who
refused to leave her alone, and the husband of the crazy woman
who’d shot her. And Hawk was the father of the child she didn’t
remember conceiving or carrying.
    As for me, it was hard. There was a lot
of explaining on my part, rehashing year after year in hopes she’d
remember something past my toddler years. A lot of tears were shed,
but eventually she came to accept the fact that she forgot two
decades of her life, and that I wasn’t her baby anymore but a
full-grown woman.
    As for Christopher, she loved him
instantly. Because she didn’t remember him, he was presented to her
as a newborn. The familiar red hair, green eyes, and pale skin
hadn’t hurt much either.
    Which was great, super. Wonderful,
even. But she didn’t remember me and I couldn’t accept
it.
    I felt alone. Orphaned in a
way.
    So I blamed Jase and Hawk, as well as
the entirety of the Hell’s Horsemen Motorcycle Club and their
affinity for drama, for all of it.
    My mother, as confused as she was,
tried to break all ties as well, but Hawk being Christopher’s
father made it hard for her. Several women associated with the
club, women my mother had been close to, also refused to let her
go.