Sorry about the delay guys. I had this chapter already written, but life got in the way of posting it. The semester is almost over for school and I don't plan on taking any classes next semester, so that may free up some time that I can spend working on this story.
- x -
Letty glanced up from the cup of cold coffee in front of her to see her stepson enter the kitchen. No matter what hour of the early morning he seemed to go to bed, he always seemed to be the first one to enter the kitchen after her. Letty listened to him, still staring at her coffee, as he quietly poured himself a glass of milk and looked around for something to eat.
"Good morning?" He questioned, curious why she hadn't said it to him already, like she usually did. She waved him off and he frowned a little, not sure of why she wasn't up to her usual self. "Are you making anything for breakfast, or should I have cereal."
"Fix your own damn breakfast." She muttered, not even looking up from her coffee. Gavin turned toward her and noticed several things immediately. One, she was drinking, or at least had made coffee and it was sitting in front of her, coffee, which she'd never drunk before. Two, there were several empty glass bottles of what should've been filled with amber colored alcohol. And three, her wedding band was gone and she was now absent-mindedly playing with the skin it once covered.
"Letty?" He questioned.
"What the fuck do you want, Gavin?" She questioned, looking up at him. Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks tear-stained.
"What's wrong?" He questioned sincerely, stepping toward her.
"Oh," she chuckled rudely, "now you suddenly care. You never cared before, Gavin. Why do you care now?"
"Did something happen last night? With my dad?" Gavin took another step closer and examined her more carefully. "Where is he?"
"Who cares?" She muttered. Gavin now figured she was drunk and had made the coffee to help her sober up a bit, but hadn't gotten around to drinking any coffee "He doesn't care about you, why would you care about him?"
"What do you mean?" He questioned, now about a foot away from the table where she was sitting. He noticed the dark marks on her arms.
"I'll bet you'll be happy to hear your father and I are getting a divorce. You two are moving back in with your mother." Gavin's heart dropped and he watched her bow her head. He'd never seen her hurting like this before. "Because one day after ten years he decides he's not happy with me anymore."
"What if I don't want to?" He questioned, taking a seat across from her. "What if I want to stay with you?"
"Excuse me." Letty scoffed, looking up at him. "You've got to be kidding me." A pause. "You don't care, Gavin. You don't respect me; you don't talk to me in any manner you should be talking to your stepmother, or any person for that matter. Why would you not want to go with your father?"
"I don't want to live with my mom." He whispered. She looked up at him and he was frowning, heavily, and his eyes were glossy. "Whenever my dad took me to visit, she'd always scream at me for doing things different than what she wanted, doing things the way I did them here. She'd always hit me. You yelled at me too, but you never hit me." Gavin leaned in closer, "You're the only one who cared when I got expelled from school."
"That's because I cared about you, Gavin. I cared what happened to you. I really wanted to see you graduate. I really wanted to see you go to college and get a good job. But you fucked that all up when you decided you wanted to be a little arrogant punk and skip classes and not do homework, all because you wanted people to think you were cool. Look at where that got you: expelled."
Gavin opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it quickly before anything could escape. He nodded and stood quietly from the table, exiting the kitchen. Letty bit her lip and slammed her head down on the table. She really should go upstairs and try and sleep for a few hours and then worry about packing.
Christopher had arrived home earlier that week from his business trip. Letty had taken the kids out, during the time they should've been in school, to an amusement park because they had all behaved very well, even Gavin. When they arrived home, all the fun of the day was washed away when Letty found that Chris was home from his trip early. They'd fought, and then made up.
They'd fought the entire week.
Until last night. By that time, Letty had been tired of the fighting, of the make-up sex, still knowing they'd be fighting again in a matter of hours. That was no way to live their lives and it had to end. She was the one who asked for the divorce. He was the one who threw things and shoved Letty around, and had even smacked her out of anger. She knew he hadn't meant it, but at that point, she was tired of it all.
He confessed her that he'd been cheating on her for over a year now, with Gavin's mother, who he'd met up with at some bar in Denver. (What she was doing there, she didn't ask.) Chris had been running off on his supposed 'business trips' to see her. That was when Letty flung her wedding ring at him and told him to get out. And that was where he threw her against the refrigerator door, bruising her back on the handle and her arms with his hands.
Then he left. And she hadn't seen him since. But that was only a couple hours ago.
- x -
"Mom?" Anthony asked from behind his mom, poking her shoulder. She jumped up, wincing and turning toward him. Her fierce eyes softened when she saw him and she forced out a smile. She felt like she'd sobered a little, taking a nap at the kitchen table, however long it had been. "Are you awake?" He questioned, giving her a worried look. "You've been sleeping here for a while. I think maybe you should go up to bed."
"I'm fine." Letty stood slowly and staggered a little, and stopped herself on the counter behind the table. "Do you want something for breakfast?"
"Mom, it's four in the afternoon." Letty glanced over at the clock then back at Anthony, who gave another worried look. "Sit back down, mom." She started back toward the chair then stumbled forward, falling, hitting her head on the corner of the kitchen table before hitting the floor. "Mom!"
"What's going on?" Gavin asked entering the kitchen. He froze when he saw Letty lying on the floor, partially under the table. "What happened?" Gavin immediately found himself by her side, shaking her gently. "I think we should call an ambulance, her head is bleeding." Anthony nodded and ran for the phone.
"Gavin, did your dad come home yet?" She whispered. Gavin frowned sadly and shook his head slowly. She nodded and started shaking as she started crying again. Letty then muttered something under her breath, but Gavin couldn't quite catch it all, but still frowned. He'd still never seen her hurting so much.
"Anthony is calling an ambulance, okay? They'll be here soon." Gavin held her still as she started moving a little and she whimpered in pain. "Just stay still, they'll take you to the hospital and see what's wrong." Gavin looked down at her wrists and saw the bruises my clearly now. He bit his lip and looked back up at her face, she was still crying pretty steadily. "Are those from my dad?" They stared at each other for a minute and she blinked first, nodding slightly.
"They'll be here in five minutes." Anthony announced, entering the kitchen. "Who's going with her?" Anthony asked Gavin quietly. "I mean, so somebody can call whoever is at home and let them know what's going on."
"You go. She's your mom." Gavin whispered, standing up and turning toward Anthony. "I'll stay here."
In five minutes time, the ambulance had arrived and taken Letty away, leaving Gavin alone with the three younger boys, Patrick, Kyle and Tyler. He paced the floor nervously, awaiting the first call, which he knew would take a while, but couldn't settle himself down.
He was furious. Not only with his father, for leaving the marks on her, but with himself, for getting into trouble and thinking that nobody cared, when actually somebody did. Letty cared. And he now knew that she cared more than his own parents.
"Anthony's dad." Gavin muttered, taking one last glance at his half-brothers who were sitting on the couch watching cartoons, and then heading up the stairs to the master bedroom where his dad and step mom slept. He went straight for Letty's locked box, which was kept under her dresser and the key was found a few minutes later in her top dresser drawer. He opened the locked box and started going through the pictures and the letters, carefully picking an envelope with the most recent date on it, and stuffing it into his pocket.
Gavin moved to the phone on the nightstand and dialed a familiar number then pressed the phone to his ear.
"Holly, I need a big favor. I need you to watch my little brothers for a few days. I need to go to Los Angeles. Look, it's a long story and I don't have a whole lot of time to explain. Please? Thank you so much. I'll just bring them over now. I promise I'll call you when I get there and explain things."
- x -
"Mr. King?" A nurse asked from the door, looking around the empty waiting room.
"Toretto." Anthony whispered, standing slowly, giving a worried look.
"Your mother will be just fine, but it looks like she may be here for a while. Is there anybody else we can call?" The nurse gave him a small, friendly smile but Anthony shook his head. "What about your father?"
"My father lives in Los Angeles. I don't know where my step dad is. He wasn't home all day today." Anthony's voice was soft. He'd really been scared. If he lost his mom, he wouldn't know what he'd do. He knew that Chris hated him and if his mom died, Chris may not let him back in the house.
"Do you know what happened?"
"My step dad left her. Gavin said they got into a fight and he didn't know any details."
"Who's Gavin?"
"He's my step brother."
"Can I call him? Maybe he can join you here?"
"He's at home with our little brothers." The nurse nodded and took a deep breath.
"Well how about we go down and get something to eat?" The nurse asked, putting a hand on his shoulder cautiously. He nodded a little and they left down the hall together.
- x -
"Where have you been, Chris?" Letty asked, tipping back the last of the bottle. She hiccupped and stood from the kitchen table, just to be pushed back down by Chris, who was now less than a foot away from her. "I just want to know where you've been, Chris."
"I went out with a few guys at work." He muttered, leaning in to kiss her neck softly. She could smell the alcohol on him, or was that her?
"Then why do you smell like cheap perfume?" She questioned roughly, leaning into the kitchen table. She was drunk. They were both drunk. If she'd been anything other than drunk then she'd have reacted to the slap Chris had just placed to her cheek. She didn't care. She barely felt it.
"It's probably yours, Letty."
"I don't wear perfume, Christopher." He nodded and scowled at her.
"Fine. Then I'll go ahead and tell you where I've been. I've been meeting up with Christine, Gavin's mom."
"How long?" Letty questioned, still not really caring much.
"Almost a year now." Letty nodded.
"Then I want a divorce."
"What?" He choked. He pulled her to her feet and backed her into the counter. She rolled her eyes and he glared hard. "What did you say, Letty?"
"I said I want a divorce." She whimpered this time when he smacked her again, leaning forward to caress her cheek. "Why wouldn't I? You're out fucking around with some whore." She straightened her back and he took a step away from her. He looked like a wounded animal, walking backward. She slipped her wedding ring off her finger then flung it at him, not caring anymore. He stepped closer now, grabbed her by her shoulders and shoved her into the refrigerator door. She winced and whimpered when the long metal handle dug into her backside.
"You know what Letty? Fuck you." He slammed her back into the refrigerator again and disappeared from the kitchen. Letty stood there for a minute, still wincing in pain. She stumbled over to the kitchen table and put her head down and cried.
- x -
"So, tell me more about your mom, Anthony," the nurse insisted as she watched him eat his food.
"What about her?" He questioned, swallowing the food in his mouth, hard. "She's my mom."
"I'm just trying to get more information for her charts. It makes the doctor's job easier, the more information I know. How many brothers do you have?"
"Four. But Gavin is my step brother. Then there's Patrick, he's 10, and Tyler, who's 8, and Kyle is 6."
"How old are you?" Anthony looked up at her and stared.
"I'm thirteen." The nurse took a deep breath and stared back at him. "Wait a second, you look kinda familiar. What's your name?"
"I'm Lori." The nurse reached her hand across the table and Anthony shook her hand politely with a smile. He tried to think as hard as he could how he knew her, but he didn't know her name even. "Anthony, your mom is my big sister."
"That's why you look familiar." She nodded a little. "You look a lot like my mom. How come I've never met you?"
"Well, when your mother and father split up, she left with you and never came back to Los Angeles. I just happen to be in New York for med school. I just happened to be the nurse to look after your mom. The chances were pretty slim, I think." Anthony nodded and opened his mouth but closed it. "You look so much like your father."
"I know." He whispered, nodding. "My mom tells me a lot."
- x -
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