Micah
When I woke up this morning, there felt like a shift in my world. Given my task for the day, meaning getting the shit beat out of me, it was most likely going to be a bad day. One that had been coming a long time, and I just wanted it over with so we could move on.
Leaving Sumner wasn’t an easy choice. Living here was the only thing I’d ever known. Only I had this stirring of my soul that called for me to go out and see more of the world. I wanted to get out, far away from this place. Growing up, this wasn’t anything I thought about as my home in adulthood. Going to college, I thrived away from here.
Then, something inside me changed, but it wasn’t enough. The pull to come home had finally started, but when I got here, things weren’t what I expected. Taking a hard look at myself in the mirror, I realized Sumner wasn’t the problem. Ravage wasn’t the problem. The problem was the man looking back at me in the mirror.
The military was my out; at least, I saw it that way at the time. Looking at it now, the Marines turned out to be my saving grace. I’m the man I am today because of my time in the service.
There are things I saw that I never imagined experiencing, things I never want to relive. But in all the bad, now I see just how good I always had it here with Ravage.
I’d hated the Ravage MC for so many years, and all I could think about was getting far away from it. To be rid of the thing that took over our lives. Sure, I went to college, but I had to come back. Only my mindset was wrong. I came back to prove I had it better than Ravage … and in the end it left me on my ass knowing I didn’t have shit but a whole lot of attitude.
My hate was misplaced.
I knew that now. It didn’t mean that I walked away unscathed. The Ravage MC never let things slide, and before I left, I dropped a bomb on the club.
The club had questions, and I had answers.
Ones they wouldn’t like hearing. But it was time for it all to come out. It was time for the consequences of my actions. I got in club business, and no one without a patch needed to be in club business. I crossed a line. The man I had become knew the only way to move forward was to face what lay behind me.
“Hey, Micah.” The soft knock came to the door as it creaked open, just like when I was a kid. My beautiful mother stood there reminding me of the past.
“Hey, Mom. I’m already up.” The Marines taught me discipline and control. That included sleeping light and waking early. Not to mention, keeping my shit well put together.
“You’ve made your bed?” Mom asked as I rose from it. I stopped myself from laughing out loud. As a kid, she couldn’t get me to make my bed ever. If I did “make it” that meant I tossed the comforter over the top, hiding the disheveled sheets beneath.
“Yeah. Habit,” I muttered, looking back and seeing that I could indeed bounce a quarter off it if I needed to. Corners folded sharp and everything tucked in tight, I was at the ready for my day, and my rack was at the ready when the time to take my boots off happened to come.
She shook her head. “Wish you would’ve done that in high school. It was hard enough to get you to eat with us.”
A sigh escaped me. She wasn’t wrong. “I was a little shit. You can say it.”
My mom wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly. I returned the gesture. It was one of many things I missed while gone. Her comfort. She’d always been such a rock for me, and I never gave her the recognition she deserved.
Her body began to shake as I reassured, “It’ll be alright.” Whether it would or not was up in the air, but somehow, some way, I’d make it okay for her.
“Sit,” she ordered, sitting on the bed, one that was very small and didn’t fit my frame one bit. It was a good thing my body adjusted to sleeping in difficult conditions. Luckily, though, the closing for the house had already gone through, and I’d be getting the keys later today.
I followed her instructions, sitting next to her and wondering what she wanted to get off her chest. It could be a number of things.
“Do you remember what we talked about? The conversation about why you hated the club?” she asked me. How could I ever forget? Even years ago, my memory was sharp.
Her hand came to my shoulder. “Micah, talk to me. Just you and me. Tell me what’s going on with you.”
Blowing out a breath, I picked out some more of the pictures. Some with me paying attention, others with me not. Each one a memory of my childhood, one that I wished I could go back and talk to my mother about. May as well get it out now.
“You didn’t like Dad gone so much.”
Mom jolted like what I was saying was out in left field, then cleared her throat. “I was fine with it.”
Raising my brow, she shook her head. “Okay, there were times it was hard, but it was hard raising you, and with him gone a lot was put on my shoulders.”
“But you never talked to him about it.”
“How do you know that?” My mother’s eyes narrowed.
“Because he always left again and sometimes longer than the time before. I heard you, Mom. Heard you in your room crying sometimes.”
Her chin went down to her chest as she shook her head. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“But I did. I hated it. Hated that the club took him away from you and made you sad.”
Her head lifted like a lightbulb had just gone off in her brain. Like the pieces of my puzzle were finally coming together for her. “And that’s why you have such an issue with the club.”
I nodded.
Her soft hands came to my face and cupped my cheeks. “Life is hard. There are no roadmaps that tell you what path to go down. It’s all trial and error. Sometimes you win a path, and sometimes it turns in to a mistake you can’t fix. I knew what I was getting into with your father. I knew he’d be gone because that’s part of his job. Yes, some times were hard because it’s overwhelming being alone with a small kid running under your feet all the time, but I’ve never once thought badly of your father or the club because of it. Those were my feelings, and I didn’t project them on anyone else. Not even you. I’m sorry that you heard, but I wish you would’ve talked to me then, not bottled it all up for so long.”
My chest hurt. She was right. I should’ve talked to her. But once again I was young and didn’t want anyone to see her differently. I thought I was protecting her, but instead, I turned my mind into knots.
Club life had these men on such pedestals. You didn’t ask questions, and you didn’t ever do anything to make you look weak. That’s how it seemed when I was a boy. Like what kind of family doesn’t allow someone to have a bad day. Now, as a man, I could see it was not that way. The vision was skewed. They had each other’s backs so no one was ever alone, and there was always strengths in numbers. I just couldn’t see it back then.
“Sorry,” I whispered, feeling tears well in my eyes; not that I’d let a single one fall.
“No, I’m sorry because my actions caused you to have a skewed outlook on the club, your father, and me. That’s not something you need to carry around with you, and it pains me that it has.”
“I didn’t tell you this to make you sad. I just…”
She reached out and cupped my face. “No. I’m not sad or disappointed with you at all.”