Poison Ivy | Jordan Poole

twenty three.

On the first page of our story

The future seemed so bright

Then this thing turned out so evil

I don't know why I'm still surprised

Even angels have their wicked schemes

And you take that to new extremes

Elizabeth Sioux was an enigma. As she stared out at the Nevada desert she tried to bite back the anxiety that had been gnawing at her gut the past few months. She was seated at the coffee shop she and the girls always frequented but it wasn't bringing the peace it usually did. Lately, she'd been rocked by her own personal issues, Ivy's struggles, and her prayer that Isla who'd gotten married mere months prior wasn't rushing a family and putting herself in jeopardy of heartbreak. She wasn't used to stability; in fact, she'd never managed to achieve it in her life until recently and now it all seemed to be crumbling.

She didn't want to lay her burdens on her daughters, she'd done enough of that, and they all had been through too much. Besides, two of them were about to bring new lives into the world. She wouldn't burden them down with her past or present. She didn't even want to burden Al and perhaps that's why she'd began to push him away too.

Love wasn't a thing she was familiar with, not purely at least. Every version of it she'd ever experienced was tainted by secrecy or abuse or neglect. There was no perfect man in her eyes. That's why Yara's life had taken her by surprise, Isla's had slapped her with dread and Ivy's with the fear of the unknown. They'd all managed to attach themselves to men who should be good, but she knew better than to trust a book based on its shiny cover. There was always so much more when you unearthed someone's layer.

As she stared at the missing poster of Darius plastered on her Instagram home screen she sighed inwardly. If only she'd known the monster her daughter had dated, if only she recognized it. Every time she thought of Ivy's broken countenance, the faraway look in her eyes when she admitted the abuse- Elizabeth felt like a failure all over again. She knew what it was like to be a man's punching bag emotionally and physically. She never wanted that for any of them.

Perhaps it was their family's curse. Her mother had abandoned her abusive father and she never knew him. Unwittingly, she'd fallen into the same cycle with twin girls who needed her and an older daughter whose father couldn't publicly claim her.

As a mother she'd done a lot of bad, but she hoped there was more good in the end. When she'd stepped away from her nursing career to help Isla get her business off the ground she'd felt gratified. When she managed to finesse both girls a spot in the best public school in their district she felt she was solidifying their future. When she left her eldest Yara with Denise at four years old, she knew it was for her betterment. When she couldn't be everything her daughter's needed, she found a person that could be.

Now, when she needed someone, them, a part of her was still too ashamed of her missteps to ask for aid. Her debt was piling, the business wasn't doing what it used to do with Isla at the helm and she feared it may be going under. The salon they'd worked so hard for was failing with each day that went by. She'd started taking random shifts to augment her income which had placed an exhaustive burden on her shoulders.

Shaking her head, Elizabeth sipped from her caramel macchiato and tried to calm her nerves. Suddenly, someone sat across from her prompting her to look up into a face she never thought she'd ever see again.

The handsome man smirked at her before he placed his drink on the table. The smell hit her first and then familiarity came after- black coffee, no sugar or cream. His order hadn't changed in twenty-five years. He looked the same, time had hardly aged him, but she could see by the cut of his jaw and the steel in his eyes that whatever she'd feared about him before, there was more to fear now. There was no light in his eyes, just cold calculation.