Runner

Chapter 2

Unedited

18+ extreme violence and subjects that could trigger people in this chapter.

Photo of Lilly.

Whispering Springs Colorado.

I bought a pay phone in Charlotte so I could research a place to call home. Whispering Springs Colorado just seemed perfect.

It's a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the mountains, in the middle of the state. It's perfect, it's already home.

Rubbing my still flat belly a new habit that I find I do when nervous. Like a little rub for courage. I quietly send a promise to love and take care of the baby inside it. To give it the home I never had.

I grew up in a miserably wealthy family. My Daddy was a banker and my Mama was a social light. While I was their doll that they dressed up and brought out for company when it pleased them.

We were the picture perfect family from the outside. My Daddy was handsome he had a face from Hollywood and a mind made for business. While his wife my Mama was a stunning blond straight from old southern money. And then there was me their quiet, obedient green eyed daughter. Everyone thought we were living the dream.

But in reality I was raised by too many nannies to count. I was never tucked in as a child because Daddy was off working, and Mama was sleeping with what felt like everyone. So it was just me and the help. Which would have been okay but every time I started to get close to one my Mother would find a reason to fire them.

"One must keep a professional distance between themselves and the hired hand darling." She would tell me in a patronising tone when she caught me hugging one, or heard me ask for one.

What she meant was "One must keep a professional distance from everyone, including your family. But not from your husband's friends or millionaire boss who liked bottle blonde wives with fake boobs."

When I turned 12 my Mother left my Father for his retiring boss, James White. Our family no longer looked so happy from the outside but she was past caring because she was filthy rich.

James was handsome in his youth but was much older when my mother sank her claws in him. She was wife number 6 and she intended for him to stop there. No matter what she had to do.

She had everything she ever wanted after she took full custody of me and separated me from my Daddy. It was one last middle finger to the man who really did nothing wrong. If anything I had always thought he had worked so much so he could keep her up.

I didn't really matter at that point neither parent had ever really cared for me so it didn't matter who had custody of me. But when James started to get a little handsy after he had too much to drink. I realized that being ignored at my Father's was something I didn't mind.

So after one too many nights of sneaking into my room after he had one too many whiskey sours I decided it was time to give living with my Dad a try.

My Dad was all too happy to have me living with him instead of my Mother. Not because he was concerned about his daughters well being living under the roof of another man but because it was something he had that my mother didn't. It was a final fuck you.

The day I turned 18 I left a note on my father's desk telling him that I was moving to New York. I left the pamphlet for the culinary school I was accepted in and I bailed.

I wanted to be a baker, I wanted to own my own bakery, I wanted independence. But most of all I wanted to love, and to be loved.

I met Red the year after I graduated, he came into the bakery I was working at every morning for coffee and a pastry.