Page 538 of The Tempted
Chapter Thirteen
It’s exhausting fighting with your own head and most of the time I believe it’s worth the battle. In essence I’m the winner because I didn’t feed from the lies my mind tried to fill me with. But what if they aren’t lies? What if the thoughts that your mind creatively spins is the actual truth you were trying to ignore?
I have struggled to own my truth, the one that my heart tells me and not the one my mind does. I tell myself my mind plays tricks on me, that it wants me to believe one thing when I believe another. I argue that my truth is real because I feel it and don’t think it. The heart is a thing of beauty, something that thrives on love and affection, not lies. So, when your heart calls to you, you listen to nothing but the beating vessel of truth.
But I don’t know if those are the thoughts of a naïve girl desperate for someone to love her or if they are the thoughts of a strong woman who fought for control over her mind and found truth in the jaded eyes of the man she loves.
He barely looked at me. I visited him every day for two weeks, whether it was for five minutes or two hours, I didn’t miss one day. I sat there, holding his hand and asked him all the questions I wished he’d answer, like why everyone calls him Blackie, and if the club chose him or he chose the club. I wanted to know everything about him, even the ugly, and then I wanted to be the one to show him that where there is ugly there is beauty.
I wanted him to wake up and realize that he was gifted a second chance at life, and as much as I wanted him to look at me and notice I was standing in front of him asking for a chance to love him—I wanted for him to look in the mirror and decide his life was worth something.
He woke up.
Thank God, for that.
But, he woke up and he looked right through me. It was like I didn’t exist and every touch, every small gesture, and stolen glance----they were all figments of my imagination. A cruel trick my mind played on my heart.
The heart doesn’t lie.
The mind does.
The heart is gullible.
The mind is vindictive.
I glanced around the empty hallway, taking deep breaths as hot tears streamed my face. I heard Riggs and Bones walk out of Blackie’s room and I quickly spun around, wiping at my cheeks with the back of my hands and hurried down the hallway.
I needed to get out of here. I had already made a fool out of myself, charging into his room like his woman, earning suspicious eyes from the club….my father included. Everyone excerpt Blackie.
Get over it, you’re nothing but Jack’s daughter.
He doesn’t want you.
He looks at you and still sees you as Little Lacey Parrish.
You’re just a job.
You’re nothing.
“Shut up,” I hissed, through clenched teeth as I collided with another body. I lifted my head and stared at my father’s girlfriend.
“Looking for these?” Reina asked, holding up my keys.
“How?”
“You dropped them on your way to see Blackie,” she stated, reaching into her purse she pulled out a handful of tissues and handed them to me.
I forgot that I bumped into her. This morning we buried my uncle, my father’s brother Danny, whom Jimmy Gold killed months ago. The feds had just released his body after closing their investigation and my father had Bones’ set up a small burial at Green-Wood cemetery. After the service, when everyone was getting ready to leave, Pipe announced the hospital had called and Blackie had finally woken up. I went home with my mother, lied to her about meeting up with my friend Daniela and drove my ass straight here. I was in such a hurry I nearly knocked Reina on her ass.
“Dry your eyes,” she insisted.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I tried to cover.
“Oh honey, it’s exactly what it looks like,” she laced her arm through mine as Wolf’s voice sounded from down the hallway.
“Let’s get out of here,” she whispered, leading me to the bank of elevators. Once we were inside she pointed to the ceiling covered in silver paneling that acted like a mirror. I went to work wiping the mascara that painted my face.
The doors opened and we stepped off, making our way through the lobby and outside.
