Fiction: Shattered Reflection Chapter 8
I'm so, so, so sorry this is so late. I have been going non-stop all day, so this chapter is really rushed. I have no time to read over it because I have to do something for a friend. I'm praying it doesn't suck and that you all don't hate me too much. Please review. I love for feedback...
Title: Shattered Reflections
Chapter: 8
Author: Jailynn
Word Count: 2462
Couple/Show: Ashlee and Rocky, Guiding Light
Disclaimer: Not mine at all
Summary: Ashlee moved away from Springfield after Coop's death and Rocky came back. What if Rocky was Coop's twin? What if Ashlee didn't know that? What then?
Warning: Not beta'd, rushed so probably filled to the top with mistakes...sorry! It might also be crap...
Type: Angst, romance
Acknowledgements: Thank you to Jenny for the beautiful banner.
Feedback: Please I love and need feedback! I'm not afraid to beg... *begs* Please!
Rating: PG-13
==8==8==
Doris watched them kiss from the window and felt a wave of weariness engulf her. She reached out blindly for one of the chairs next to the bay window and dropped down into it. The cushions gave way under her weight. She rested her head on her hand, looking out at the space between her and the rest of the room. All the secrets started pushing more heavily on her shoulders, as if she needed the extra weight. Dropping her hand, Doris pressed her head into the back of the chair, closing her eyes. She heard the front door open and looked at her daughter. She could already see the signs in the way Ashlee held herself. Rocky was finding his way into her system and that could only spell trouble.
The kind of trouble Doris wasn’t sure Ashlee could handle and she knew for a fact she couldn’t. Not right now anyway. Ashlee licked her lips and looked toward Doris sitting in the chair. Doris summoned up all the strength she still had in her body and straightened her spine so that she appeared the way Ashlee thought she should. She locked the tired feeling away in a box deep in her soul then leveled her daughter with a look of concern. “Rocky isn’t like Coop,” she said softly. “He isn’t the type of guy that will drop everything to go visit you in jail. He’s the type of guy that will be part of the reason you are in jail in the first place.”
Ashlee pushed her hair behind her ears and rolled her eyes defiantly. “I’m not falling in love with him, mom.” Her voice shook just enough for Doris to recognize the lie for what it was. She didn’t think her daughter knew what was happening around her. She was still too confused, scared and angry to really face what Rocky was doing to her in two short days. But Doris knew and it was what she was hoping wouldn’t happen. She didn’t tell Ashlee this though; she simply clasped her hands in her lap and nodded slightly. “Rocky is…” the other woman stood still searching for the right word. “He is nothing to me. Well except maybe an annoyance. The kiss didn’t mean anything and it will never happen again.” Ashlee cell phone rang in her pocket and she pulled it out. Her blonde eyebrows came together in confusion, “Daisy is that you?”
Her beautiful daughter turned away from her for just a second to talk with her friend and Doris took that time to relax a little. The charade was so hard to keep up, especially when all she wanted to do was curl up in her bed and sleep. She ran a hand over her face and half listened to Ashlee’s conversation. Her head filled with cotton and pain flared deep in her body. She started breathing as easy as she could to resist going over to the roll away bar and filling one of those tumblers with some of the amber liquor that was in a glass bottle there. Doris licked her lips and some of the pain eased from her bones. Another moment passed without her secret being revealed, she thought as she watched Ashlee pace the small space between the archway and the front door. That thought didn’t bring her any solace though. Buzz’s words from earlier came floating back to her. ‘You can only keep this type of thing a secret for so long.’ Doris prepared herself to tell Ashlee tonight. After all soon she wouldn’t be able to keep anything a secret. Things were getting worse.
“Okay, uh, yeah, I’ll meet you at CO2 tomorrow,” Ashlee said with a small smile in her voice. “Oh, your uncle has definitely made an impression that’s for sure. And I’m not saying it was a good one. It was shocking to see him at first. I thought Coop was back from the dead…” there was hitch in her words. Doris felt and heard the sadness her daughter was trying like hell to hide. She swallowed. She couldn’t tell her. Taking a deep breath, Doris looked at the wood floors and nodded to herself. She’ll wait, just a little longer. “I know he isn’t anything like Coop. I went to his grave today.” Doris looked up at Ashlee licked her lips and shook her head. “So, uh, what time do you want to meet? Two sounds fine. My car is going to the mechanic’s shop on Langley tomorrow around twelve so I’ll already be around there. Okay I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” She turned to Doris after hanging up the phone and must have seen something in her face. Ashlee sighed. “I’m not getting involved with him mom. I’m never going there. What happened tonight…it was a mistake I will never make again. I could never do that to Coop’s memory.” She smiled tightly and then headed upstairs toward her room with Moxie trailing behind her.
Doris watched them disappear from her view and rubbed her eyes. “Never say never, Ashlee,” she whispered into the room. “It will always come back to haunt you.” She got out of the chair and walked over to the bar. She stopped for a second before pulling the top from the bottle of aged brandy. Pouring a healthy amount into one of the crystal tumblers on the cart, she held the drink in her shaking hand and took a deep breath. The glass felt heavy in her hand and against her lips as she took her first sip. The alcohol burned her throat, but helped dull the pain that never seemed to leave her completely. Doris sat back down in the chair she was just in and stared into the air. Her thoughts fell into a loop of what Buzz told her and what she saw with Rocky and Ashlee. The writing was on the wall. “Here we go again,” she whispered and took another sip from her tumbler.
==8==8==
Buzz was wiping down the tables of the restaurant when he heard Rocky’s motorcycle pull into the parking lot. He turned his head toward the door as his youngest son walked in. There was a satisfied smile on his lips that caused the hair at the back of Buzz’s neck to stand up a little. He tucked the rag into his apron, waiting for Rocky to tell him what he did. One thing about his son is that he doesn’t keep secrets very well from him. Rocky placed his helmet on one of the bar stools and Buzz had a flash to when he was about his son’s age. He closed his eyes and he was back in that time when he loved to feel the open road under his Harley Davidson. God, he loved that bike. The way it would shine in the sun and the way the seat fit his body perfectly, the feeling of Nadine at his back with her arms wrapped around him.
It didn’t take much for him to recall the smell of the earth as it whipped passed him, or the sound of the engine revving up to fly or the sight of nothing but the highway before him. In a lot of ways, Coop was like him. They both lived life by a code and tried to do what was right for them. Both fell in love hard and once the right person was in their lives, neither wanted to let go so they fought. They fought family and friends and enemies for the right to be with the woman they wanted. He was proud of Coop for inheriting those traits, but when he looked at Rocky, he really saw himself.
The mirror of life tilted and he was staring into the eyes of his younger self. It wasn’t just the love of having a motorcycle between their legs and the freedom to ride. It was in the devil may care attitude his son possessed. It was in the way Rocky looked at life as if it was his for the taking. Everything about the way he carried himself was Buzz in his twenties. Sometimes it felt like he had traded places with his father watching Rocky do the same stupid things he did as a young man. His pop always told him one day he would pay for all the gray hairs and sleepless nights. Buzz didn’t believe him then but he sure as hell does now. The proof was leaning against the bar in his restaurant in front of him.
Clearing his throat, Buzz walked around the counter to look his son in the eye. “Did you go to talk with Daisy after you left here earlier?” He asked already knowing the answer. He talked to his granddaughter after Doris went home to rest. Buzz’s heart hurt thinking of Ashlee’s mother. She was going through so much, but he had hope that she would tell Ashlee tonight about the burden Doris was carrying. If she didn’t, well, he would. He knew that could jeopardize any chance he had with the beautiful mayor, but he couldn’t watch her buckle under the weight alone anymore. Buzz mentally pushed those thoughts from his head and focused on his son. Rocky leaned against the bar and grinned at him, nodding his head. “And what did she tell you?”
“She told me all about Coop and Ashlee’s relationship,” he responded, leaning over the bar and taking one of the bottles of beer from its spot. He twisted the cap off and spun it on the wood counter. Buzz glared at his son. He knew there would be nasty dents in the wood from that trick. Rocky had the grace to look embarrassed and slapped his hand down on the metal, stopping it with a smack. “They really were star-crossed at one point weren’t they? Dorrie really hated them together. I can just picture Coop telling her to mind her own business. Too bad she was right about Cooper and Ashlee. They weren’t right for each other.”
Buzz sighed. “I don’t know if they were or weren’t and now we’ll never know.” He wiped the counter while he spoke, his mind on the past. “I can tell you that Ashlee made your brother happy. He really loved her, but they just grew apart.” He looked into Rocky’s blue gray eyes. Those eyes were so much like Coop’s he felt his heart break a little. “I believe that had life not dealt Coop the cards it did, they could have found their way back together. They were just that type of couple. But Coop made some wrong choices and tried to take what Alan believed was his and he lost his life for it.” Buzz leaned his elbows on the bar and sighed again. “If Daisy told you the whole story than you realize why I don’t think it’s smart for you to get involved with Ashlee.”
“Pop,” Rocky started climbing on the bar stool next to his helmet. “Don’t you think two years is enough time to be lonely? She misses Coop, I get that. We all miss him, but he isn’t coming back. He’s dead and as much as I hate that fact, I can’t change it. I like Ashlee. I think she’s interesting and fun and just a hard enough chase that I won’t get bored.” He took a sip from his beer and smirked proudly. “And I think she is as attracted to me as I am to her. She just needs to get over Coop’s ghost is all.”
“How do you think she’ll do that when you look just like him?” Buzz wondered. “You don’t think it will tear her up to even think about dating Coop’s twin?” He shook his head. “Ashlee isn’t ready and even if she was, I don’t think it’s a very good idea. You aren’t the type a guy that likes to hang in there through the rough stuff.”
“Says the guy that ditched his first wife because the thought of raising two children scared him to death,” Rocky returned with narrowed eyes.
The statement cut like only the truth can. Buzz nodded his head somberly. “Yeah, I was that guy. I was that guy twice. Once with Nadine and once with Jenna, so I know what I’m thinking about. Rocky you are just like me. You like freedom too much and that will only hurt Ashlee. The last thing she needs is to be hurt by you.” He bent his head and grabbed a beer for himself. “Especially when she finds out about Doris,” he mumbled quietly. It wasn’t silent enough though.
“What about Dorrie?” Rocky’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “You know Ashlee was looking for something earlier today. It had to do with old Dorrie as well. What kind of secrets are you hiding, pop?”
“You saw Ashlee?”
“Don’t change the subject,” Rocky leaned toward him. “What’s going on, dad? And why will it affect Ashlee so badly?”
Buzz swallowed nearly half his beer in one gulp and shook his head. It wasn’t his secret to tell.
==8==8==
Ashlee made to her bedroom with her heart in her throat. She pulled out the stack of papers from her back pocket and sat on her bed. She placed the documents next to her, staring at the carpet between her feet. The need to know what was going on with her mother was warring with the guilt she felt for snooping through Doris’s things. She stood up and paced the length of her bedroom floor. It was wrong to read those papers. She could just go down stairs and confront her mother, but something told her that she wouldn’t get a straight answer. The only way for her to know was to read the truth for herself.
Trying to settle her stomach, she sat back down and pulled the papers into her lap. She closed her eyes for a second then opened them slowly, preparing herself for whatever she found out. Nothing concerning her mother would surprise her anymore, so this shouldn’t be an issue. Doris has done some horrible things and she has some dark demons in her closet and Ashlee knew that, so no matter what she would just deal like she has a thousand times before. Just keep her face forward and push through, it’s worked in the past and it will work now.
Keeping that thought in her head, Ashlee looked at the first paragraph. It didn’t take long for her heart to drop completely out of her throat and crash land somewhere near her knees. The words didn’t make sense. Once again, nothing made sense in her life…
End of chapter 8
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