Endurance -Opie Winston-

Opie

Book 1 Chapter 4

Opie

The days had been going well for Opie. He had been focusing on his work at TM, hiding kids and occasionally working on moving some of Donna's things out of the room. On the first day, he did that. He spent more time crying than going through the dresser. However, after asking Gemma to come and a whole week of working at it at his own pace, he had one dresser down and half of the closet. Opie knew that she would not be able to come back, that was obvious, but he knew he needed to get better. Gemma's words stuck in his head from the first night, 'Donna will always be your wife, but you need to be able to walk in without seeing her ghost haunt you.' That sentiment stuck out to Opie. Donna's ghost was haunting him, she was everywhere, and everything reminded him of her and their life, their struggles, and what wasn't there. Her stuff didn't help him get any closer. It allowed him to think about all the problems they had, the times he missed, and the number of photos he was not in. It was a slap in the face every time he was home. It just brought guilt and shame to him. He needed to be comfortable in his own home.

The kids were doing better. They had been talking to him more. Ellie had a breakdown one afternoon when he was home because she missed her mommy. Donna took Ellie once a month to have a girl's day and get some one-on-one time. Opie had no clue what a girl's day included and had intended to ask Gemma before they got swamped with repos, and then Tig got taken. They were going on a run; Opie went to great lengths to make sure the kids knew he would not be gone long and would be back by the next day to get them from Mary's. Their schedule went to shit when Bobby's bike went haywire and rammed into Tig's, sending him flying down a hill. Continuing with the run was a good option, as Happy, Bobby, and Half-sack were tasked with ensuring Tig got the medical care he needed. Until they ended up getting him taken in the process by some bounty hunters, Tig ran his mouth and got socked in the face, which loosened a tooth.

Pulling into the parking lot of TM, Opie first noticed a black Toyota parked. He guessed it was the backup Gemma had called in to fix Tig's mouth and face. Opie backed his bike up into the line and looked over at Jax and Chibs. "I wonder who she got to come to fix Tig's face?"

Falling into step with the other two, Opie noticed Jax's smirking as he lit a cigarette, "Don't know, but 50 bucks say he tried to grab a tit."

Opie had laughed at that statement then, knowing how pervy Tig was to almost any women it was a given that he would hit on the person who came to clean him up. However, now as he was standing there staring into the chocolate brown eyes of the girl he couldn't stop thinking about, he was glad he lost that bet. Standing in front of him was Becca from Chino, she had been the dentist the guards had brought in to take care of the inmates' teeth. From what Opie had gotten from a young guard they had hired her after getting tired of prison breaks and contraband being smuggled back in when they would take inmates to the offices. They had a male that came, but after he got shivved he didn't come back, the next one was caught smuggling drugs in. Then Rebecca was the next dentist, she was nice, she had treated all of them like they were somebody besides a prisoner. She had been cleaning and working on Opie's teeth for four months before after one bad family day that he broke down and started crying in her dental chair. It was coming to be the kids third Christmas and Donna had brought them but was talking about the lack of money to really do anything during the holidays. It killed Opie, but there was nothing he could do. Rebecca had let him say in her clinic for 2 hours then began putting him on the pull schedule every time she came in. She would talk to him about his life, his kids, taking himself out of the jail for a moment.

Opie could still remember one holiday when she snuck him in a Reece cup, and they shared a two pack as they spoke about their childhood Christmas traditions. When he got out Rebecca was still there in Chino, he felt guilty for not wanting to be out. After five years locked up any saine person would want to be out and free. It got worse when he walked out and there stood Donna and his kids, they had come to pick him up and all he could think about was the brunette that he didn't even get to say goodbye too. Opie blamed it all on Stockholm syndrome or whatever shit that is. She was a pretty girl that got close to him, and he had five years no pussy. The guilt got him there too when he even though he was out, slept with his wife, slept beside his wife. He still thought about the brunette that he shared peanut butter cups with.