Bullet: Devil's Rose MC #5

Chapter 5: Piper Bardot

The more I'm around Bullet, the more I realize that I cry a lot. He's the one making me cry, but I guess I never noticed how easy it is for me to cry. After I went through so much bullshit with my medical issue and I had a ridiculously expensive surgery, everyone around me, including my loving and supportive family, kept telling me I would be stronger. 

Through the hardship, I would come out a liberated, fierce, and tenacious woman. I would rise from the ashes per se. However, I have not turned out that way at all. I have gone in the opposite direction. I constantly want to lay in bed and never get out. 

I have no desire to explore life and have new experiences. I'm done. I'm out. I feel like I am good on the whole adventurous life type thing.

I thought I was going to die for a second there. A person would think that would improve my zest for life, instead, it has been destroyed. Utterly and unheroically destroyed. I don't exactly want to die. I feel like I would be putting myself back in a bad situation that I only want to return to when I know it's my time to die. 

During the breast cancer period of my life, I knew I had to hold on to something or someone. Whatever it was is still unknown to me, but I knew I had to live. I want to die when I don't feel that anymore. I mean, that would be ideal.

But now that I'm not dying, actively at least, I just don't feel anything besides sadness. That sounds like a symptom of depression. I feel sadness, but I don't know if I'm depressed. I can still get out of bed, eat, sleep, shower, and walk out my front door. I just feel sorta numb. 

Besides me wanting to cry all the time. And while I appreciate them, everyone walks on eggshells around me. Even the scariest man I've ever seen named Reaper is treating me like I am going to fall apart. 

And yeah, I might, I probably will, but maybe I need to fall apart to build myself back up. Isn't a person supposed to hit rock bottom?

I came back to this town thinking that I would be able to breathe for a moment. That hasn't happened. Sometimes, surrounded by people who are more worried than my parents, I can barely think because it's just so much. I'm not saying I'm ungrateful. 

I am so thankful that they care for me and want to support me. I'm so thankful that I have people, and they do so many wonderful things for me even after not knowing me for long. I'm so thankful that I feel like I belong here, and they have allowed me to grow. 

However, it can be suffocating to have people care as they do. I guess that's why my family was okay with me moving back. I will never leave this place. I don't want to go anywhere else. 

I just think that they need to let go of their worry. That's why I didn't let anyone tell Bullet what happened, what my medical trauma truly was. He's the only one who treats me like I'm not about to break. 

Along with everything else that I've lost, I don't know if I'll survive if I lose that. As much as he drives me out of my mind. No one has ever annoyed me as much as he does, but I don't know if I would get out of bed if he wasn't there to yell at me and make me cry.

"Piper, are you feeling better?"

"Yeah, much."

"I'm sorry that Bullet is so shitty to you."

"You have nothing to apologize for, Beatrice. I don't think his anger is because of me, he's just directing it at me."

"I'm so glad you didn't die."

I shake my head, smiling down at the plate of french fries below me.

"Me too."

"It sounds cliché, but you are good for him. I hate that he's hurting you, I'm not gonna lie. I will be going after him the moment he gets back from whatever the guys are doing and make him think twice about what he says. He doesn't trust anyone, so he doesn't care about anyone, so he doesn't think about what he's saying. He ends up hurting people. You might change that."

"I'm not a therapist. I don't know how to do that."

"I don't think he wants a therapist. I think that you naturally get him to chill."

I see the tears gathering in her eyes, making my heart ache at her expression.

"I hate seeing Bullet so angry at the world. I know we haven't known each other long, but he doesn't want to feel that way, that much I can tell."

"You think so, Piper? Because we're all heartbroken."

"Eventually, once he realizes how many people he's pushed away, he might change. I mean, the only times he talks to me is when he's yelling, but he feels guilty about it. One day he might feel guilty enough to make some attitude changes."

Beatrice blinks away the tears gathering in her sweet and melancholic brown eyes.

I don't think I've ever fully understood the effect that Bullet's attitude has had on everyone until now. I knew that he was 'hurting' me, but I didn't think that everyone around him was as affected as they seem to be. 

I haven't known Bullet as a nice human being, so that could just be because I don't know him other than the person he is now. Clearly, the rest of the Devil's Rose MC has seen sides of Bullet that I haven't. I would love to eventually see them. 

What this tells me is that because he wasn't always this way means that something triggered it. He could potentially talk about what he's going through, he could deal with it. He's not a natural asshole.

Which only makes me want to know him more. I'm not about to be scared off by him. I might cry again, I'm sure I'm going to, but he's more than a jerk. I discovered that he's truly hurting within himself. That's causing him to hurt others. It's not an excuse, it's a reason. 

If that reason can be somehow...not healed but soothed, maybe he will be able to change the way he treats himself and others. In pushing other people away, he isolates himself. Beatrice told me he doesn't trust anyone, and in doing that, he's reaping the consequences of that. 

I don't think he wants to be alone. He's just having a hard time being vulnerable.

I get that more than he knows.

It's hard letting others see you in pain. Mental, physical, or emotional pain.

But I've realized throughout the many trials that I have been through, letting other people in usually doesn't harm you, it only helps you. If they are the right people at least. I think what's hard is finding the right people or realizing you have them. 

Especially when you've never been taught how or know what the right people might be for you. I have a feeling there are many complicated layers to Bullet, besides his name, which I don't understand how he got.

His behavior is completely on him though. He has a lot to apologize for. Just because he's hurting doesn't give him the right to hurt others. Before he can apologize genuinely, he has to figure out how to deal with the pain inside of him. Whatever the source is, he has to fix the way he treats people, there's no way around that.

"Piper, hey, how are you feeling?"

"Hi, Teegan. I'm feeling better. Bullet's a complicated person."

"To put it lightly, I would say so. Do you know where all the guys are?"

"Some prospects are here looking out for us, but I heard Fiona say something about a run. Whatever that means."

She points to the seat across from me, silently asking if she can sit.

"Sure, sit."

"I can tell you if you want."

"I would love to ask you some MC questions."

Teegan smiles brightly at me, and I can tell she would be happy to.

"I'll do what I can."