Poison: Devil's Rose MC #4

Chapter 1: Dakota Knight

Dedication:
Even though you forced
me to write this 
'cause you saw that I wrote
dedications to you in other books
and not in this one,
I still love you.

When I first met Poison, which is what he goes by now apparently, we were just kids. Literally just kids. He was always hanging around my two younger brothers, causing trouble everywhere they went. 

And he is one year older than me, so he would have been around fifteen at the time and still thought it would be a good idea to put fake spiders on chairs and force my brothers to eat grass. 

The most ridiculous shit that the three ever got up to most definitely came out of that boy's head. He wasn't Poison to me though, he was Annoying Antonio who used to wear my mother's high heels around my house to make me smile.

I haven't been back to my hometown in a long time, that's a story for another day, but I was not expecting Antonio - Poison - to be the way he is now. 

He's still a goofy guy, I saw him walking down Main Street with only socks and underwear on for who knows what reason, but he knows how to shoot a gun now. 

That's weird to me. 

He's not the boy I used to know, and I can't help but be curious as to why. On the outside, this town, the people living in this town, didn't change. So why did he?

I don't hang around the Devil's Rose MC. At least not as much as Antonio tries to get me to. I've been back for about three months now, he knows I'm spending lots of time to myself so he wants me to hang out with his new friends, but I don't know. 

I see him standing there, muscles bulging out of a light denim blue cut with patches of skulls and his name imprinted on the back, and something inside of me crumbles. Like, the person who used to be standing there and smiling at me no longer exists. 

I guess that's true though. It's not like I'm the same person either. It's been a long fifteen years. A very long fifteen years.

Have you ever thought about the moment in your life that changed it forever? Have you ever thought about what would have resulted if that moment didn't happen? Would you end up differently or would you be the same? 

Even after all this time, I continue to ask myself these questions. When the trio of rascals crashed and splintered, there was no reason to stay. Nothing was holding me here. My parents always, and I mean always, did their best. 

It's just that nothing was the same. Because of that, I uprooted everything. I was leaving anyway for college, and it was clear to me that I had to go. It was time for something different.

And when I came back, I'm not sure why I expected everyone and everything to be the same. There has been a motorcycle club here since the beginning of my life, it was here before I was born, but I did not think that Antonio, I mean Poison, would ever join it. 

He says that they take care of him though, better than anyone ever did, and he seems happy. I can't ask for more. It's all I ever wanted for him. I never thought that's where he would find it. But there he is and here I am. In the same place but not where we used to be.

I walked by my childhood home the other day. I can still smell the potent scent of these certain flowers that seem to sprout in our front yard every day of the year, regardless of the heat. I swear, we had to walk through a jungle of them and come out smelling like rotten fish with pollen dusted along our shoulders. 

My brothers, knowing I had bad allergies and still do to this day, would rub their dirty little bodies against me while I tried not to sneeze myself to death. Antonio never did though, he found that a bit too mean. He was way nicer than he let on.

However, those flowers no longer grow. The front is full of bare, brown grass, the bright yellow paint chipping in chunks, and the windows were broken and cracked. Moss and vine dangled off all corners, the concrete driveway splintering from erosion of wind and rain, and the roof was pretty much gone. 

The house is at the edge of the woods with a moderately sized meadow in the middle, so we would always see deer, cool birds, and sometimes even black bears which were incredibly scary walking around our backyard. I just remember feeling such freedom running through the tall grasses during the summer, the hot breeze flowing through my hair. 

Those days are gone.

I couldn't get myself to get super close, it was like I could feel the past rattling my bones. I could smell the oldness of it from the empty dirt road. It reminded me of the Forest Gump scene when Jenny goes back to her childhood and throws rocks, screams, and whatever else. 

I don't know, it was just incredibly depressing. Knowing that my family won't ever return here together as a complete unit. That I'll probably be the only one to ever see this house again. 

One of these days I'm going to be brave enough to go inside. It'll probably be ruined by animals, but I don't care, as long as I step inside.

Now though, I've been staying in a not-so-crappy apartment on Main Street. It's not bad, not liveable forever, but enough to get me by these next few months while I figure out what to do with my life. 

Maybe, and only maybe, I'll go back to painting. I haven't done that in ages. There's not much I want to paint. I haven't found my new muse yet. I'm optimistic though, which is something that I haven't been for quite some time. It'll all work out, right?

I mean, it's not like everything in my life is completely terrible. There have been many enjoyable moments and bright days that have been good. I tend to focus on the negative, but I'm trying to get better at not doing that. I've found good things, and I've kept them to better my surroundings and self. 

That's my type of self-care. 

I enjoy reading, painting, dancing, watching movies, and listening to music while screaming to the lyrics. Napping, especially in the sun, is another highlight of life. Seeing dogs on the street and sipping on a hot, sweet Chai tea.

Amongst the pain and suffering, there's always something that can make you happy. When I was a kid, that is what Antonio was to me. I could always look to him, and he would be there as ready and willing as possible. 

He's still that guy, I'm sure that he is, but maybe I'm not exactly brave enough to try to seek him out. And I wouldn't say that I'm afraid of the Devil's Rose MC in general. They are mostly teddy bears guys who are extremely protective of the people they care about.

 I knew some of the other members through my childhood as well, I think it's not knowing who Antonio truly is anymore. That's what scares me. It probably shouldn't at all, and I'm thinking way too deeply about this. 

Oh goodness, gracious. I don't understand my brain sometimes. Like why the heck do I make things more complicated for myself? I could walk through the bar doors, order a drink, ask for Poison, be pointed to him, and have a nice and lengthy catch-up. 

He knows I'm here. I waved at him the other day, I don't know why I can't talk to him. When did talking become such a messy situation with him specifically? I'm psyching myself out, I know it. It's ridiculous.

"Dakota, is that you?"