Camden (The Henchmen MC 18)

For a while, back when I was still seeing her, I had been given assignments to try to rely less on kneecapping my sentences. But after therapy stopped, after I got old enough to start dating, after I realized that a lot of guys were like my father - or worse - and that being soft sometimes was a strength, I stopped even noticing I was doing it. Somehow, seeing it written made it glaringly obvious to me.

I obsessed about this fact the entire time I ran to the grocery store to stock up on the 'cheap essentials,' as my mother would call them - pasta, beans, rice, lentils, frozen veggies that were always on sale, white bread, peanut butter, potatoes, bananas, eggs, and canned tuna. I went ahead and splurged on a bag of Macintosh apples that were on sale because of back-to-school as well, knowing they wouldn't go to waste.

My mother had gotten really good at living on a budget after my father hired a shark of a divorce attorney, not wanting her to get anything from him. So we lived off the child support he wasn't regular with and her job as a cashier at a convenience store and, when I was older, a second shift as a waitress. As one could imagine, things were tight. There were no luxuries like eating out or new clothes for the school year or vacations. We spent our summers at free parks and libraries. Christmases consisted of boxes full of whatever items could be found at a dollar store. As a kid, some decent toys. As I got older, discounted beauty supplies, little figurines with uplifting sayings, and puzzles.

Puzzles were my favorite memory of my mom.

On nights after she got home or on weekends, we would grab one of those five-hundred or bigger piece puzzles, spread it out on the folding table we had just for the purpose, and work on it while talking about what we would do when she finally got a better job, or we hit the lottery or she - and this was said entirely in jest - married rich.

Spend the entire week at the beach.

Eat nothing but take-out for a whole weekend.

Buy takeaway coffee on our way to work or school.

You could tell how poor we were by how modest our desires often were. We didn't want sports cars or mansions or to travel the world. We just wanted little luxuries. We wanted something a bit easier than our bellies full of cheap food and only ever having the lights on until eight at night because we couldn't afford them to be on any later than that, or worrying that I would get teased because the only pants I had were a little short on me, and kids could be cruel about the most inconsequential of things.

She never did get to get that better job or the winning lottery ticket or marry rich.

She had to cut coupons and watch for sales and stand on her feet for double shifts until the night before she passed in her sleep. The cause had never been found. I was left with a fancy set of words that didn't really mean much - Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome - and my own shattered heart at the ripe old age of twenty-two.

At the time, I thought it was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.

Of course, life would show me otherwise.

But I guess I was thankful, in a terrible sort of way, that we had struggled so much. It had given me the tools I needed to be able to live frugally now, when it was so badly needed.

I was just digging for my key when I noticed new writing on the board - short, choppy letters that looked undeniably masculine next to my admittedly very feminine curly letters.She's Bean Around will let you post anything you want. The gyms will too - the fighting gym and the regular one - if you mention I sent you. Hope that helps. - CAMI smiled a bit at his all-capital name, oddly pleased to be on a nickname basis with him. And more than a little thankful that he seemed rather well-connected in the town. I squashed down the realization that it was because he was an outlaw biker, choosing instead to look on the bright side - something that was not as easy as it used to be for me. I just had no room for more negativity. I needed to get some posters up in as many places as possible, get some work, make more money so I could take a deep breath again.

It was starting to feel like I was choking a bit. All the uncertainty, all the worries. I had never been an anxious person, and when life had shoved a bunch of panic-inducing things at me, my system hadn't been prepared for the assault. Thankfully, my bouts of anxiety came hard and fast for a few days, then dissipated just as suddenly.