Jigsaw (Hell's Handlers MC 3)

Len believed in her.

Izzy’s chest started to ache, and her eyes stung. God, she was going to miss him.

Two hours later, all Len’s belongings were stuffed into three bulging suitcases and waiting by the front door when he came home from work.

The oblivious smile that curved his mouth the moment he laid eyes on Izzy cracked her heart in two. Shame filled her, and she stared everywhere but at his happy-to-be-home-after-a-long-day grin. She could have told her mother no. Could have refused to help her fill those suitcases. Could have demanded Catalina stop giving into her raging insecurities and use her brain like a rational adult.

But Izzy hadn’t. She’d kowtowed to her mother’s wishes like she always did. Long ago, she’d learned standing up to her mother when Catalina was in one of those frantic fits was pointless. Her mom would scream. And not yell like a frustrated parent whose child did something wrong. No, this was an intense, lost all control, screeching like a banshee kind of screaming. Once, in a haze of mania, she’d even slapped Izzy across the face. Never again had Izzy backtalked in those tense moments.

Suddenly it was too much. The impending ugly words between her mom and Len, the sadness and pain on the horizon, the upcoming loneliness of the apartment once it was just her and her unstable mother. Izzy sprung from the couch and flew at Len. Her arms locked around his hefty waist, unable to meet in the back.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed into his soft stomach.

“Shh, Izzy-bella,” he whispered into her hair. He sounded resigned as if he knew this was coming and wasn’t a bit surprised.

But he did sound sad.

“I love you,” she said, the words muffled by his girth.

“Oh, honey, I love you, too. And I will miss you so much. But you’re strong,” he continued. “You’re such a strong girl, and you’re caring, and a beautifully talented artist. You have so much to look forward to in your future.” He stroked a pudgy hand over her hair. “Make sure you turn that art into something someday, you hear me?”

She nodded against him as he held her tight. “Will you be okay?”

“Sure, Izzy-bella. I’ll heal. Now you go on and get out of here for a while. No need to stick around for the rest of this.”

One last time, she squeezed her arms around him as hard as she could. Then, without making eye-contact because she couldn’t bear to see his pain, she kissed his cheek and ran out the front door, grabbing her backpack on the way.

She ran until her legs cramped and her lungs burned before finding a private park bench to collapse. Losing herself in her sketch pad, she drew her hopeless feelings until the sun vanished behind the high-rise apartment buildings.

Just as she was about to make her way back to what was bound to be a depressing apartment, laughter rang out.

“Look, it’s Frizzy Izzy.” Paula McLean, the most popular girl in the eighth grade, strolled down the sidewalk with her ever-present bitch-posse. Wearing designer jeans, a perfect, bouncy ponytail and more make-up on her face than Izzy had ever worn, Paula smirked. For some reason, Paula had taken an instant dislike to Izzy the moment they met in kindergarten and had made it her mission to keep Izzy’s school-life miserable ever since.

The hair insults were the most frequent. Izzy had inherited her mother’s ridiculously thick hair and had yet to learn to tame it.

“Hi, Paula. Have a good evening.” She rose and started to scurry off, but one of Paula’s little gremlins, Krista, yanked the sketch pad from under Izzy’s arm.

“What do we have here?” she asked in the whiny tone she was known for. The sketchbook dangled from her acrylic-tipped fingers.

“Give it back!” Panic filled Izzy. No one was allowed so much as a peek in that particular book. No one, not even Len, and she’d talked to him about what she drew. But showing him, or anyone, was a different matter entirely. The drawings in that book were so personal she had a hard time looking at some of the sketches herself. It was where she poured her pain when life became too much and she needed an outlet.

Pages of agony, frustration, and teenage angst.

Krista flipped the book open to the first page. Without looking, Izzy knew precisely what the mean-girl stared at. A self-portrait Izzy had drawn after enduring a particularly rough day of bullying at school.

Izzy is chubby, and no guy will ever want her.

Izzy is so poor, she wears the same clothes three days a week.

All her mom’s husbands leave because Izzy is so ugly.

And the insults had gone on and on. So, Izzy did what she did best and drew her pain away in a self-portrait where she wore her insides on the outside. Exactly how she’d felt that day. Exposed, vulnerable, ashamed.