Minder: Olallie's Offering

By Laikyn Meng

She doesn't hear me...

 

And her ears aren't the problem, not anymore.

I can feel Olallie everywhere, the minute she walks through the halls, looking like a lost beauty queen contestant. A loud static rumbles through my chest, and it makes me angry; a stranger can make me react, make me pause. Especially when the person is

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Orange 9 Publishing Company LLC
• Release date: Jul 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781088167120

Book preview

Minder Copy

Olallie's Offering

Laikyn Meng

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The Orange 9 Publishing Company

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including

information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the

author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work

of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product(s)

of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual

persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely

coincidental or meant to lend credibility and authenticity to the story. The

use of brand names and locations should not be read as an endorsement of this author’s

work. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it

by any other means without permission.

18+ Mature content explicit language and sexual

content. Sensitivity warnings. Abuse and violence, alcohol and drug use.

COPYRIGHT © 2020 LAIKYN MENG THE ORANGE 9 PUBLISHING

COMPANY LLC

ISBN: 9798755769808

Contents

Minder:

1. Chapter 1

OLALLIE

2. Chapter 2

LAWSON

3. Chapter 3

OLALLIE

4. Chapter 4

LAWSON

5. Chapter 5

OLALLIE

6. Chapter 6

OLALLIE

7. Chapter 7

LAWSON

8. Chapter 8

OLALLIE

9. Chapter 9

OLALLIE

10. Chapter 10

LAWSON

11. Chapter 11

LAWSON

12. Chapter 12

OLALLIE

13. Chapter 13

OLALLIE

14. Chapter 14

OLALLIE

15. Chapter 15

LAWSON

16. Chapter 16

OLALLIE

17. Chapter 17

OLALLIE

18. Chapter 18

LAWSON

19. Chapter 19

OLALLIE

20. Chapter 20

LAWSON

21. Chapter 21

OLALLIE

22. Chapter 22

LAWSON

23. Chapter 23

OLALLIE

24. Chapter 24

LAWSON

25. Chapter 25

OLALLIE

26. Chapter 26

OLALLIE

27. Chapter 27

LAWSON

28. Chapter 28

OLALLIE

29. Chapter 29

LAWSON

30. Chapter 30

OLALLIE

31. Chapter 31

LAWSON

32. The End

Author's Note

Also By Laikyn Meng

About Author

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Minder:

noun. a person whose job it is to look after someone or something.

Chapter 1

OLALLIE

Itry to numb my skin to the screams echoing through my tamed skull. I tell myself it isn’t me. I would never give myself the privilege of acting out in such conditions.

To be so exposed, with no refrain. Shaking, startled with no door to hide behind. It’s a stream of witnesses that rush in—nurses, doctors, other patients come to see the deaf girl make noise for the first time. They hear a catatonic holler, not the sweet southern belle I was trained to be.

Flashbacks to my young mother, and I shudder against the panda promises she condemned me not to break. Be kind, she would whisper with her fingers. But in those 3 minutes and fifteen seconds, I couldn’t find solitude; I couldn’t find a good bone in my body.

Failing her came at a price. Inhale a long breath, blink, Lord Jesus, help me blink through this awful pain. I exhale out to the sound of her voice calling my watery name.

Always has the rush of waves in the distance as it mumbled. It’s almost close, and I could practically feel it. Almost alive if I believed enough, the more I edged closer to the imaginary sound. I realized what an awful trick of my mind made me a victim. She never spoke to ears that could hear her. No, Luna Lovett only translated through signed gestures and long hugs.

Blink once, leaving them closed. I stop the shouting, which halts the pain traveling up my spine. I don’t feel the needle they jab in my thigh, but I sense I’ve gone too far to be seen again.

When I wake, there are some nightmares worth living through. Mine was an extraordinary kiss with time.

Where did you go, pretty angel? My cellmate lingers near but not too close. Probably heard the rage that broke last night and knows I am a lunatic.

There’s pressure behind my ears, where Knox politely improved my odds of hearing. It itches from the stitches since I again ripped out the cochlear implant.

Something he wanted, something he needed. Not understanding me was going to be a struggle for him. But Knox Krause eliminated roadblocks, no matter how many casualties.

I didn’t want to hear a world where he demanded simple behavior. I tried to remain muted from the outside. Because if I couldn’t listen, maybe it wouldn’t hurt as bad.

I’m here. Zailey, I think her name is, sits with me for hours. Not making a noise, just focusing out the same window. Blurred with our privacy.

Maybe she says it for comfort or to get good points with the staff. Who knows, but she remains next to me. Not making me believe in compromise or insanity, just regular breath.

I’m here. I point to myself; my hands go to my sides round in circles. I’m here. Repeating the signs repeatedly, wondering what the hell that even meant anymore.

Nothing but shame filters through their compliments. They can keep them; I have enough guilt.

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Two days later, I am allowed to leave my room, and if my skin shade had a name, it would be a pale promise. After breakfast, I spent two hours passing back and forth on the 8 feet of the fenced-in lawn we shared with the children patients.

Since I was here, I had made one friend; she was the epitome of a rebel if I ever did see one. Zailey Jensen did things her way until the ways she did things turned against her. She had lightning striking hair, tattoos, and pierced dimples. I hope your mind didn’t go to the gutter and think I said nipples instead of dimples; she is a lady, after all.

The few short weeks after I came here, she came up to me and never left my side. We didn’t talk, and she didn’t try to communicate with me like a daft idiot with a speech impediment.

No, sir, Zailey sat there like we were both sharing a similar hurt and didn’t know how to express it other than a gentle nod in either’s direction.

To tell you the truth, ain’t nobody really knows my facts; I hardly do myself. Or at least I try to avoid them. This is why my biological father thought it might be a good idea if I stayed here for a while. He didn’t give much choice. When I thought I was coming home for break, he held out a duffel bag and told me not to die.

Lennox (Knox) Krause was like that, and I assure you nobody expected him to be tender toward any one of his four kids except Leonie. I may have been the only one without matching last names to theirs—all different mothers except the twins who, of course, were cohabiters of the same uterus.

First, his high school sweetheart, Rebecca, is 15 and dreaming of forever. After she had Leonie, something changed in her; a dark substance came to the surface and took her life before I was in the presence of the Krauses.

Luna always said soft words about her; I remember she often cried when she visited her deceased friend. I think Rebecca was the role model you could never cast any shame on. They are infinite and indestructible in your mind.

How would you recover from a loss that monumental? Is there an instruction manual I could pick up at the local bookstore? Something that describes the healing process from such heavy grief you wouldn’t think to fail?

I didn’t know those answers; I couldn’t pretend all the time that I did. I only absorbed so much silence before one noise set it exploding, and I would combust.

Seeing Luna’s face flat against the pavement. Pools of blood coughed out of her mouth as she wheezed, trying to stay calm for me. While Asher, my mother’s boyfriend, screamed at the top of his lungs, I felt it in the tips of my sandals. He shook the earth with his terror, the phone not even by his ear, calling out commands to emergency response. His lips ran faster than my 9-year-old eyes could keep up.

So I didn’t try harder; I shifted my gaze back down to her. When I went to stand up and go to her, Asher shoved out a hand telling me to sit on the curb. I sat back down, reaching out my hand. I put one toe on the sidewalk while I lay on my stomach to touch her outstretched hand.

Her blinks were coming slower, and I hesitated to count them. But when the last one continued more than a minute, her grip limp, I crawled closer to her and curled myself underneath the only mother I ever wanted. The only one that mattered to me. Everyone that dies young or old is always gone too soon.

But my mother and I, our relationship was over too soon. A lot happened in those two years we were together. Luna took over custody of me after my grandparents passed away. She was always there in the background of dance recitals, piano concerts. My mother was still my hero; my intense spectrum was based on the levels of Luna’s heart and spirit.

Now, at 16, I can’t say I’m anything like her. Because weaknesses weren’t in her description. And there is so much suffering I could never understand by how she held her head high through all of it. It wasn’t until the police arrived, the flashing lights of the ambulance, that Asher took me from her warm arms.

He tried sitting me down beside him while talking to the officers, but I wouldn’t have it. It must have been the Krause in me, but it was the first time Asher was compassionate and held me tighter. Maybe he realized that we’d both lost our other half. Or perhaps he realized her broken arm with the word metanoia tattooed was still outreached toward me.

Tears didn’t wash down my face. I wish someone would have been there to slap my virgin cheeks and tell me to shed some pity to respect thy mother. Yet, it didn’t occur to me what was happening, why my mother was frozen in time, and the crimson red turned a dried maroon around her lips. The way they tucked her in so she wouldn’t be cold, she was just taking a nap with shining eyes still glistening in our direction.

At nine years old, I couldn’t hold back my first word, and though she was couldn’t hear my voice anymore, I looked down at the woman who gave up worlds for me, and I said, Bye, Momma.

Chapter 2

LAWSON

My first memory is sound.

An echo probably is more appropriate.

I’m three, maybe four years old. The noise comes from behind me. After hearing the boom, I looked down at my toy in my chubby toddler hands. Then another sound came—her scream.

I wasn’t supposed to turn around, but momma Angel’s cry made my bellyache. His mouth was moving; later, I learned they were words you weren’t supposed to say to someone you claimed to love.

My papa loved her; he told her all the time. He would shout it in her face, yell it to the back of her head. So much that I believed it to be true.

I didn’t ever want to be loved like Daddy loved my mother. The love made her weak; it crippled her protection. Each time he said those words, she would back herself in a corner, defenseless. Waiting for the proclamation to be over.

Announcements and grand gestures were warning signs that chaos was about to sprint into our house. It was small, and my little sister Crimsyn and I shared a bed in one of the rooms.

Daddy always said Mommy thought she was better than us. Angel’s skin was the color of fuzzy peach. It was just as soft when she held us close. Clutching us away from the danger, we would fall asleep in her arms.

Listen to an unsettled pulse, worried about the strength of the bathroom door lock.

Why is Daddy upset, Mommy? Crimsyn tucked to the side with her brown-skinned dolly. Her tiny fingers, braiding the long mane.

He can’t find what he wants. Angel doesn’t turn to look at the fear in our hearts. Her own terror conquering any courage we might have been lucky to discover. She isolates her focus at the scratched door.

All I can do is stare at her, waiting for a reaction other than this.

Should we go help him find it? Crimsyn has cooled her tears and has gone back to find a solution to our problem.

No, sweetie. It’s gone; what he wants is gone. There isn’t anymore, and we don’t have the money to buy more. She whispers the last part, eyeing me carefully. But rests her sight back on the door, making sure the pounding on the other side hasn’t broken through.

I’m 6 years old and wonder if we’ll be hiding in here for my birthday next month. I’m in first grade, and I start counting the seconds until we can breathe out loud.

I’m the older brother, trying to protect a wounded mother and sister blinded by the experience.

My twenty-four-year-old mother is memorizing the pattern in which her lover beats the hollow wood door. She begins tapping the tops of her knees. Trying to sing away the scares that are too familiar to ignore.

What song are you singing, Momma? Crimsyn breaks a smile for the first time since being sealed near the bathtub. I want to sing too!

She starts clapping, ignoring the fists that keep flying against the drywall outside. A piece of furniture is thrown, and we all stop and inhale, hoping it wasn’t something that creates sharp points.

"It—um, it goes, don’t worry about the thunder that crackles from the skies…." Angel’s voice starts to move in a rhythm that creates a safe haven for her daughter.

I stare at them, confused how a song or words will save us this time from the mad man.

He shouts some dirty slur about my mother being white trash. My eyes move to her, curious if the accusations are true and I’ve never known before.

Angel still doesn’t cry; she keeps singing make-believe to Crimsyn.

The storm outside will grow quiet into the night. Empty sky, can you close your eyes? Leave me alone until the morning light. Her arms squeeze us tighter, and we notice the jiggle of the doorknob getting loose.

Move away from the clouds and dry up all your tears. It’s okay; we’ll get through this timeline. Crimsyn latches onto the words, mouthing along to a pretend song.

All at once, the banging stops, and we are all shocked that the song worked. Magic has happened, Verse’s dad does small card tricks, but I knew there was something good in the world. Everything can’t all be bad.

Minutes go by, and we all look relieved; there isn’t a crazed father waiting hungrily to abuse his family.

Keep singing, Angel. I love your voice. It always soothes me when I’m coming down. The doorframe creaks as Issy leans against it.

Angel listens to this order like she does the rest, without hesitation. She points to the window and opens it wide enough. Both my sister and I have the opportunity to escape.

Go to the Villatoro’s house. I’ll come to get you when it’s safe to come home again. She waves us on, her light brown hair shoved back out of her sight. Not wanting to miss us fleeing for our lives.

Safe to come