Love Only Makes It Work - Ch.4

Ben decided to take some time off work.  If Lie Ghost came into the town to break the law, he didn’t want to be there to arrest her.  The previous night’s events were still etched clearly into his mind.  He thought it would be cruel for him to be the one to finally arrest Lie Ghost when she had helped him the night before.  Besides, he needed some time to rest because of his arm.  He went up to the mountains to a small log cabin where he could just relax and watch over the scenery.  The morning after his arrival, he decided to go for a walk and stretch his legs.  He walked along the mountain path.  He found a high cliff and looked over the stretch of desert before him, seeing the sky and desert fade into the other and being what is was supposed to be.  He went to turn around and head back when his foot slipped.  He fell down the mountain side feeling his legs scrape along the rock hard.  He saw the ground speeding towards him but he also saw a ledge.  He quickly got ready and caught the end of the ledge.  He grunted in pain as he felt the sharp rock cutting his palms.  He looked down and saw only hard ground below him.  He swung his other arm onto the ledge and started to pull himself up. He grabbed a small rock in front of him to help pull himself but the rock suddenly gave way!  He felt himself falling again but suddenly felt someone catch his arms and he stopped falling.  He looked up into the crystal, blue eyes he knew so well.  Lie Ghost pulled him up onto the ledge again and he fell onto the rock with exhaustion.  
He felt his blood running down his legs and his palms beginning to swell from the cuts.  He also had several cuts on his arms but none of them were major.
“Want a bandage on that?” Lie Ghost asked once again.

Lie Ghost led Ben back to her camp a little further up the mountain and started to mend his newly scratched scratches.
“What are you doing up here?” he asked.
“I came up here because there’s a cave on the other side of the mountain.  It’s almost winter and I go there to keep out of the cold.  I stay there for the season then come back out for the spring.  What are you doing here?”
“I didn’t want to be in the town for a few days because…well, it’s complicated.”
“Nothings complicated.  You just make it that way.”
“Listen, I’m…sorry…for the last time when I…pried you and all.  I was just…”
“Curious.” She finished the sentence for him.
“Yeah, curious.”
“Well you know what they say, curiosity killed the cat.”
“I never got what they meant by that until now,” Ben said laughing.  Lie Ghost laughed with him.  
“So, how did you become an outlaw?” Ben asked after a while.  Lie Ghost finished mending Ben’s wounds and she hesitated before reliving the story.
“When I was about five years old, I found a penny on the road.  I went into the shop and walked through the aisles until I found the candy aisle.  The aisle was lined and lined with candy, it was my favourite aisle.  I was going to buy a gumdrop.  My mother usually never let me have them because they ruined your teeth but I was craving one so I decided to buy one.  But as I was picking out my favourite flavour, I thought of all the good stuff I had done, all the great things that had happened to me and I suddenly became angry.  I didn’t want this, I wanted to do something no one would think was ‘me’.  So I picked out a gumdrop, put it into my pocket and walked out of the shop with out anyone knowing.  I felt really happy as I was arriving home but promised myself that that was only a one time thing.  I walked into my house and I heard screaming and shouting and I knew my parents were arguing again.  I was always scared when my parents fought but I got used to it.  But this fight was no fight at all.  I heard a huge crack echo through the house and saw my mother lying on the floor, crying in pain and I knew my dad had slapped her…hard.  I was upset and I didn’t want to see my mother hurt so I walked into the room.  My parents would always suddenly stop fighting if I walked into the room and I found out that it was really the only way to stop it.  But this time my father did not stop.  He was about to slap my mother again, but I wouldn’t let him.  I loved my father as a father, but not as a friend.  I jumped onto his back and grabbed him around the throat.  I squeezed harder and harder and begged my father to stop.  I made him promise he wouldn’t slap mother again and he promised so I let go.  Dad lay on the floor, tired and exhausted.  I ran out of the room, tears in my eyes.  After that, I remember falling asleep on my bed and waking up to find the house empty.  I walked down to the kitchen and my mother was crying in her hands at the table and I knew without searching that my father was gone…and he wasn’t coming back.  I was so mad that I ran straight out of the house, running to the store, finding the candy aisle and I trashed it beyond belief.  There was shattered glass and broken lollipops all over the floor.  I screamed and raved as I did it.  Plenty of people heard it, but then, I walked out of the store…and no one ever knew it was me.  I walked home angry and miserable.  I walked into the house, but the house was silent.  There was no one in it.  I knew my mother had left…and I knew she wasn’t going to come back either.  I sat on the porch for the next three days, without food, water or sleep, hoping she would come back…but she didn’t.  I finally gave up waiting from lack of health.  After that everything was hazed and blurry.  I couldn’t do anything without being miserable or angry and after a while I finally just ended up how I am.  I robbed old Justice here,” she said motioning to the pure, black horse, “and I just started from there.  I was a complete outlaw by the time I turned eight.”
“All that, when you were five?”  Ben asked.
“Not when I was five,” she said.
“But you said you were five when all that happened?” Ben said questioningly.
“I was exaggerating.”  
“So when did it really happen?”  Lie Ghost sighed and waited but after a while she finally said, reluctantly,
“All that happened when I was two.”