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I drop the glass and whiskey on the table and sit. Stare at it a moment. And then I pour.
One shot.
Two.
My eyes close, as if on their own, and I take a minute, a moment, whatever I need to clutch on to what little sanity I still have.
When I open my eyes again, I realize how dark it is. How quiet. There’s a stillness I recognize, a silence. A calm.
Right before the storm…
The overhead lights of the hospital burned through my irises while the police officer’s uneven footfalls matched the beating of my heart.
“He’s going to be okay, right?”
The officer wasn’t much taller than me, her hair pulled back in a tight knot. She smiled over at me, trying to hide the pity in her eyes. She knew it before I did. I was up and walking… and Holden… Holden was…
I’m forced out of my living nightmare at the sound of a car starting, and the first thing I see is the brown liquid of the whiskey.
Pulse pounding in my eardrums, I try to fight the battle.
But I can’t.
I take a sip.
Just one, I promise myself.
But then one turns to two.
To three.
Until I no longer remember what I’m fighting for.
“Kiss me,” Holden croaked, one eye cracked open as I stood over him. It was the first thing he said to me after our attack, and it wasn’t an order, but it wasn’t really a question either. And so I leaned down and gave him what he wanted.
Black and blue, his face contorted into an unbearable grin. “Mmm,” he moaned, reaching for my hand. “Sunshine and solace.”
2
Jamie
Thunder cracks so loud I can hear it over the music blaring in Dean’s car. He instinctively turns the volume down as we pull into the parking lot, dipping his head to look out the windshield and up at the gray, doomed skies. “Damn,” he remarks, watching the sheets of heavy rain come down around us.
He’d found me asleep on the balcony this morning, my head on the metal tabletop resting next to the half-empty bottle of whiskey. He didn’t say a word as he helped me to my feet, then into his shower. If he was at all embarrassed or even surprised by what he saw, he didn’t show it. To be fair, he’d probably been preparing himself for that moment as much as I’d been trying to fight it.
When I got out of the shower, he was already dressed, his dark eyes watching me with pity as I slipped on my clothes without much thought. He cleared his throat before asking, “Are you ready for today?”
Anyone would think I’d be used to this by now, or at the very least, have the right coping mechanisms in place. I don’t. Still, I forced a smile and faced him. “Yeah, I’m good.”
I wasn’t.
I’m still not.
Dean spends the next few minutes searching for an empty parking spot while I stare up at the monstrous brick building dotted with floor-to-ceiling windows, at least seven stories high. It’s as daunting on the outside as I feel on the inside, and nothing about this is okay.
Nothing.
