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THIS PLACE IN LIFE
Elise rolled over in bed first thing Christmas morning with a raging headache.
She wasn’t sure if it was the wine she drank alone when she got home or the crying jag she had that she’d never let anyone know about.
Sometimes life was just so unfair.
She threw the covers back with more force than necessary and made her way into the bathroom hoping a hot shower would wipe away memories from over a decade ago along with the few minutes she spent next to Gabe McCarthy last night.
After almost drawing blood from her scalp washing her hair, she got out and dried off, dressed and blow-dried her hair. She put her moisturizer on her face and some foundation to cover up the puffy eyes and circles that normally weren’t there.
That was about the extent of her daily routine.
Coffee was the first order of business and she went right to it to get her first cup of the day and then dropped a piece of bread in the toaster. She’d be leaving for her father’s soon enough.
As she nibbled on her toast she read the news on her computer and hated the depression she felt right now.
How could she be thirty-four years old and still alone?
Did she have so much of her mother in her that she was pushing a man away?
She didn’t think so but she wasn’t going to be someone she wasn’t either. Never again.
Did it one night and in her mind that was how she got to this place in life.
She just hated that she couldn’t escape Gabe no matter how much she tried.
For years she’d hear his name but never had to worry about seeing him much. They’d always done business, prior to the commercial building, but not enough that she got involved or had to talk to him.
Now it just felt like there was no escape from him or her demons.
No man should be as good looking as him. It was a sin in her eyes.
His body, his voice that she remembered so clearly as he sang that night. The guitar in front of him and the smile on his face.
A few beers and she was the low hanging fruit ready to be plucked by greedy horny hands.
He’d been singing a mixture of country and rock. Old songs. Popular songs.
His voice…it was like a vacuum at a car wash sucking her in harder than anything else in her life.
He sang a song. She’d never forget it. A ballad.“Remember When”by Alan Jackson. She’d brought him a beer at Sandra’s urging, handed it over and he’d told her to sing with him. She did.
They laughed and they drank and they ended up in his room.
“Fuck me!” she said, more tears rolling down her eyes.
Why couldn’t she forget this? Why was it so hard?
She dumped her coffee in the sink, then threw out the half-eaten piece of toast. No reason to try to force food down her throat.
Since she overslept, it wasn’t so early that she couldn’t go to her father’s, so she gathered the gifts in a corner, found her shoes, put her jacket on and drove over to her childhood home.
You’d think there’d be bad memories here, but there weren’t. Her father made sure of that even with all the fighting that had gone on.
“Merry Christmas,” her father said when she walked into the house. He must have heard because he came to the front of the house to help with the gifts.
“Merry Christmas to you too. I smell cinnamon buns.”
