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“It’s Brylee.” She takes a step toward me, letting the door half-shut behind her, the noise from inside spilling out. “Candy loves you.”
I swallow down this cry-laughter that’s clawing its way up my throat. “I was fired today. Because I lied about having a GED. I’m a lie. My life is a lie. What would Candy want with someone like me anyway?”
“You’re deaf, right? Didn’t you hear what I said? Candy loves you. You and Joel. Has loved you for some time, and right now? She’s head over heels in love with you.”
I shake my head. This can’t be real. I’m hallucinating. Maybe that guy did knock me out after all. “Why would she?”
She eyes me for a long moment, looking sad. “I guess you were meant to be together.”
I laugh, and she looks away. If my destiny exists, it’s made of thorns and rusty nails, not fairytale endings. “Joel just fucking walked out on me, and we’ve been best friends for years. Fuck off.”
“I’m going in to get my cell phone and call Candy,” she says, as if she hasn’t heard me. “She may be worried about you.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I watch as she turns around and gets back inside the bar, the noise brightening, then fading. I shiver, clad only in a T-shirt and my jeans, my jacket still inside, draped over the stool where I sat earlier.
Candy loves me.
This sounds so much like a mind trick, I’m wary. After Mom was killed, the drugs the shrinks gave me made me see her sometimes. She’d tell me she loved me, that she was there for me.
It wasn’t real.
But I’m not on drugs anymore, haven’t been in years. Booze shouldn’t make me see things, hear things.
Like the door opening again and a man appearing there. He lets the door slam shut and stares at me.
I stare back, my mouth opening without a sound.
Gray hair, shorn short, dark eyes. My mouth. My face, lined, older.
No. Nonono. This can’t be happening. I take a step back but find the wall blocking me. I turn toward the alley mouth, but he’s already moving there, a barrier between myself and freedom.
Myself and life.
Because there, standing in front of me, is my father.
My brain is spinning on nothing. Maybe I did take drugs. I can’t remember. Was I in treatment? Did I have another breakdown?
Five years. Today it’s five years since he killed my mom. Ten years since his brother died. And I’m here, facing him.
He draws a knife from the inside of his leather jacket. It’s long and narrow, and it flashes in the faint light.
Shit. If you die in a hallucination, do you really die?
What if this is real?
He starts toward me, and I back away toward the dumpsters, the air whistling in my lungs. “Don’t. Okay? Stay back.”
He isn’t talking. Isn’t taunting. Isn’t fucking stopping. The knife flashes again as he swishes it right and left.
Fuck.
“Dad… Dad, don’t.” Real or not, my heart is hammering madly, and fear twists my stomach until I think I’m gonna puke. This is my nightmare, the one that wakes me up at night in a cold sweat. Him, coming for me to finish off the last of the family. “Don’t!”
Then he’s on top of me, pushing me back, grabbing my shoulder, lifting the knife. I twist, punch him in the arm, but he doesn’t budge. His eyes are staring right at me, and he still hasn’t said a word or made a sound.
“Fuck, let me go!” I struggle. I kick at his legs, push at his arm, try to wrench myself free.
Not working. His hand is gripping my shoulder so hard I feel the bones grind together. He’s as tall as I am, and wider, bulkier, and I’m still dizzy from the punches to my face and all the whiskey I downed tonight. With only one eye functioning, the other swollen shut, my balance is shot to hell.
