Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 20816 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 104(@200wpm)___ 83(@250wpm)___ 69(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20816 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 104(@200wpm)___ 83(@250wpm)___ 69(@300wpm)
I climb into the driver’s seat and sit there, engine idling, staring at my own reflection in the rearview mirror. What I see is a man on the brink. The kind of guy who’s spent his life being the fixer, the muscle, the guy who always knows the next move. The kind of guy who’s supposed to see a crisis coming miles away.
I didn’t see this one. Not even close. I never thought I’d ever lose her. Not that I really had her in the first place, as she reminded me earlier. But that’s a whole other story.
My hands are shaking, which is new. I press my palm flat against my thigh and try to will it steady, but it’s like my body’s not getting the message. She’s leaving. She’s really fucking leaving me in the dust.
I drive.
Not home—fuck that. There’s nothing for me there except a barren apartment and thoughts of her. Instead, I point the car toward the edge of town and let my subconscious take the wheel. The city’s mostly asleep, and I count red lights, every one a chance to turn back, but I keep going and end up at The Barrel, a hole-in-the-wall that serves as last call for the town’s misfits.
I’ve been here before, but never this late and never this raw. The bartender doesn’t even blink when I walk in. Maybe because it’s three in the morning, maybe because the regulars all look like they’re one bad decision away from a mugshot. I have no idea what I look like, but judging by the way the guy keeps his hands close to the baseball bat under the counter, I don’t think it’s “friendly neighborhood security expert.”
“Whiskey,” I rasp, dropping onto a questionable vinyl stool.
The guy nods. Pours two fingers of something brown and mean. I throw it back, and it burns all the way down, but it’s a start.
Dee’s leaving. She’s really doing it.
All the years I spent building walls, keeping every fucking thing buttoned down and tight? Gone. Just like that.
I’m not going to survive this. Not if I don’t do something.
I order another whiskey. And another. I keep waiting for the booze to fill up the emptiness inside me.
I’m halfway through the third when I start seeing her everywhere. There’s a girl in the back booth with a cascade of wild, caramel hair, arguing with her boyfriend over a basket of onion rings. She’s not Dee, but the way she gestures, the tilt of her head, is so similar it hurts. A group of college kids cluster around the pool table, but the loudest one—the one who calls the shots—she’s got the same restless energy, the same fuck-you attitude in the way she throws back her drink. I wonder if any of them will ever love so fiercely that they’d tear themselves apart for someone who can’t even see them.
I’m not a man who gets sentimental. But four glasses in, I start composing a eulogy for a life I’m not ready to let go of. I picture all the tiny, stupid things I’ll miss: the way Dee snorts when she laughs, the way she flips me off every time I hand her a closing checklist, the way her eyes go soft when she thinks nobody’s watching.
I knock back another double. The bartender arches a brow but doesn’t say shit. The little voice in the back of my mind starts asking questions. Why can’t you be the one who gives Dee the life she deserves? Why do you have to let her go?
I can give her that life. I argue back. I don’t have to let her go. Fuck. It gets easier after that. The pain fades to a low, persistent ache as an idea takes form. I drink, and drink, and drink until I feel half-human again, or at least, numb enough to fake it. I don’t need to give up Dee. I can’t. Now, I just have to convince her to take a chance on a moron like me.
Before the next round, the bartender leans in close, all business. “You want to talk about it?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I’ve spent years building a fortress of silence around myself, and I have no idea how to even start. So, I just shake my head.
He shrugs and pours me a water. “Last call. You need a ride, or you gonna walk it off?”
I debate the question, but every cell in my body is screaming at me to move. To go to her. Fix this shit before it’s too late. I toss a handful of bills on the bar and stand, the floor shifting under my feet like a ship at sea.
Outside, the night is colder, lonelier. I text for an Uber and pace the length of the parking lot while I wait. My head is full of static, but underneath, a single thought pulses, relentless—I have to stop her before she leaves me.