Days passed. Then weeks. Then months. My cast was removed, my bruises faded, my cuts vanished. By the look of me, you’d never know I’d had my ass thoroughly kicked. No, there were no more physical reminders of that night’s carnage. But the wound on my heart? That one was still seeping, oozing, and infecting the rest of my body with poisonous toxins that would surely kill me one day. I had become a bitch to be around. Even I knew it.
It may as well have been Groundhog Day over and over, because my life never changed. I woke up, exercised, had coffee, worked on lyrics, met with the guys, then spent the night either drinking or playing, or both. I was alive, but I wouldn’t call what I was doing living. I drank a lot, cursed a lot, and generally gave people curt, sullen answers to their questions. My patience was all but gone. I hated every day that went by that I didn’t get to see her face, hear her voice, touch her skin.
I even lunged at Griffin a time or two. The first incident was after he’d said, “Dude, why don’t you go find a nice toy store downtown and buy yourself a strap-on, since it’s obvious your dick has been sawed off.” Matt had spared Griffin from a broken nose by about two seconds.
The next time I’d gone after Griffin, he’d purchased a “friend” for me, like he had for Matt a while back. After I’d politely turned the aggressive girl down, I’d found Griffin and asked him if that was his doing. “I’m just trying to help you out, man. You need to fuck something before you explode.” I’d “exploded” on Griffin. Matt hadn’t been fast enough that time, and Griffin sported a black eye for weeks, Of course, he wore it as a badge of honor and used it to pick up women.
He was still seeing Anna though, and every time they got together, my mood darkened. She looked so much like Kiera, it was painful. I wanted them to break up so I could stop being around the constant reminder of what I’d lost, but the two of them were still going at it. All I could do was suck it up and deal with it.
“Hey, Kellan,” Anna said to me one night. She was dressed in her work uniform—bright orange shorts and a tight white tank top with the word “Hooters” right over her chest. Every guy in the bar was eyeing her, except me. I was trying to avoid looking at her.
“Hey,” I said, studying the bottle in my hands.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her hand start to reach out for me, but she stopped herself and laced her fingers on the table. “How are things?” she asked.
“Fine.”
She leaned forward, her dark hair brushing against the table. It was clear from her posture that she wanted me to look at her, but I didn’t. “Do you need anything?” she asked.
Beer. Peace and quiet. More beer. And your sister…
“No.”
I took a long swig of my drink, but Anna didn’t leave. After I set it down again, she leaned toward me and whispered, “Matt told me about your tattoo. Did you really…?”
I peeked up at her with cold eyes and she stopped talking. I wanted to ask her if Kiera knew about the tattoo, but I didn’t. It didn’t matter if she did know. I sullenly returned my eyes to my bottle, and Anna sighed in defeat. Standing, she put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a friendly squeeze. She started to walk away, then paused, like she was debating what to do. Leaning down, she whispered into my ear, “She misses you too.”
I closed my eyes as they instantly filled with tears. I heard Anna leaving, but I couldn’t watch her, couldn’t tell her goodbye. All I could do was inhale and exhale in slow, controlled breaths and pray to God that I didn’t break down.
She misses you too.
She misses you too.
I wasn’t sure why my subconscious kept replaying Anna’s message, but I wanted it to stop. I spotted Emily, Kiera’s replacement, helping a table of frat boys halfway across the bar. She wouldn’t be helping me anytime soon. Irritated, I looked up at Rita. She was busy too. Damn it. What did a guy have to do to get drunk around here?
Determined to satisfy my own needs, I stood up. I would hop over the bar and grab my own beer if I needed to. My vision swam as the change in position made the alcohol rush to my head. I put my hand on the edge of the table to steady myself. The dizziness would pass in a minute, and then I could finally get another fucking drink. Maybe if I had enough of them, I would black out tonight, and then maybe I wouldn’t dream about Kiera.
She didn’t choose me.
My dark thoughts made it hard to stand upright, and both of my hands dropped to the table as I leaned over it. Griffin stopped his conversation with Matt to glare at me. “Dude, are you gonna hurl? Hold that shit in until you get outside.”
Matt’s eyes were as sympathetic as Evan’s. “You okay, Kell?”
Sniffling, I shoved myself away from the table. I stumbled, but managed to stay upright. I guess I’d had more than I realized. Oh well, a couple more wouldn’t hurt then. When I moved to head toward the bar, Evan stood and grabbed my elbow.
“Let me go, Evan,” I snapped.
His mouth compressed into a firm line. “You’ve had enough; I’m taking you home.”
Scoffing, I jerked my arm away and pointed at the table. “I had two.” My words were slightly slurred, but I didn’t care.
Matt skewed his lips as he looked up at the ceiling. He counted something out on his fingers, then lowered his eyes to mine. “Uh, more like nine, Kell.”
Annoyed, I grabbed my jacket. “Whatever, I don’t need you guys babying me. I’m tired of being babied…I can take care of myself.” If I couldn’t drink in peace here, then I would drink in peace somewhere else. Scowling at Matt and Evan, I slipped my jacket on. Or tried to anyway. I couldn’t seem to find the right holes.
Matt stood up when he figured out I was leaving. “You’re not driving.”
Irritated at my guitarist, irritated at my drummer, and irritated at my life, I jerked my head from one band member to the other; the room spun a little. “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want! All of you can leave me the hell alone!” Finally successful, I slipped my jacket over my shoulders. Inexplicably, the leather smelled like Kiera.
Matt rolled his eyes and looked over to Evan. He sighed, then started rifling through my jacket pockets. I batted his hands away, but he was way more coordinated than me at the moment. After fishing my keys out of my pocket, he tossed them down the table, out of my reach. They landed in front of Griffin; he stared at them blankly, then returned his attention to a girl at the next table.
I dove across the table to snatch my keys back, but Matt was quicker and nabbed them first. All I ended up doing was falling onto the table and knocking over Griffin’s beer. That got his attention. Saving his bottle from rolling off the table, he snapped, “Dude! What the fuck?”
Wishing I was anywhere but here, I laid my cheek on the cool surface and stared up at Evan. He was even more concerned than he had been before, if that was possible. Conversations battled in my brain. Some with Kiera, some with Denny. Some of them were good, some really, really bad. All of them made electric pain rocket throughout my body; I felt my chest sizzle, like someone was holding a hot iron to my heart…right over Kiera’s tattoo.
Not wanting to look like an idiot anymore tonight, I carefully stood up. Feeling weak, defeated, and utterly alone, I muttered, “All right…take me home.”
Evan not only took me home, he walked me to my door and unlocked it for me. I scowled at him, but he wasn’t intimidated by my anger. “Hey, if you don’t want to be babied, then stop acting like a baby.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he added, “Now, do I need to tuck you in?”
Grabbing my keys away, I shook my head. The world started spinning, so I stopped. I took a step inside, then looked back at Evan. “I’m sorry about tonight. I just wanted…I wanted to stop feeling like shit.”
Evan sighed, then clapped me on the shoulder. “I know. Get some sleep, okay?”
I nodded and went into the house, but I really wasn’t tired yet. At least, not tired in a lack-of-sleep kind of way. I was sick and tired of a lot of things. Stumbling my way into the kitchen, I poured a glass of water and started drinking it. As the soothing liquid went down, sobering me, I stared at my phone. Making a quick decision, I picked up the receiver and entered a number I knew by heart, since I dialed it almost every single day. The phone picked up on the third ring. “Denny? Hey…it’s Kellan. How are…things?”
I’d started calling Denny right after he left Seattle. At first, only his parents would pick up, and they’d always very nicely tell me to go to hell. I’d kept calling though, and eventually Denny had taken the phone from them and talked to me. He’d seemed mystified by my persistence, but…he was family to me. I’d wronged him, but I’d never stopped caring about him. He was my brother. I didn’t want to give that up.
Our initial conversations hadn’t been much. Denny didn’t want to talk, and I understood. I talked though. I told him how wrong I was, how sorry I was, and that I wished I could do everything over again. If I could, I would have told him about my feelings for Kiera before I acted on them. I would have told him everything from the beginning.
Talking to him every day, while therapeutic for me, wasn’t really getting our relationship anywhere. It wasn’t until I confessed to him that Kiera and I weren’t a couple that he really started talking back to me. He was shocked that we weren’t together. He’d assumed we’d hooked up after the airport. I told him we hadn’t, that I’d said goodbye to her there and hadn’t seen or heard from her since. Surprising me, he’d actually told me that I was an idiot for letting her get away. That had made me laugh. I’d told him that it was for the best that we were apart, but only a part of me agreed with that. The rest of me agreed with him.
Denny’s laughter on the line returned my thoughts to the present. “Have you been drinking, mate?”
A small, queasy laugh escaped me. “Drinking? Yeah…maybe…a little. So…what’s up with you? How did your date go with that girl? Abby, was it?”
With a laugh, he started telling me about it. Things had loosened up between us even more once Denny had become interested in dating again. Now that he was seeing somebody, his entire mood had changed. Even though I didn’t know much about this girl, I was grateful that Denny had met her. He needed somebody to love to help him get over Kiera.
Aside from the one time he’d chided me about not dating her, Kiera was one topic that Denny and I never discussed. Without actually verbalizing it, we’d both decided Kiera was off-limits. We had plenty of other things to talk about though, and my phone bill was a bitch now. But we were beginning to repair our damaged friendship, so it was worth it.