She nodded, her face expressionless, her voice flightless.
“All right, Bubbles, what do you want to talk about? Lay it on me before my nerves get the best of me.”
She took a deep breath and settled back onto her heels.
“You are destroying yourself along with anything good you have in your life.”
Fuck. Me.
**
He stood across from me, arms folded over his chest, opened beer hanging from his fingers. He changed in a matter of seconds from being dumbfounded and bewildered to closed off and defensive—angry and destructive. He was volatile and damaged but he was savable, if only he’d quit being so goddamn stubborn. I knew from experience that the only thing that came from self-medicating and strong willed silence was a slow, uncontrolled burn. It was one that destroyed not just you, but everyone surrounding you. It spread like a savage wildfire.
I was not willing to be destroyed. Not again.
“You’re wrong—”
“I’m not, and you know it. You know you are so flipping close to spontaneous combustion, you carry a pocket extinguisher,” I replied and dared him to prove me wrong.
“It’s easy for you, isn’t it?” he seethed. “Your life is so perfect, so put together. You have no fucking clue what I have to deal with!”
My fear and anxiety laid way to anger. My life was far from perfect. And put together? Pfft. My life is a hodge-podge of insanity. I maneuver my way through it attempting to dodge crisis at every turn. It’s not easy. But I refuse to have a pity party for myself and my plight. No one can make it better but me—just as no one can make life better for Rory O’Neill except for Rory O’Neill.
I charged at him, shoving him hard in the chest, causing him to stumble back into the counter. He set the open beer onto its surface and turned a harsh and angry glare on me. I went back at him, this time grabbing his hand, setting his fingers to the well covered, jagged scars I still carried. I ran them softly and slowly up and down my wrist, looking into his confused eyes, tears filling mine. Ink may have hidden them but they were still there, just beneath the surface. They were the proof of my failure, of my break with reality.
“I know you are hurting, Rory. I know that some place deep inside there is this horrific pain that digs at you every second of every day. There is nothing you can do to make it stop, no words from anyone in the world can soothe it away,” I sighed. I could probably understand that feeling better than anyone else he’d ever encountered. “I lived through pain like that, and one day, I decided I was just going to drain it all away. If I just put a few simple slits here and there, it would all go away. And you know, slowly, it did. But so did the happiness, the love, and my spirit.”
Rory stared down at my wrists, his thumbs moving softly over the scarred skin covered with bright and lively tattoos. I hid the shame of the day I allowed my sickness—my weakness—to obliterate all the happiness and joy that I contained. The still space between us was filled with a heady concoction of profound sadness and prolonged silence.
“Sometimes we cannot heal ourselves, hard as we may try. Strength comes in admitting that you are lost and need a little help in finding your way back to the path of wellness,” I explained, remembering the day my father encouraged me to accept the help I desperately needed.
“I don’t think our situations are quite the same,” he whispered, his eyes locked on my wrists where his thumbs continued to draw lazy circles.
“Aren’t they though? We’re both suffering in silence, too proud or maybe too afraid to admit that we’re so lost we may never be found again. We’re both too stupid to see an amazing world surrounding us, reaching out to save us.”
“Don’t think for one second you have any idea what I’ve lived since his death—”
“I am sorry that you lost your brother, but do you really think that this is how he would want you to live—as a drunk, an addict? Would he want you to make up excuse after excuse to escape a good life?”
“I don’t know what he would want; he was a stranger to me the last year of his life. Or maybe I was the stranger too wrapped up in my own selfishness to realize he was slipping,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “Either way, he’s gone. Dead people have no wants or desires, Francesca.”
There was so much he said without saying it. Guilt. Rory was being eaten away by fucking guilt.
“There is more to what is going on inside that head of yours, O’Neill. What is it—guilt? Do you feel shame and guilt because you didn’t save him?”
His face clouded over as he did his best to shield himself—he tried to hide his deepest secret. Rory wanted to hide his biggest demon. I wanted him to open up, share it.
“I never knew he was suffering so much. I should have. I should have known!” he shouted. “I should have seen he was different. I failed him!”
I took his face into my palms, stared into his storm filled eyes and tried to steal some of his pain.
“You couldn’t have stopped it, Rory,” I whispered. “Do you think my family knew? Do you think I let them see all the signs? I hid, Rory. You can’t punish yourself for the rest of your life because Ryan took his. Do you really think your parents want to bury another son?”
That made him drop my wrists, his fists going to the back of his head as he brushed past me.
“They wouldn’t miss a beat,” he hissed. “They already lost the son that mattered. I was always the fuck up—you know, the one they wished to hide away. Ryan was their gold star. My old man tuned me up at his fucking funeral. I guess that was his way of medicating. I haven’t talked to him since.”
I felt immense sadness for Rory. He’d had a subpar childhood, compounded by the suicide of his twin brother, only to have it punctuated by the continued abuse of his father. I dealt with plenty of my own demons, but I did it with the support of a loving and nurturing family. And God only knew where I’d be if I didn’t have them. Rory O’Neill never stood a chance out in the world. It chewed him up and spat him out, his father being there to kick him when he was down.
“So they’ve done a shit job at showing their affection to you, but—”
“A shit job?!” he shouted, turning on me. “There was little to no affection, Frankie. What little they had to give, it went to Ryan. And that was okay, he was enough for me.”
“Okay fine! You don’t have them. Fuck them, Rory. Don’t let that define the man you are now. Do you know that in the short time that we have been. . . whatever this is, my mother adores you? My entire family has accepted you into their world.”
“What about you, Frankie?”
“What about me?”
“What do you feel? What am I to you?” he asked.
If that wasn’t ever the ten million dollar question. I was floundering, suffocating in wave after confusing wave of emotion he made me feel. He challenged me, made me doubt my long held beliefs on my ability to commit to a relationship, and pushed me to accept new boundaries while wanting to push him past his. He was therapeutic and destructive all in the same breath.
“I can’t answer that, Rory,” I replied, my heart hammering in my chest. I loved him, without a doubt. But there was no way I could admit that to him. Not now. He needed to get his shit together first. “I’m too afraid of all the ways I will break if I do. I’ve made promises to people, promises I have to keep. And you. . .you put me at risk to break them all.”
“Why is that, Bubbles?” When he looked at me with hooded eyes, when his voice dropped low and rasped, thick with lust it pulled at those faraway and closed off places within. He made me want to give up all my rules—to just throw in the towel and go for whatever wild ride he wanted to take me on.
“Because you’re different. You are troubled and broken, and in so many ways, you make me a little less afraid of the future. You make me see a way to have it all.”
“The two of us are a fucking mess, Frankie. A mess,” he whispered, placing a cool palm to my cheek.
“But we don’t
have to be, Rory. The madness that rides us, it can fade away if we ignore it. We can ignore it all and revel in each other.”
“How?” he questioned, his voice desperate.
“You have to open your eyes, Rory. You have to see all the people and things surrounding you, supporting you, fighting for you. And Christ, you have to start fighting for yourself,” I replied, touching my forehead to his. “Are you ready to open your eyes? Are you ready to see the vivid world waiting for you?”
“Are you?” he countered.
I sealed my lips over his, pulled his breath into my lungs, and sighed.
Rory O’Neill may have been damaged, he may have even been dangerous, but he stole my heart one beat at a time. And I was dangerously close to never getting it back. I was slowly becoming convinced I didn’t want it back. However good or bad that may have been for me.
“I’ll try he murmured against my lips, his eyes closed tight. “For you, I’ll try.”
Chapter 24
Fucking March Madness. I lost my ass. More than my ass. I was dangerously fucking close to losing my life. Doogan was breathing down my neck, knocking down my door at every pass. He was one wicked sonofabitch when he was pissed. That usually happened when someone had major debts that they had no way to pay.
I was so fucking dumb. I made too many bets and lost every goddamn one of them. That five grand that I was up was nothing but a drop in a bucket compared to what I owed him at the end of the tournament.
Forty thousand dollars.
I didn’t have it. Didn’t have anywhere close to it. I sold Ryan’s car that had been wasting away in the garage, hawked a few other items, pulled what I could from my paychecks. After taking out the five I was ahead—that I had taken him for— before I started placing lousy bets, and the instant five I took him after scavenging for funds, I still sat around with a thirty thousand dollar noose around my neck. And it was getting tighter and tighter with each passing week.
If I didn’t pay him off soon, he’d be coming for me.
**
Happiness is walking through the doors of a tattoo shop.
Knowing the possibilities are endless. That you will walk back out a different person from when you walked in. Magic happens within the walls of such a place. Someone that’s locked and hidden away within themselves can find a little courage to poke out from behind the shell. All that comes from a gun and some ink.
“Will Romeo be coming back with you?”
I sighed heavily and attempted to give Steve my best agitated look. It wasn’t hard—that look was pretty close to my excited one.
“His name is Rory, and I am not sure. He seems a little. . . uneasy about the whole thing.”
“Oh, so he’s Juliet in this scenario—and a little bitch?” Steve quirked an eyebrow.
“Just keep talking, buddy. You’re talking yourself right out of a tip.”
“It’s worth it,” he laughed. “Just to piss you off and point out what a fucking tool he seems to be. To keep you so smitten, he must have one hell of a—”
“I’m not a little bitch.” Rory came up to rest a hand on the small of my back. “My brother was always a fan of ink. He had a sleeve and multiple other tattoos. This just reminds me of him. It’s a bit much to take in.”
Steve looked annoyed, thoroughly unimpressed. But I understood. All of it. I turned to face Rory, pressed my palm to his cheek, and smiled faintly.
“It’s okay, Rory. You don’t have to come back.”
“I want to. I have to make sure Grim over there doesn’t try anything underhanded.”
“What, because I will be shirtless you think there is cause for concern?” I asked.
“A little.”
“If you’re done getting ready to suck his dick, I’m ready to get started,” Steve interrupted.
“This guy is a real douchebag, you know that?” Rory asked, following as we walked to Steve’s station.
“I do. But he does great work. It kinda makes up for it. ‘Kinda’ being the operative word.”
I tossed my jacket and purse into the chair beside the door and turned my back to the wall as I slipped out of my T-shirt and bra. I handed them back to Rory and gave him a smile as I pulled my hair over my shoulder and lay on the prepped bench, stomach down.
“You do remember that I can make this as painless or painful as possible depending on snide remarks, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I answered.
“If I see so much as a grimace on her face,” Rory threatened, and I laughed.
“You’ll do what? Tell me a sad story and make me cry?” Steve poked. “Don’t worry, I’ll be as gentle as I can. Although, I think she likes it when I’m a little rough. Don’t ya, Frankie?”
“You’re down to like, fifty cents at this point, Stevo. Fifty cent tip. That’s it.”
I echoed his booming laughter before tensing for a millisecond at the first buzz of the tattoo gun. It passed quickly, turning into a gentle calm as I waited to feel the needles moving into my skin.
“Don’t cheapen yourself with such threats, sweets.”
“Sweets?” Rory asked. I met his eyes from across the crowded space and smiled at the playful look I found.
“And I like that just as much as I like Bubbles.”
“Nah, Bubbles has grown on you. I can tell. It gets you hot now,” he replied, that cocky and knowing grin back on his face. He was right, it had grown on me. It made me feel special in his eyes. And often times, it did get me smoking hot. Not that I would ever admit it. “You don’t have to say a word. I know I’m right.”
“I’m going to get started now,” Steve announced, his hand resting on my back. His tongue snaked out of his mouth, dancing across the silver hoop in his lip. “I’m looking forward to the deafening buzz of this gun. It’s worlds better than listening to the two of you.”
That’s all the warning I got before the buzzing began, and I felt the first sting over my skin. I closed my eyes and listened and felt. It was cleansing and relaxing. When I opened my eyes again, Rory was gone.
“He skipped out, white as a goddamn ghost,” Steve explained. “What the fuck is his deal?”
“The brother he talked about, well, he killed himself,” I explained. “He’s still struggling with it.”
“He needs some fucking therapy.”
No doubt. One thing at a time with Rory O’Neill.
I couldn’t tell if he continued to hit the pill stash in his place. . . the one he hid long ago. He still drank—not the fall down, blackout way he used to. The smart and rational me knew that didn’t make it okay. But the other me—the reckless one that just wanted to pretend that everything was good and livable—took whatever he was willing to give.
Steve went silent as the gun began buzzing again, moving gracefully, skillfully over my skin. My mind wandered as I lay there. I started to think of my dad. He hated the tattoos; he was old school. But he understood them. He understood their purpose and why I found therapy with them. He had always been so good at being supportive, never judgmental.
I miss him.
Three hours passed, Rory never came back. When Steve finished, and we walked out into the front of the shop, he sat there, reading through a magazine. I gave him a sympathetic smile and an acknowledging nod.
“All right, come see me in a few months, and we’ll finish it up.”
“See you then, dickwad,” I replied with a grin as I slipped back into my jacket.
We walked out of the shop and out into cool, April rain. Rory reached for my hand as he led me to the GTO. He opened my door for me, closing it once I climbed it. He walked around the back, climbed in, and started the car.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t stay.”
“It’s all right, Rory. You didn’t have to come at all,” I replied, taking the hand he offered in my lap.
“It’s not all right. I should be there for you, always. I have to get my shit together.”
“Really, it’s okay. And this isn’t one of t
hose girl moments where I say things are okay but they really aren’t. They are,” I responded. My mind remained on my dad; my heart was resting in my chest like a brick. “Can you drive me somewhere?”
“Anywhere.”
**
“I don’t know that you’d like him, Dad.”
I rested a hand on the marble headstone and wiped a tear away with the other. The rain continued to fall lightly, the cemetery filled with the scent of it and fresh flowers.
“There is something incredibly good about him, within him. I’m still trying to get him to see it.”
Rory waited in the car as I sat at my dad’s grave. I just needed a few minutes with him, to talk to him. If only I could be enveloped in one of his life-altering hugs. The kind you get when you feel like the world is spiraling out of control, but once you are folded in warm and familiar arms everything slows, and you can gain stable footing.
“Things have been good, Dad. Makes me so afraid. When is the other shoe going to drop, when will everything fall apart? I’ve tried so long to protect myself, my heart. He makes me want to throw the towel in, throw caution to the wind. Risk it all.”
I pressed my forehead against the cool, wet surface.
“I love you,” I whispered. “I miss you more every day.”
Chapter 25
My life would probably be ending before Independence Day.
Doogan called. Not Duke. Doogan. The threat was pretty clear. I had one month to get him his thirty grand, and then he was coming to pay me a visit. It wouldn’t be the kind that ended with everyone standing. His visits were violent and typically ended in the ICU.
I didn’t have time to worry about any of that bullshit. Frankie was sick. I had to leave work when Karleigh called me in a panic two days ago and forced her to let me take her to the local urgent care. She had pneumonia. She was coughing incessantly, had horrible fevers, no appetite, and was hardly sleeping.
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