Two heartbeats longer, and that’s exactly what I would have done had Brad not interrupted us. “You okay over here, Jaq?”
Damon’s mouth pulled away and he rested his forehead on mine, “Guess I’ll have to take a rain check on hearing you scream my name,” he breathed.
His smugness brought me to my senses and I shoved him away from me. He stumbled back with a surprised laugh. I narrowed my eyes at him, “You owe me,” I said and pointed to the bottle in his hands.
“Get your own fucking bottle,” he sneered. “That pathetic kiss didn’t earn you anything from me.” He grabbed his crotch and tipped the bottle back in some sort of crazy poetic salute.
Brad swung Damon around and clocked him hard in the mouth, “Take that back you sonofabitch,” he glowered down at Damon, who sat in the dirt rubbing his jaw.
Damon shook his head and hopped to his feet. He held up two hands, ‘Easy there cowboy. She’s all yours,” his lips curled into a cruel smile that didn’t erase the hard glint in his eyes. “Jaq knows I was only messing with her. Don’t ya, Jaq?”
I nodded, “It’s cool. No harm, no foul.”
Chapter 9
“Brad!” I said and punched him in the shoulder. “Look, I know you were just trying to protect me and all, but I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself. Really.”
He scowled and folded his arms in front of his chest, “I know that Jaq. But Damon Blackwell is all kinds of bad news. Promise me you’ll stay away from him.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” I said.
The muscles in his jaw clenched and he gave me a hard look, “Yeah well, you should be.”
A warning itched at the back of my subconscious. Somewhere inside, I knew Damon Blackwell was way out of my league as far as dangerous guys to lock lips with go, but I sure didn’t want anyone telling me to stay away from him. The more I was warned not to do something, the more my evil inner twin dared me to go for it. “It’s not your choice to make, Brad.” I spun away from him in search of Shelley and my next beer.
“We’ll talk about it when you’re sober sometime,” he growled. I peeked back at him over my shoulder and the wounded expression on his face almost melted my cold heart. That feeling lasted until he said, “Do what you want Jaq, but don’t come whining to me when he breaks your heart. Or worse.”
When I finally found Shelley she gave me an ugly glare, “I don’t know what you did to piss off Brad, but you did it up right.” I told her about him being mad at me for kissing Damon Blackwell. “It doesn’t surprise me he got pissed that you kissed someone other than him. You know how he feels about you.”
“I think he was just being over protective and his love of fighting overruled logic. Damon just happened to get in the way of his fist,” I shrugged. “I’m kind of glad Damon didn’t decide to retaliate. You know Brad’s been in more than his fair share of barroom brawls, but something tells me he’d be no match for Damon Blackwell.”
“Well you’d better start sobering up or plan to ride home with Tim and me tonight because I just watched Brad chug three beers in about sixty seconds,” Shelley said.
I tapped my beer cup against hers and smiled, “Looks like we’re riding together tonight after all.”
“Oh I don’t know,” she nodded her head toward something behind me. “I think he might have other ideas. If the way his eyes are undressing you is any indication.”
I turned, prepared to flip Damon the bird but instead found myself staring into a pair of familiar blue eyes which peered out from under a baseball cap. Where did I recognize those eyes from? Before I could put a name to the eyes, there was a commotion on the other side of the fire.
“Awe fuck, fight,” Tim shouted, sprinting toward the yelling. Right away I assumed it was Damon pounding Brad to a bloody pulp for taking that cheap shot earlier. We ran over to find two strangers rolling around in the dirt, each of them trying to get the upper hand in their drunken wrestling match. I sighed in relief and stepped away from the crowd that had knitted together to watch.
Before I knew it, someone tapped on my shoulder and whispered, “Jaq?” I turned around and holy shit! It was him. The crazy, blue-eyed, Wild Turkey guzzling guy from practically a lifetime ago.
“Seth? Um. Well this is embarrassing. I’ve seen you in your boxers and I don’t even know your last name,” I smiled shyly.
“It’s Thomas,” he offered. I looked confused, wondering if I’d gotten his first name wrong when he smiled and said, “Seth Thomas.”
“Hey Seth, good to see you again,” I smiled. Inside my heart was beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings and I only hoped he couldn’t hear it from where he stood.
He smiled, “The party’s just about over and now my night decides to get better.”
I tipped my head to stare at him, “What?”
“I’ve been here all night and not only one, but two of my fucking ex’s showed up. One of them is completely psychotic. I don’t know how many times I have to tell her it’s over before she takes the hint, but she’s about one phone call away from me filing a restraining order.”
I glanced nervously around, “I hope she’s not watching. That’s the last thing I need. Some psycho ex-girlfriend after me.”
He laughed and shook his head, “Nah. They’re gone now. You’re safe.”
“That’s good, one psycho a night is about all I can handle,” I muttered.
“Yeah I saw your boyfriend knock Blackwell on his ass earlier,” he said. “I was going to come over and talk to you before that happened. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t. “
“You saw that?” I asked, cringing inside from embarrassment. “Brad’s not my boyfriend. He’s just a little overprotective.”
There was something about Seth that put me at ease. I had completely lost track of time as we stood there talking. It was only when I took a quick glance around that I noticed barely a handful of people remained. Shelley found me to tell me they were leaving.
“I’ll give you a ride,” Seth offered.
My breath hitched, and the nervous fluttering returned. I looked up at Seth and decided to take him up on his offer.
I waved Shelley off, “I’ll ride with Seth.”
She looked between the two of us and nodded, “Okay. Better hurry. Brad and Damon are going to race to the main road.”
“What? Are they crazy? That road is barely wide enough to race two bicycles, let alone two trucks!” I yelled in panic.
“One pickup and a Harley,” she shouted back at me while Tim pulled her after him toward his truck.
“Speaking of completely freaking psychotic!” I shook my head. “We’d better go.”
It started to sprinkle just as I hopped into Seth’s Chevy. I heard the roar of Damon’s bike as he worked the throttle back and forth, revving it up loud enough to rattle the windows of the truck. Seth reached over and tugged the seatbelt snug across my chest. “Better hang on baby, things could get a little rough.”
It’s a good thing the cab was dark and he couldn’t see my cheeks morph into two overripe tomatoes. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” the beer said.
The few stragglers still around the bonfire scattered to their vehicles, either to avoid the rain or to see the two idiots try and out-chicken each other on their way to the main road. Absent mindedly, I traced the butterfly tattoo on the inside of my wrist.
Brad had gifted me with the tattoo when he lost some stupid bet a few months ago. The tattoo hadn’t cost him anything but his talent and time. It’s a beautiful likeness of a Blue Morpho butterfly. He had laughed and told me, “Now you’ll never be able to forget me. Whenever you see that tattoo, there I’ll be.”
“Here they come, hang on,” Seth told me just seconds before he eased off the gas. He jerked the wheel to the right and jammed on the brakes. Brad’s truck rocketed past in a blur outside Seth’s window. I craned my neck around to look out the back glass for Damon’s Harley. He was coming fast. As soon as Damon went by, Seth cut
back onto the road and gunned it. The wheels started to spin in the wet grass and he reached down to engage the four wheel drive. Soon the tires found traction and we were in pursuit.
My skin went clammy and my stomach turned inside out. “The bridge…” I managed to choke out. “He always forgets about the bridge.”
Seth shot me a worried look and reached over to squeeze my ice cold hand. “They’re almost there now.”
As soon as the words left his lips I watched a lone tail light veer off the road and come to a stop. I leaned forward in the seat, as close to the windshield as the seatbelt would allow. Through the foggy mist I stared, horrified, at two taillights hovering at an unnatural angle to the roadway. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!” My hand flew to my mouth, “Stop!”
Seth glanced in his rearview mirror and eased off the gas. I unbuckled the seatbelt and flung the door open before we came to a complete stop. Already in a dead run toward the wreckage, I could see as steam rose off the front of what was left of Brad’s mangled Ford and the acrid smell of gas and antifreeze hung thick in the damp air making my eyes water.
Damon was frantically trying to get the driver’s door of Brad’s truck to open, but the impact against the bridge had smashed the front bumper of the truck almost back to the windshield and the doors were as good as welded shut.
I screamed and Damon yelled at me, “Stay the fuck back! Someone call 9-1-1!”
Seth wrapped his arms around my waist and held me in a bear hug. Even though I clawed, pounded, kicked, thrashed, and called him every vile thing I could think of, his grip never loosened.
The rain, now coming down in monsoon fashion, washed my tears away while I heaved my guts out beside the road. Blood coursed through my veins and pounded behind my ears in a deafening roar.
It was about that time my knees decided to dissolve into mush and the edges of my vision went black just before I went limp in Seth’s arms.
Chapter 10
When I awoke, Shelley was at the foot of my bed wrapped up in her pink fuzzy robe with matching slippers. Seated in my Grandma Carter’s old rocker, she stared out the window. Her face was devoid of all emotion and the chair rocked back and forth almost imperceptibly.
Enough daylight still filtered into the room through the blinds to distinguish night from day but I didn’t know exactly what day it was or how I came to be in my bed. The last thing I remembered was blacking out after Brad’s accident.
My eyes ached and my head throbbed. I rolled onto my side and let out a soft moan. Shelley stopped rocking and turned toward me, her blank expression replaced by concern. “My head is killing me. I guess I must have had more to drink last night than I thought.”
“Last night?” Her eyes narrowed into a frown, “Do you know what day it is? How long you’ve been asleep?”
I pushed myself upright and wrapped my arms around my legs. “Sunday?” She stood and walked silently out of the room. For some reason, it felt like she was mad at me for something. Did she blame me for Brad’s crash?
Within a few minutes, she returned carrying a glass of water and handed me two pills, “Take these,” she told me. “They’ll help ease your headache.”
I swallowed the pills and asked, “What’s going on Shell? You’re like a walking zombie.”
Silently, she stared at her hands folded in her lap. She was quiet for so long, I wasn’t sure she was going to answer the question. Finally, she turned toward me and a single tear slid from her swollen red eyes and rolled slowly down her cheek. “How much do you remember?”
The skin between my eyebrows creased into hard lines and I pressed my palms into my eyes, trying to ease the stabbing pain behind them. I searched frantically through the dark corners of my mind, for something, anything to help shed light on what had happened. “I remember there was an accident. I remember Seth holding me back, trying to keep me away from the wreckage. Damon couldn’t get Brad’s truck door open. That’s about where things go hazy on me.”
Shelley walked over and grabbed a box of tissues from off the floor next to where she’d been sitting. She took a few and tossed the box onto the bed beside me. “It’s 3:00 in the afternoon,” she blew her nose gently. “Tuesday.”
My eyebrows rose in confusion, “Tuesday? What happened to Sunday and Monday?” I whispered. “Brad’s okay though, right?”
“Jaq…” She glanced at me for a split second before picking at the fuzz on her robe, “I’m sorry sweetie. Brad didn’t make it.”
“What?” I screamed and flung the tissue box as hard as I could across the room with what little strength I had left. “You’re lying. He can’t be dead. He just can’t be!”
“I wish I were lying,” She crawled under the covers beside me and wrapped her arms around my shaking shoulders, “I’m sorry Jaq. So, so sorry.”
I fought to stay awake, going over the shattered fragments of my memory but my body had other ideas. I traced my blue butterfly tattoo while sobs wracked my body. Whatever pills Shelley had given me to swallow began to creep into my bloodstream. I suddenly felt incredibly heavy all over. My eyelids fluttered closed, and I drifted into another fitful round of sleep.
Friday afternoon Shelley walked into my room and said, “Brad’s visitation is in a couple hours.”
“I’m not going. I can’t go,” I turned to stare out the window at the colorless day. “It’s my fault he’s dead. I can’t go and face all his friends.”
Shelley’s eyes widened a split second before taking on a hard glint. She walked over to the bed and yanked the covers off of me. “Jacqueline Carter, you get your sorry ass out of this bed right now. You are going to the visitation tonight and you will go to the funeral tomorrow if I have to drag you there kicking and screaming. Nobody. Blames. You. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Brad’s friends? They’re your friends too and no one thinks his accident was your fault.”
My mouth opened and I blinked. It takes a lot to make Shelley mad. Lucky me, I’d just cracked the code. I reached for the blankets and she snatched them out of my reach just before she heaved them across the room. “But…” I stammered.
“No,” she held up her hand, warning me to stop talking. “I mean it. I’m giving you about two seconds and your feet had better be hitting this floor. You march your butt down the hall to the shower right now or I am going to get Tim up here to carry you.”
I stared disbelievingly at my best friend, “Shell?”
“One. Two,” she stomped to the doorway, “Tim!” she shouted down the hall.
“Alright, alright. I’m up,” I shot her a wounded puppy pout as I shoulder past her muttering, “Who are you and what did you do with my best friend?”
Like a child having a temper tantrum, I stomped and slammed and kicked and stomped some more while I showered and dressed to go pay my respects. Shelley had dug through my clothes and managed to find something for me to wear. It was the black dress I had bought specifically to wear to Grandma Carter’s funeral. It was now my official dress of mourning. I decided after Brad’s funeral I’d burn it since I was certain I’d never want to wear it again.
Shelley waited for me in the hallway. She smiled weakly when our eyes met and I narrowed my eyes into a glare to reinforce the message that I was not pleased about this decision. I loved Brad like a brother, but going to his funeral was going to hurt and I was a wimp. I felt incredibly guilty about the accident. If he hadn’t been trying to protect my dumb ass, I wouldn’t have gotten mad at him. My anger fed his anger which in turn had led him to make a stupid decision.
I wasn’t nearly as mad at Shelley as I was at myself, but I felt the need to take my frustration and pain out on somebody, she just happened to be a prime candidate by being in the same room.
Chapter 11
It had been two weeks since the accident and one week since they buried him. I was still finding it difficult to deal with day to day activities. I crawled out of bed, still feeling numb, and shuffled down the hall to the bathroom. The face staring back at
me from the mirror was thinner and the purplish circles beneath my eyes reminded me of a makeover gone horribly wrong. I barely recognized the face as my own and thought how eerily similar it was to the one a few years ago that had made me swear off drugs.
I dug out the least offensive smelling dirty sweats I owned from the laundry basket and turned the water on to the shower as hot as I could stand it — a couple degrees cooler than Mordor and climbed in. It was my first shower since before the funeral. I winced several times as my hands made contact with fading bruises of all shapes and sizes which seemed to cover me from head to toe.
After I got out of the shower and dressed, I found the black dress I’d worn to Brad’s funeral. I grabbed the dress, along with a lighter, and marched out the front door. I tossed the dress into a metal garbage can and torched it. It disintegrated within seconds leaving bits of charred remains and curly black wisps of smoke that floated up into the damp morning air. The Mourning dress had been officially cremated.
Somehow, in the fog of my depression, burning that dress made me feel as though I’d fought the cruel monster of death in hopes that no one else close to me would ever die again. How could they if I didn’t have anything to wear to their funeral? Lame rationalization, I know.
Shelley walked barefooted up behind me to join me in my strange ritual, “Feel better now?”
“No,” I said and smiled wearily. “But it’s as good a place to start as any.”
A sad smile turned up the corners of her mouth but it did little to erase the expression of concern coming from her green eyes. She reached for my hand, “Come inside and get something to eat.”
I nodded. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had anything to eat and on cue, my stomach grumbled on the way back into the house.
“Why do I feel like there are whole chunks of time missing from my brain?” I muttered and pushed the scrambled eggs around on my plate. “And the bruises? Why am I covered with bruises? I feel like somebody beat the shit out of me.”
Different Roads Page 4