by K. L. Savage
“You don’t stop, do you?”
“Nope.”
“If anyone kills me in this place, it will be you.” Patrick slaps his hand in mine, and when I try to pull him up off the floor, he cries out, falling over to his side.
“What is it?”
“I’m too fucking sore. It’s like you’re pulling my arm off my body.” His teeth clench and with every exhale, spittle jets from his mouth.
“I can’t carry you,” I say with wide eyes.
“No shit?”
I’m just about to sass him when his eyes roll to the back of his head, and his body starts to convulse. “Help! I need help over here!” I fall to my knees and hold his head as his body betrays him in another way.
That is what sucks about rehab. You lose one demon just to gain another.
Nurses and orderlies run down the hall, and I’m relieved that I don’t see Lundon. Nurse Gale is leading the charge, and panic etches the wrinkles on her face when she sees Patrick on the ground.
“What happened?” she asks, just as she sticks a needle in his bicep, then presses down on the syringe.
His shaking body comes to a stop in a few seconds, and I hold his head in my lap, blinking away tears. I hate this for him. I hate he has to do this. The battle is so hard and exhausting. It’s draining. No one can do it alone. I want to be his friend. I want to help him through this. I push the strands of his hair out of his face, and the other nurses lay a gurney on the ground. “Wait, where are you taking him?”
“To a private room, dear. He needs to be watched. His withdrawal is very severe.”
“Can I come?”
“No, Sunnie.”
“Please, Gale. I’m his friend. He can’t be alone. Please. I’ll read to him. I won’t do anything. We were just walking when he fell to the floor and—”
“He shouldn’t be up and moving around,” she scolds.
“I know. I told him that. He isn’t a man who listens.”
“I gathered,” she says, unamused. “I’m sorry, I can’t allow you to see him. You aren’t family.” And just like that, she turns and rolls Patrick down the hall, away from me.
I’ll figure out how to get in that room.
I always do.
May the plotting begin.
CHAPTER FIVE
PIRATE
“I’ll love you forever, Samuel says, grasping her hand in his. He stares into Elizabeth’s eyes, seeing his future playing out before him.”
De-ja-fucking-vu.
I have heard this story one too many times.
“Oh, Samuel. I love you too. Forever. For always. Samuel picks her up and spins her around in circles, kissing her until he has to pull away to get a breath of air.” Paper crinkles, telling me Sunnie has flipped the page to give me more of this amazing, mind-numbing story.
Yay.
“You’ll get your hands off my daughter! No moonshiner is going to be good enough for my daughter. Elizabeth, get away from him this instant.” Sunnie deepens her voice to sound like the angry old man in the book, then adds, “The antagonist in this story kind of reminds me of you, Patrick. Always has a stick up his ass.”
It’s in that moment I decide I can’t take another second of this novel. People actually read this shit? “You again,” I say, not bothering to look at her. I know it’s Sunnie by the sound of her delightful voice. It isn’t me being a smartass either. Her tone is smooth, but right at the end of every word is a slight rasp or a lisp. I can’t tell. I’ll never admit it, but no matter how bad the book she’s reading is, I’ll never get tired of hearing her voice.
“Me again,” she singsongs and closes the book with a hard smack.
“Good thing. That book is terrible.”
“It really is, but I’ve put too much work into reading it to let it go to waste now. How do you feel, Patrick?”
“Stop calling me that, call me Pirate.”
She stands and lifts my lids open.
“Ow!” I smack her hands away and rub my eyes. “What the fuck?”
“I’m just making sure you’re okay. Pirate is such a silly name. I wanted to make sure you were all there.” Sunnie knocks her knuckles on the side of my head, and it has the headache in the back of my skull throbbing.
“Pirate is my road name.”
“Road name?”
“Yeah, my road name.”
“Road name?”
“Stop repeating everything I say. For fuck’s sake.” I finally glare at her, and all my annoyance flees when I see sapphire eyes staring back at me. Damn it, I hate how beautiful she is.
“Well, fucking explain yourself and stop saying ‘road name’ like I’m supposed to know what it is.”
I rub my temples from our lackluster conversation and point toward the door. “Don’t you have somewhere to be. Anywhere but here would be great. Maybe I’ll actually heal, sleep, and get in a good mood.”
“You? In a good mood? Right,” she scoffs and opens the novel, then runs her fingers between the pages where the spine is. I hate that I’ve noticed she does it every time she reads.
I smack my hand on the book and jerk it away from her grasp, then toss it to the side until it smacks the window. “Please, no more Samuel and Elizabeth. It will literally kill me.”
“Isn’t that what you want?” She smirks and places her palms on her thighs as she stands from the chair she got herself all cozy and comfortable in next to my hospital bed. She even has a blanket. Right now, she has it wrapped around her entire body. She bends over to get the book, and my gaze falls to her ass.
Round, wide fucking hips and thighs for days. I know she isn’t the type of woman to be treated like one of the club sluts. Fucking her isn’t a problem; it’s the unraveling in my chest that happens when Sunnie is around. She somehow finds a way to pull apart the knots one aggravating smile at a time.
She drives me nuts.
The club sluts? They don’t talk back. You stuff their mouths and pussy with cock, and they are hungry for it. They don’t say a word. They like to be used. All I had to do was snap my finger at Candy, and she’d crawl all over me like a hungry dog, begging for my fucking bone.
I never got anything out of sex. My MC brothers thought sex and drinking was the only thing I could do, but they would be disappointed to know I only really succeeded at drinking. I can get hard, fuck all day long, but I can’t remember the last time I orgasmed.
I can’t.
Nothing feels good to me anymore. Not sex, not a mouth wrapped around my cock, nothing. Just booze. The more, the merrier. It’s all I want. I want to feel the numbness tingling my body and the fire in my stomach. I miss the swimming feeling of not being able to stand on my own two feet.
Oh, or how about the last drop dripping from the bottle. Fuck yes, I miss that too. I miss turning the rum up, sticking out my tongue, and having the fluid spread across my tastebuds. Then, there’s the twisting of the cap of a brand new bottle and having to hurry to lick up the alcohol spilling over the rim.
Letting any of it go to waste is a terrible thing.
“We should be friends,” she says after a few minutes of silence.
She’s right. I do want to die, but the more she hangs around, the more difficult she makes it. I like her.
I shouldn’t.
She deserves more than some drunk like me. Anyone does. Even the club. I want to be left alone. Why can’t anyone ever just leave me alone?
“No.” I want to make sure there is no room for argument. Not that it would matter. I have a feeling Sunnie can argue her way out of anything. I reach for the pitcher of water, and my hand shakes, but this time it isn’t from a seizure or uncontrollable shakes. I’m just that fucking weak. I pour myself a small cup of water and down it like I would a shot.
I crumble the paper cup and toss it to the side. They call that little fucking thing a cup? I can down more liquor in one swallow than that waste of paper can hold. I twist off the top of the pitcher and throw that too until it hits
the wall and drops to the floor.
“Can you be any noisier?” she asks, lifting one leg to her chest while she settles in the chair. She looks like she’s about to stay awhile.
I don’t have the mental capacity to handle her right now.
Blinking at her, I lift the pitcher to my mouth and slurp the water. I gulp even louder and then smack my lips together and say, “Ah.” Nothing like the bland taste of water to make the body feel like it’s worth something.
“If you don’t like how I drink, you can leave.” I spread my arm toward the door. “Don’t let it hit your ass on the way out.”
“Cheeky for someone who has been unconscious for an entire day.” She tears her eyes away from mine to stare at the clock on the wall.
No, don’t look at the time. Don’t go. Look at me.
I’ll never admit that I enjoy her company. She’ll run with it, and then she won’t realize what’s good for her and leave me alone.
“Well, you know what? I only wanted to be here when you woke up. I need to get going. I have an appointment, and so do you.”
She uncurls herself from her chair and lays the blanket across my body instead of leaving it where she found it. Why does she have to be so thoughtful? I don’t deserve her kindness.
“What do you mean I have an appointment? No, I don’t.”
She tosses her head back and laughs. I don’t like the sound of that. It sounds like she’s going to get enjoyment out of whatever torture is about to come my way. “Do you think rehab is just detox and they let you out on your merry way? After you detox, that’s when the rehab begins. Therapy, group sessions, journal writing, the twelve-step program you have to complete. It all starts now.”
“No,” I say in horror, then reach out and wrap my fingers around her wrist when she tries to walk out the door. “Don’t leave me alone with a damn therapist. They are nutcases.”
“Aw…” She puckers her lips and pats the top of my hand with hers, then one by one she plucks my fingers from around her wrist. “Patrick the Pirate is scared of a wittle therapist.” She sticks out her bottom lip and rounds her eyes so they are big as she bats those long lashes at me.
I narrow my eyes and rip my hand away, my fingers turning cold from the absence of her body heat. “I’m not scared.” I don’t even sound believable. I know therapists have their evil ways of getting inside someone’s head, thinking they are fixing all the nuts and bolts when really they are just making matters worse.
A knock at the door has both of us staring at a man in the doorway. He pushes his glasses up his nose and waves. He is in a cheap suit, and there’s a ketchup stain on his light orange tie.
“I’m here for a session with Patrick Neil?” He speaks through his nose, all nasally. Great.
I’d rather keep Sunnie around. “Yeah, he looks like an award-winning therapist.”
“You win some, you lose some,” Sunnie says with a pleased smile that is so wide it makes her eyes squint. “Tootles!” She condescends me further by giving my cheek a few slaps that are rougher than necessary. “Have fun—” She bends down, nestles her cheek against mine, and the soft petals of her lips graze my ear “—Patrick the Pirate.”
“Don’t call me that again,” I grit, clutching the sheets in my palms to stop myself from hauling her against me and tasting those smartass lips of hers.
“He believes he is a pirate?” the therapist asks her as she saunters her beautiful ass out the door.
“Coo-coo this one. You have your work cut out for you, doctor.” Sunnie spins her finger in a circle next to her head and blows me a kiss before she gives me her back and prances away.
“I hate you,” I shout, knowing damn well she can hear me.
“Too bad,” she replies, all happy and fucking positive like she always is.
“It’s good for you to have friends,” the guy says, shutting the door behind him.
As he takes the seat Sunnie vacated, I wish she were here instead of him. She’s prettier and smells like berries.
I want to eat her as much as I want to shake her for driving me mad. She’d probably like getting shaken up, crazy chick.
“She’s not my friend. She’s another—” I whistle the crazy tune as I make the same hand gesture with my finger next to my temple. “You’ll have to forgive her.”
“So you don’t think of yourself as a pirate?” He opens his briefcase and takes out a pen and paper, crossing one ankle over his knee. “How does being a pirate make you feel?”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter under my breath so he can’t hear me. “I don’t think I’m a pirate. And I want a different therapist. No offense, but it looks like you just rolled out of bed. Talking to you about my problems when you look like you have problems yourself, doesn’t reassure my confidence in you.”
“Oh…” He chuckles and stretches out his tie. “My son squirted ketchup on me, and I didn’t have time to change.” He loosens his tie and takes it off, dropping it to the floor. “Better?”
“No.” He still looks like he accidentally woke up with a psychology degree in his hand.
“Mmm, so you’re a tough patient.” He scribbles something down, and I try to stretch my neck to see what he could possibly be writing.
I don’t like that. Mr. Psychology thinks he can read me. I cross my arms over my chest and stare him down.
He stares back and clicks his pen. Over.
And over.
And fucking over again.
“I can sit here all day, Mr. Patrick the Pirate.”
I’m going to kill Sunnie for telling him to call me that.
Get fucking cozy, Mr. Psychology, because I’m not moving my lips. I just woke up from seizing, and they set me up with a guy who looks like he flips burgers for a living. I want a day of rest. In this room with no interruptions.
I just want to be left the hell alone.
“We have an hour to kill,” he informs me.
I yawn and close my eyes to go to sleep. There’s nothing I want to talk to him about. Not him. Not Sunnie. Not fucking anyone.
My tragedies are mine and mine alone. If I talk about them, I release them, and the last thing I want is to be set free.
CHAPTER SIX
SUNNIE
“How are you feeling today, Sunnie?” Ms. Havensworth asks as she folds her hands on top of the sleek desk. Her red rectangular glasses are perched on the tip of her nose, and she lifts her eyes to look at me over the lenses. Her short lashes are clumped together with mascara, and there are black smudges under her bottom lash line from eyeliner. Her makeup makes her seem older than she is. Her colored brown hair is twisted into a French twist, a hairstyle I haven’t seen since my mom died a few years ago.
“Sunnie?”
“Hmm?”
“I asked how you are feeling.” Ms. Havensworth takes her glasses off and folds them gently, laying them on the maple wood desk.
“I’m fine. I’m almost done with that romance novel I keep taking from Patricia. It isn’t realistic.”
“Sunnie.” My therapist sounds exasperated as she sighs. Her chair reclines when she leans back and props her elbows onto the armrests, placing her fingers in a steeple position. “How long do you want to be here? Don’t you want to go home and make a living for yourself? I know you don’t like being here.”
“Being here is better than being anywhere else,” I say, admiring her office. The walls are painted a color that should turn people’s frowns upside down—a pale lilac. Instead of cheap paintings, she has fresh flowers all around. She has a picture of her son on her desk. He died overseas last year while serving in the military. Ms. Havensworth never hides her pain or feelings, and she seems to be in complete control. She makes healing sound so easy.
“Why?”
“I can’t get hurt in here,” I admit, scratching the space between my arms where the needle marks are. It’s a habit. They don’t itch anymore, but it’s a tic, something I can’t control.
Ms. Havensworth opens my
file, a thick file, bigger than a lot of books, and I look away, ashamed. There’s a hundred things she can ask me about, but there is one subject I never want her to touch.
“Who hurt you out there, Sunnie?”
“Do we have to talk about this?” I pull on my long sleeves and wrap my arms around my legs.
“We do if you ever want to make progress.”
I open my mouth to answer, but she lifts her hand to cut me off. “Yes, you have made social progress. You pretend to be a very happy person, Sunnie. You tend to go out of your way to match your name, which I think is very unique. I quite enjoy your name. It is beautiful.”
“My mom named me.”
She’s surprised by this little piece of information I throw at her. “Is that so? Do you know why she named you Sunshine?”
I smile at the memory. We were at the park, and she pointed to the sky where the sun was boiling hot, a big yellow dot above us. “She said, ‘When you were born, my entire world lit up, like the sun shining, covering up the darkness with light.’” I wipe a tear away, and my heart breaks all over again. When my mom died, that’s when I went off the rails. I did all the drugs I could get my hands on, fucked whoever I could if it meant getting the high for free, but my weakness?
Heroin.
It almost killed me.
A dark secret? I wanted it to. Patrick and I aren’t that different. Death hasn’t picked us yet. It isn’t our time to die. We have to make the best of our lives until the reaper takes our souls.
“You miss her.” She doesn’t ask me; it’s a statement.
“Of course, I do. She was the only person in my life who gave a damn about me.” I blink toward the ceiling and blow out a breath to try to gather a little bit of control. “My dad … my dad is a horrible person.”
“Mmm, he is running for Mayor, isn’t he?”
“Something like that,” I mumble. Being a lawyer isn’t enough. He has to aim higher to make sure he’s in control of anything and anyone he wants.