I choked back a sob, trying my damnedest to keep it all in check. Memories flooded my brain in a flash, from the moment I saw her with that bag of food in her hand to the moment I said goodbye for the last time. Our entire relationship in the blink of an eye—like a lightning bolt to the heart—and it caused my legs to shut down and I slunk to the linoleum, my back against the fridge. I took papers and report cards with me, sending magnets and pictures crashing to the floor around me.
Whatever strength I had left in me was crushed under the weight of it all, and as I finally broke down in tears, I wondered over and over if I’d done the right thing.
PART
TWO
Four Years
Later
FIFTEEN
- Nicholas -
I rolled over in bed, staring out the window of my one bedroom Brooklyn apartment, wondering what the hell was going on upstairs. It sounded like a team of gymnasts were practicing a routine filled with cries and moans of deep pleasure that shook the entire floor. Grabbing my phone, I checked the time: 1:37 in the morning. Son of a bitch.
Not that I had to get up for work or anything like that. I just didn’t like being woken up in the middle of the night. Work for me consisted of sliding into a pair of slippers, putting on a pot of coffee, and sitting in front of my computer for eight hours. It didn’t matter if I woke up at eleven in the morning, or three in the afternoon. I was my own boss.
I sat up, tossing the covers aside as if they were a cape and I were a superhero making a grand entrance. I couldn’t listen to this all night. I shuffled into my slippers and went into the living room to turn on my laptop. Figuring it was too late (or early) for coffee, I grabbed a beer and plunked my ass down in the chair. From the couch my cat, Bacon, raised his head and glared at me like it was my fault for disturbing the peace.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I told him.
He chittered and went back to sleep. I envied that cat.
“Chapter Ten,” I mumbled, looking at the manuscript in front of me. I read over the last few sentences I’d written and started picking at keys until my brain and imagination could synch up, then I fell into a nice rhythm that didn’t stop until Chapter Thirteen and the beer sitting next to me was piss warm.
4:45 in the morning.
Good enough for me.
I got up and made some coffee. Who needs sleep, right? While it was brewing, I went over to the weight bench in the corner and pressed three sets of twenty. It’d sort of become a thing lately, and by lately I mean I’d been lifting steadily for the last two years. That and writing were the perfect outlets, allowing me to work through all the crap. I had no interest in crowds, or clubs—or people, for that matter, so those two solitary activities were my church.
With the coffee done, I sat back in front of the computer and kept going for another couple of hours until I had a lock on Chapter Thirteen. The new novel, the third of my Blake Steel books—a series of men’s adventure novels about a lone gunman for hire—was going great so far, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the seeds of doubt were planted, and I’d have to work through that little voice in my head that told me everything was crap in order to complete the first draft. Such is the writing life.
I surfed over to Amazon to read some reviews. They say writers shouldn’t read their own reviews, but I say fuck that.
4-Stars. Steel has got to be one of this most complex characters ever created. Love the action. Can’t wait for more. Rossi rocks!
5-Stars. OMG!!! The ending of Cold as Steel got me right in the feels. Please tell me there’s going to be more?!?!?!
3-Stars. Pretty good. Could have done without all the swearing, but overall a descent read. Might pick up the other books. Don’t know yet.
1-Star. What a waste of time this was. I couldn’t even finish it. God, who wrote this? A pre-schooler. No, probably not, at least then it would make a heck of a lot more sense.
I laughed out loud at that last one and sipped my Columbian. Gotta love people.
Making a descent living off of self-published books is a lot harder than some folks make it out to be. You hear stories of people selling millions of books and making hundreds of thousands of dollars, but what most of them don’t tell you is that they’re anomalies. They’re not the norm. Most self-published authors don’t even make enough to pay their rent month after month.
Me? I make about ten grand a month. It fluctuates, but that’s the average. 120k a year, which might seem like a lot of money, but I pay my own federal, state, and local taxes, and live in New York where it costs five bucks for a gallon milk and rent runs me close to $2,500 a month. Not to mention I have to pay for editing, cover art, and formatting so I can get my paperbacks and ebooks out to the masses. Sure, I could probably learn to do all that stuff myself minus the editing, but I just want to write, you know? Let somebody else handle all the dirty work.
It all adds up, and after a while that 120k isn’t so much money anymore.
It was enough to buy me breakfast though, which my stomach was telling me it desperately needed. I showered, gelled my hair into an organized mess, and threw on some clothes. There was a nice little café down the street that served up great eggs and hash browns at a descent price. That, and Cindy the waitress had a crush on me. She was cute and all, but I was in no position to be anybody’s boyfriend right now. Still, I liked the attention.
Sunday mornings in Brooklyn are majestic, especially in my neighborhood in mid-July. At just after seven, everything is still relatively quiet, save for the joggers and dog walkers doing their rounds. The birds are alive, the smell of breakfast is in the air, and the green trees sway their summer leaves in the breeze like they’re dancing just for you. It truly is beautiful, and by the time I got to Cathy’s Café I felt rejuvenated rather than like I’d been up all night writing.
I sat at the counter and grabbed a copy of The Times someone had left behind, and flipped to the Book Review section. The place was already buzzing with regulars who were pounding back their coffee and feasting on breakfast. I scanned the Bestseller list with curious interest, looking to see how many self-published authors were on it. Three. I didn’t have any grandiose dreams of making it on there with the kinds of books I wrote, but hey, stranger things have happened.
“Hey, Nicky,” Cindy said, making her approach.
I put down the paper and smiled at her. She was a tall drink of water, with long blonde hair and tits the size of Texas. She had a bubbly attitude and high pitched voice to match, and whenever she looked at me she’d flash a set of the whitest teeth I’d ever seen.
“Hey,” I said, picking at the napkin next to my cup. She turned it over and poured me a cup of sludge. Cathy’s might have a great breakfast, but their coffee is for shit.
“Usual?” she asked.
I nodded. “Eggs over easy and hash browns.”
“Toast?”
“Sourdough.”
“Coming right up sugar.” She winked and swished around, swaying her hips when she walked away. I’m not going to lie, I looked, but it’s only because she’s got a great ass, and if she didn’t go to the trouble of hiding it from me, well, then I figured it was okay.
I swiveled around and met eyes with some people I recognized, nodding politely to them while waiting for my breakfast to cook. Since nabbing my place in Brooklyn three years ago when my writing started to take off, I’d become friends, or at least friendly, with people in the neighborhood. I may not have liked people, but I wasn’t a total dick. I just declined every invitation sent to me that asked me to come to someone’s birthday or block party. I had no interest in socializing on that level. Going to breakfast was about as out there as I’d put myself, and for the most part my neighbors respected that without me having to go into detail as to why I wasn’t a people person.
Cindy returned with my plate, laying it before me with a snap of her gum. “Anything else, babes?”
“Nope, everything looks good.”
I glanced at the bill. Her home number was written on the back of it, like always, with a smiley face that had hearts for eye. Cindy, Cindy, Cindy. I wanted to tell her that it reeked of desperation, but didn’t have the nerve to say anything. Who was I to question a young girl’s attractions, even if it was to someone who was as damaged as I was?
When I’d finished eating, I paid the tab, left a tip, and much to Cindy’s disappointment left without saying goodbye to her. Maybe one day I’d work up the courage to call her, or at least have a conversation with her, but today was not that day.
When I got home my answering machine was blinking, so I flopped down on the couch and pressed play.
Nicky, this is your mother. You know, the one you never call anymore…
I grinned. We spoke at least once a week. She always did have a flare for the dramatic.
…You need to call me right away. Something’s happened and I don’t want to tell it to this damn machine. Just call, okay. Love you, bye.
God, what was it now? Usually when she phoned to tell me something happened, it had to do with one of the neighbors taking a tumble outside on the ice in the winter time, or that the building was getting some sort of noisy renovation that was displeasing to her so she’d have to come and stay with me for a week or two.
I knew the drill. She was just checking up on me to make sure I was okay. After everything that happened and the way I became a self-imposed recluse, she had a right to worry.
Reaching into my pocket, I grabbed my cellphone and turned it on. She’d left a message on my voicemail there, too. Uh oh. She never does that. This could be bad. Maybe it had something to do with Giorgio.
She’d met him shortly after I left home at twenty. He’d come into the pharmacy where she worked to fill a prescription and they’d hit it off. When it began to get serious, she looked into divorcing my deadbeat father who’d never bothered returning home. It was a process, and she’d run an ad in the local newspaper in lieu of serving him papers, and after three weeks with no response the judge decreed that was good enough and granted Mom the divorce, freeing her and Giorgio up to do as they please. He’d moved in, and though he’s a fair bit older than mom, he was good to her, and Helena.
I dialed and listened as it rang. The only thing that ran through my mind was Giorgio’s heart. He had a weak ticker, hence the prescription he’d been filling when he met mom, and I thought for certain it was something along those lines and I’d have to drop everything and rush back to Manhattan to help see her through it.
She picked up on the third ring.
“Hey, Ma. It’s Nicky. Got your message, what’s up?”
“Nicky, oh honey, hello. Are you sitting down?”
I looked at the couch, and at Bacon who’d come and leaped onto the cushion next to me. He was purring away while I rubbed his belly. “Yup,” I said. “It’s all good.”
She immediately started sobbing and I thought this is it, Giorgio’s dead.
“It’s Sarah, honey. You remember her?”
The sound of her name caused my breath to hitch, and I immediately stopped touching Bacon and bolted upright just shy of jumping to my feet. My heart started pounding and I tried to tell mom that yes, of course I remembered her, but no words would come out.
Sarah. I hadn’t heard her name in nearly four years. God, did I remember her. I thought about her every single day, several times a day. She was the reason for my seclusion. The reason I was a recluse, and just hearing that one single word pass Ma’s lips made it feel like I was seventeen again and standing across from Ollie’s watching her as she looked at me.
“Nicky, are you there?” she asked.
I could picture her crying on the other end of the phone, possibly sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of Irish coffee sitting in front of her. She didn’t have to work anymore since Giorgio made enough money for the both of them, stocks or something, so she spent her time doing crafts and hitting the bottle, though not nearly as much as my father had.
“I’m here, Ma,” I said. It felt like I’d swallowed a sleeve of Ritz crackers. I desperately needed a drink of something, but I didn’t trust my legs. I was afraid that if I actually did get up I’d collapse to the floor. I had visions of myself in one of those Life Alert commercials.
Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!
I wanted to believe the best. That maybe Sarah met some nice guy and had gotten hitched, and that’s why Mom was crying. She knew me better than I knew myself, and though we’d never talked about her after that day when I’d left her for the last time, Mom knew that she was still the girl who had my heart, and that it would be a long time—if ever—before I ever let another person as close to me as she’d been.
I wanted to believe the best, but mom told me the worst.
“I don’t—I’m not sure what to—I don’t know—”
“Spit it out,” I heard myself say.
“Oh Nicky, she’s dead.”
I dropped the phone and quickly followed it to the floor. In the distance I heard Ma asking me if I was okay, but honestly it felt like I was drowning and she was calling my name from above water. Bacon, totally freaked, peeled off for a safe corner of the apartment.
I couldn’t breathe. My vision blurred. Tears flowed freely and silently down my face as once again my entire relationship with Sarah flashed before my eyes, just like it’d done the day I left her. Every kiss, every breath, every hug—I felt it all in an emotional tightness that gripped my chest.
This is what dying feels like.
Dying. Death. Dead.
Sarah.
I released everything in a gut-wrenching sob that escaped my throat, causing Bacon to hiss. I reached for the phone with a hand as unsteady as the ocean, dropped it again, reached for it, placed it to my ear, and heard silence. Mom had hung up.
An hour later she showed up my apartment, and picked me up off the floor.
PART
THREE
Three Years
Later
SIXTEEN
- Nicholas -
1-Star. I think Nicholas Rossi must’ve had a stroke or something, because his Blake Steel books have been going downhill for the last couple of years. I’m done after this one. Complete nonsense. So disappointed.
2-Stars. Not even remotely good as the first two. The third was okay, but these last couple of books are horrendous. I don’t even know why I bother reading them.
1-Star. Rossi Sucks!!!
1-Star. Nope. Just nope. I don’t know who had the bright idea to make Blake do a complete 180 and turn him into an emotionless, selfish SOB, but it doesn’t suit him at all. These books used to have heart, now they’re just mindless drivel. Like an Avengers movie or something. So done with this series.
I hadn’t shaved in days and the apartment I was on the verge of losing looked like a hurricane had blown through it. Clothes everywhere, both clean and dirty; pizza boxes stacked up against the wall like a Jenga tower waiting to topple over. It was shameful.
With a heavy sigh I closed my laptop and swiveled around in my chair, running my hands down the side of my itchy, scruffy face. I hated that those reviews were right. Hated it with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. I’d tried with this latest book, I really did. I thought okay, time to move on and write the best book you can write, but obviously my best wasn’t good enough anymore.
“Nicky, you got any ice cream?” asked a voice from the bedroom.
Another sigh, followed by a wince. I stood up and went to the ice box, letting the cool air of the freezer wash over me for a moment like maybe it would snap some sense into me. It didn’t.
“No,” I shouted back. “Just…frozen peas.”
“Ugh,” came a dramatic reply.
I shuf
fled over, patting Bacon’s head on the way to the bedroom. He nipped at my fingers and meowed. “Eat some pizza,” I said.
I leaned against the open door and stared at Helena. She laid sprawled out on the bed with a novel in her hands. She adjusted her glasses and looked up at me. “You look like shit, you know that?
I nodded. “I know.”
She’d been at the apartment for three days, and there was no sign she’d be leaving anytime soon. I’d given up my bed for her, and Helena’s suitcase sat open on the floor with her toiletries, clothes, and books spilling out of it.
I scratched my balls and yawned.
“Gross,” she muttered.
“You can leave at anytime,” I said.
“Ma said a week.”
I rolled my eyes. Ma. I suspected she’d been the reason behind my sister’s visit.
My mind searched back to that day three years ago. The day I’d learned the only girl I’d ever cared about was gone. It hurt to think about her, but it hurt even more to forget.
I don’t mean to sound harsh, Mom told me later that night, but maybe now you’ll be able to move on with your life.
Move on? Shit, that’s what I’d been trying to do up until that point. My books were selling well, I was making some scratch, and I had a place of my own. More than I could say for some 23-year-olds. Life was okay back then, but now? At 26 I was losing it. In debt up to my eyeballs with back taxes and credit cards, writing crappy novels that I couldn’t give away because my heart just wasn’t in it anymore, only I didn’t know how to do anything else. I had no skills beyond the written word, and if I couldn’t do that, then what good was I? I’d never gone to college. All I’d ever done was write.
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