Heartbreak Hotel (Dark Friends-to-Lovers)

by Kenya Wright

  “Because Reiki is subjective and changeable.”

  That tells me nothing.

  Had Yaz not been here, I would’ve walked out, but she had this eager look on her face, and there was a small part of me that was hoping this could work. It didn’t make sense that it would, but then Yaz was slowly showing me that anything was possible. I thought I would’ve never been this close to a woman again, and here I stood right next to her, nervous that she would run. Before, I pushed women away. Now, I couldn’t think of her leaving me.

  Yaz grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Maybe you should just try it and see. If you don’t like it, then you can stop the session early and leave.”

  I wanted to, but something kept me silent and in my spot. Fear. It stacked around me like a stone wall, not letting me walk forward.

  “No.” I turned around and walked away. “Not today.”

  Footsteps sounded behind me. I heard Yaz apologizing as she got on my side.

  “Are you okay?” Yaz asked.

  I kept walking. “I’m fine.”

  She grabbed my arm and stopped me. “Hawk?”

  “Yeah?”

  She ran her fingers through her locs. “I think you should try it. You might like it.”

  “And if this doesn’t work?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It will eventually.”

  “I just think you should try it.”

  “Try what? Try to get better?”

  She sighed. “I just think you should try Reiki. I have a friend who swears by it.”

  But, did this friend get tortured for two days?

  Willow walked up to us with concern on her face. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

  I wanted to race out of there. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but I just wanted to sit in a dark room and never discuss any of this again.

  What the fuck has me so scared? Fuck it, Hawk. You’ve been through darker shit than this. It’ll be fine.

  I turned to Willow. “How long does it last?”

  “The times vary, but no longer than ninety minutes. Of course, today we can only do thirty minutes to see what you think.”

  “Let’s make it fifteen.”

  “Okay.”

  “Fine.”

  Five minutes later, I lay on a table in a dark room with only candles to provide light.

  Yaz, what do you have me doing?

  Willow stood on my side. She’d washed her hands at a glass sink near the door, burned some sage, and spread the smoke over my body. “I want you to close your eyes and focus on your breaths. Breath in and out, slowly, feeling your chest rise and fall. Enjoying the soothing sensations of calm wash over you.”

  I shut my eyes and did my best to focus. Still, doubt ran through my mind. I shouldn’t have been in here, but this was all for Yaz.

  Would she have me doing more of this? Or would she finally understand?

  Willow whispered next to me, “Focus.”

  I cleared my throat and did my best.

  The feel of Willow’s hands came next. She held the sides of my head. Nothing sensual or enjoyable. Just hands on my face. At first her fingers were cool against my skin, and then they warmed and shifted to hot. The temperature change took me off guard.

  Did I imagine that? Or were they always this hot? Don’t think about it. Just focus on your breaths.

  I didn’t know how many silent seconds passed by as I began to breath in and out, slowly, letting my chest rise and fall. But then, subtle pulsations flowed through me, right where Willow’s hands were placed. I didn’t know what to make of the sensations. The pulsations came in cascading waves throbbing throughout my body.

  What the fuck?

  I gritted my teeth, not sure if I could deal with this odd and new awareness. Something moved inside of me. Energy. Heat. I didn’t know, but something flowed and drummed and vibrated all throughout my frame.

  Breathe. Just breathe.

  At first, the sensations comforted me. It was akin to me walking around with a load of bricks on my shoulder and then someone pulling them away. I felt light as I lay on the treatment table with her hands on me, and I could’ve sworn that this weird threshold, this energetic state of consciousness surrounded me in the space.

  What is this? What’s she doing?

  It was jarring and unsettling. Something else besides Willow and me breathed around us, seeping into my pores and surging inside of me. Maybe it had always been there. Perhaps, it was God or energy or mysticism or possibly the Soul Tribe staff pumping the air conditioner vents with some sort of LCD gas that made people hallucinate.

  What the hell is going on?

  Regardless, something had changed inside of me and I would never be the same again. And I didn’t think it was a good thing. Darkness, cold darkness, enveloped me even though Willow’s hands continued to heat against my skin. My body froze and inside my chest there was a crackling feeling like someone had lit firecrackers in my stomach. Like a thunderous storm brewed inside of me. Other sensations came too—pin-and-needle tinglings, chills, and more throbbing.

  In that moment, I was ready to get up and end the session, but there was a curiosity inside of me that wanted to see more.

  Breathe.

  Minutes flowed in silence. Willow moved her hands, touching me some more. But like she said, it was never invasive. Just a hot touch melting the coldness away.

  And then...

  I didn’t know when it happened, but I fell into a deep, sleep-like state. I wasn’t all the way gone into my dream world, but I wasn’t fully awake either. A numbness filled me, and with that came an immediate release of my anxiety.

  She touched my throat with both of her hands, but I swore that other hands gripped me as well. Additional ones rested on my head and down by my feet, and those hands ran cold and pressed hard.

  What’s going on?

  I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t.

  A trickling of hot energy ran down both of my legs. A flowery fragrance filled the air and somehow I knew it wasn’t Willow. Something or someone else was in this room, touching me, filling me but for whatever reason, I didn’t fear this. I fucking enjoyed it. It was like I was high off energy. High off comfort and love.

  But unfortunately, that’s not what continued.

  The second my slumbering mind stopped focusing on my breaths, my brain dragged me back to the dark, familiar nightmares I’d come to know so well. Visions of blood and death flashed in my head. All of the fear, the resentment, and the rage I’d kept bottled up inside of me came spilling out, coating every corner of my brain.

  No.

  In my head, I was back at my old house in New York, standing in the garden. Blood seeped up from the grass beneath my feet. Dead, crumbling leaves dangled from a tree. The scent of death lingered in the air.

  And then screams filled my head…my own shrieking wails from the nights Lisa tortured me.

  “No!” I opened my eyes and choked on air, sitting upright and trying to push those images out my head. “No. No.”

  Willow backed away. “Breathe in and out. Slowly.”

  “No...I’m...out of here.” My breaths came out fast. I jumped off the treatment table and stumbled, feeling dizzy and disoriented. “No.”

  My face was wet with fucking tears and I didn’t remember crying.

  “Calm down.” Willow spoke in a soft tone which was good because pain knocked against my skull. If she’d spoke any louder, her words would’ve hurt. She’d said that I might have a headache, but this was so much worse.

  “Hawk, I understand you want to leave, but just take a few slow breaths for me.”

  “I feel like shit.” I swayed as I headed to the door. “And what the fuck? Your hands were hot?” I looked around the room. “Other people were touching me.” I looked under the table. There was nothing there. “I felt them. Cold hands. Hard and cold, pressing on me.”

  Willow didn’t appear surprised at all from my words. “Just bre
athe in and out.”

  My headed pounded in pain. I didn’t even want to hear Willow talk. It was like someone had hammered the fuck out of my skull. There were so many emotions tornadoeing through my body—fear and guilt, sadness and pain, relief and confusion.

  “Fuck that. I’m out of here.”

  “Hawk—”

  I’d already fled the room, stumbling like I’d been drinking for days and had not gotten any sleep.

  Chapter 19

  Yasmine

  Hawk stormed out to the lobby. Sweat beaded around his forehead. He kept looking from side to side like someone was following him. Rage covered his face. He didn’t even stop in front of me. He kept stomping toward the door.

  “Hawk? What’s wrong?” I rushed after him, scared and losing my mind with worry. “Is everything okay?”

  Did the Reiki do more harm or good? What happened? Did I push too far?

  He shoved the door open. “I’m not going back there again.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m done with that shit and I don’t want anymore suggestions or advice from any of your self-help books. That shit was crazy. I’m more crazy. No. Never again.”

  I swallowed. “Okay.”

  He paced in front of Soul Tribe’s entrance. “I fucked up.”

  “How?”

  “This.” He stopped in front of me and rubbed his face with both hands. “This. We can’t do this anymore.”

  “We won’t. I’ll never bring up yoga or Reiki or anything else again. I thought it would help, but it didn’t. That’s okay. I’m sorry.”

  “No, Yaz.” He looked away from me and ran shaking fingers through his hair. “We can’t do us anymore.”

  I had to catch my breath. It took several silent seconds. When I finally did, I cleared my throat. “Us? Like...you don’t want to date?”

  “We should stop this.”

  I took my time with the next words. “We should stop or we have to stop?”

  “Both. I’m leaving tommorow. I don’t know what I was doing down here.”

  “What?” My heart stopped. I held my hands out to my sides. “Hawk? What the hell happened in there? I don’t understand.”

  “I can’t be fixed. I’m worse. I felt...There were other people in there. At least...I thought there were...Fuck. I can feel me getting worse and I don’t want you around me when I fall. You can’t watch me fall.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I do.”

  “But—”

  “No, Yaz. We’re done.”

  The world spun around me. I leaned against the entrance’s glass door to find balance.

  “I’m sorry, Yaz.” He backed away, shaking his head. “You don’t fucking deserve this. You’re perfect. You’re beautiful. You’ve brought me nothing but happiness and—”

  “I don’t understand.” My words cracked at the end. “Why are you running away?”

  “Because I’m too scared to stay.”

  The tears came, spilling down my face. When I’d caught Greg cheating on me, I didn’t cry. I was angry, ready to go into the kitchen, grab a knife and stab the both of them, but I didn’t cry. On the plane to Key West, no tears came. Even when I sat alone in that attic the first night, trying to make sense of everything that had happened to me, no tears spilled out of my eyes.

  But today, I cried right in front of the Soul Tribe. I must’ve looked like a fucking idiot. The tears wouldn’t stop. No matter how much I wiped them away, my face wouldn’t stay dry.

  Hawk reached out to touch my face.

  “No.” I tried to keep myself together. “Don’t run, Hawk. Don’t just—”

  “I love you too much to stay, Yaz. You deserve better.”

  “Bullshit!”

  A couple walking by turned our way and whispered to each other. They must’ve heard me, but I didn’t care.

  “That’s such bullshit,” I whispered. “I know I’m supposed to understand. I know I should get what’s going on, that you’ve been hurt, that you’re damaged, that you’re scared to move on. But all I want to do is scream at you.”

  “I didn’t want to make you cry, Yaz. There’s no one on this planet that has loved me like you have. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “But, you’re doing it now.”

  “You know I’ll never love you like you deserve?”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I’ll try, but I’ll hurt you. That bitch will always be in my head, tainting everything and everyone that I touch. She can haunt me, but she can’t hurt you.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  “But it will.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Let me take you home.”

  “Fuck you, Hawk. I’ll walk.”

  “Yaz, let me just take you—”

  “No.” I wiped more tears away and shook my head. “If you’re going to run off, then just do it. Leave. Don’t fucking come back. Don’t call. Don’t write. Stay gone. Just go.”

  My words hung in the air above us, thick as black smoke.

  “Come on.” He tried again to get me in the car. “Please. I don’t want to leave you here.”

  I shook my head, pissed with him and tired of crying.

  “Please, Yaz.”

  “Just leave.”

  He waited for several more minutes in cold silence, and then he walked away.

  “I would be your death wish. You should guard your heart when you’re around me.”

  Willow came out with another woman that I recognized as Phoenix, the owner of Soul Tribe. Cindy had introduced us at the Blood Rain concert nights ago.

  “Is everything okay?” Willow asked.

  “No.” I wiped at my nose and face, trying to make myself look less of a mess. “What happened in there? He came out crazy.”

  Willow watched Hawk’s car speed away. “He’s starting to heal.”

  “No,” I whispered. “He’s running away.”

  Willow shook her head. “It doesn’t matter how far he drives off or what flight he takes, he won’t be able to run away from the dark stuff that’s bubbling inside of him. I just released it. I opened the bottle that he’d kept hidden inside of him.”

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked.

  “He will.” Willow gave me a half hug. “I believe he’ll be okay. Everything in life happens for a reason.”

  Phoenix frowned and stared off in the direction that he’d left in. “That’s a Barron?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Phoenix sucked her teeth and then spat on the ground as if Hawk had defiled her property. “If you want my advice, stay far away from those boys. They’re nothing but trouble. They’ll break your heart and leave you alone to fix the pieces.”

  She went back inside as if her statement was enough of an explanation.

  She really must be the same Phoenix that Hawk was talking about earlier.

  Willow gave me a weak smile. “Sorry. She’s...not a fan of...”

  “Barron boys?” I asked.

  “No. She’s not a fan of men, period.”

  “Oh.” I stared at the road, confused and distraught. “I thought everything was going good with us.”

  “It’s his session. I can’t talk about anything else.” Willow reached out and embraced me. “But, just...trust in the universe. Everything happens the way it is supposed to happen. If he’s not to be, then he won’t come back. But...if that is your love, if that is your heart, your soul mate, then he’ll return so fast you’ll forget he’d ever left.”

  Bullshit. It’ll never be better.

  We stood in her weird hug for several seconds and then she leaned back and studied me. “Do you smoke? I could make you a nice blunt and let you chill in the meditative garden.”

  “No, thank you. I’ll be fine.”

  “I can give you a ride.”

  “No, I can walk. It’s barely a ten minute walk.”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “That time during the walk will make you feel
better.”

  I doubt it.

  She waved as I walked away. “Come back tommorow. I’ll give you a service on the house.”

  “Okay.”

  I’ll never come back here again. Memories of Hawk are all over this place now.

  The sun poured down warm light and hushed the cool ocean breeze. It took several minutes for me to get the energy to walk back to Dolphin View, but I did. Somehow. I couldn’t have told anyone which way I took, but I arrived in no time.

  The whole walk, I battled in my head. At first, I suffered through the pain of Hawk rejecting me. Then, I blamed myself for yelling at him. Guilt filled me. Hawk must’ve had some form of PTSD. He’d been through a lot. I could’ve been more understanding and patient.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have cursed at him.

  Later in the walk, I told myself that those thoughts were bullshit. That he’d hurt me and it wasn’t right. That he hadn’t even tried, even though deep down inside I knew he had.

  We should’ve never kissed. We should’ve never reunited. Damn you, Brett.

  By the time I arrived at Dolphin View, I’d begun envisioning Hawk coming back to me and my pushing him away, doing what he’d done to me, getting my revenge.

  Just forget about it. There’s nothing that will change now. We’re done. He’s gone. Move on.

  Before I stepped on Dolphin View’s property, I glanced at the Barron house, hoping to see Hawk looking out the window. But I doubted he was even home. His car wasn’t parked in front of his house. Worry coursed in my veins, but then I figured he must’ve rushed home, packed his luggage, and raced away.

  Damn him.

  Or did he not make it back? Or maybe he’s with someone else? Someone who wouldn’t give their heart so easily? Could he move so fast? Will it be that easy?

  I started picturing him on the beach with other women. There was no way I could sit through that. He had to know that I would personally cause him pain, if he did it.

  Fuck him. He can go to hell. He can...

  I exhaled and made myself not think about him anymore. If I did, I would’ve cried and that was the last thing I wanted Victor or Cindy to see.

  Just pretend it’s okay. Don’t think about him. Don’t think about today. It will all be fine.

  Those thoughts were easier to say, but much harder to live. My feet weighed down on me as I entered the back entrance of Dolphin View. I headed straight to the kitchen, hoping to sneak a bottle of rum out the fridge and hide in my room. But when I got there, Chef Brooke hurried around the kitchen, mixing up bowls and stirring pots.