by Kenya Wright
“Hey, Yaz. How’s it going?”
I displayed a fake smile. “Really great. Everything is so awesome. Birds and blue skies. Sunshine. All awesome.”
“O-kay.” She gave me a weird look and then returned to mixing. “Someone’s been smoking a little ganja.”
“Not me.”
“Hmmm.”
“I’ll be out of your way soon.” I headed to the fridge. “I just got to grab this bottle.”
So I can drown in alcohol until I fall asleep. How’s that for spiritual balance?
A boom came from behind me, and then footsteps. I paused from what I was doing and turned around, hoping it was Hawk begging me back, telling me that he’d been an idiot.
Instead, Victor rushed in.
I sucked my teeth.
“Well, nice to see you to.” Victor widened his eyes. “By the way, have you seen Cindy?”
“No.”
“Dang it.” He tapped the keys in his hand.
“What’s up?”
“Our favorite couple was at it again this morning.”
“The blonde and the dark haired man?”
“Yes. We’re now putting them in separate rooms. The husband is ready to go. He’s been sitting in the lounge all morning waiting for her to come downstairs and let him go up to pack his things.”
I checked my watch. “It’s already late in the afternoon.”
“Yeah. I knocked. She didn’t answer. I wanted Cindy to go in and let the woman know that we can’t have her husband waiting all day.” And then he looked at me and smiled. “Wait. You can do it.”
Sure. I’m just the person Blondie should talk to—a woman that just got her heart broken. We might both end up kicking her husband’s behind. I’m down. I hope she is. I’ve got a lot of pent-up ass whippings to hand out.
Victor studied me and frowned. “Are you okay with that?”
“Sure.”
Chef Brooke made a motion of smoking a joint on my side.
“I didn’t smoke any weed today.”
Chef Brooke laughed and started chopping onions.
“Greg checked out, but did he come around bothering you again?” Victor asked.
“No. I’m sure he’s gone.”
“And Hawk?”
“Sunshines and rainbows as usual.”
“Hmmm. We’ll talk later. I hope he’s doing you right because I just bought some new ammo for my shotgun and have been itching to use it.” He placed the keys in my hands before I could respond. “Thanks for checking up on the blonde. I owe you one. I’ve got a clogged toilet on the third floor. I have to take care of that before those guests get back from their tour.”
“No problemo.” Sighing, I gave up on grabbing the bottle of rum and headed upstairs.
I can’t wait until this couple leaves. They’ve caused nothing but chaos since they’ve got here, and I’m tired of cleaning up their messes.
I knocked on the door. “Housekeeping.”
The blonde’s voice didn’t come from the other side, just a song. I strained to catch some of the words.
“This mad game we play. I run after you. And you after me.” A bluesy melody flowed with the notes. “Will this ever end? Will we ever see? How mad? How mad we play?”
I recognized the song from when Hawk had taken me to lunch. It was the last damn thing I wanted to hear today. It was like the universe hadn’t finished bothering me yet.
“There is no end, when two souls are lost. But is it love, if there is no cost?”
I knocked louder.
“Such a mad mad game. Still, I’m calling your name.”
I shifted my knocking to banging, wondering if she could hear me over the music.
“Still, you’re in my dreams at night. Still, I’m in darkness and you’re the only light.”
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to come inside!” I knocked again, sounding more like a cop and less like housekeeping. “I hope you have your clothes on and I’m not disturbing you. Please make a sound to let me know if it’s okay to come in.”
I waited another minute. There was nothing like barging in on someone that wanted privacy. The music continued to flow out of the room. In the song, the singer paused and let the saxophone play its own form of her melody.
I leaned my head against the door. Nothing but the song came to my side.
“Such a mad mad game. Still, I’m calling your name.”
I knocked two more times before putting the key into the knob.
Really, universe? You’re not going to give me a fucking break today?
I opened the door and realized why she hadn’t answered.
“Still, you’re in my dreams at night.”
Feet were the first thing I spotted. They dangled in front of me. My body froze as I raised my gaze up to the blonde’s stiff body hanging from the chandelier. It was odd, but the first thought that came to mind was that I couldn’t believe the chandelier could hold her weight.
It was crazy what people thought about in times of insanity.
“Still, I’m in darkness and you’re the only light.”
The next thing that rushed out was my own screams. They filled the halls, scaling up the walls and down the stairs. I just couldn’t stop screaming. Tears fell from my eyes. My brain shattered from the view of the dead, heartbroken woman.
Why did you do it? Why did you kill yourself? It would’ve been okay.
A second later, Victor cursed at my side, yanked me out of the room, and closed the door. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
“There is no end, when two souls are lost.”
“Why?” I mumbled. “Why?”
Victor held me close to him. “Fuck.”
I trembled. “Why did she do it?”
“But is it love, if there is no cost?”
“She just gave up, Yaz.” Whispering, he held me tighter. “The pain must’ve been too much.”
He slowly moved me out of the hallway as other guests peeked out of their rooms and gathered around us.
“She just gave up,” Victor whispered again and I cried against his shoulder.
“Such a mad, mad game.”
Chapter 20
Hawk
The next day, it rained all morning. The weather matched my mood.
Last night, I sat at a bar, drinking my stress away and drawing images of Yaz into cocktail napkins. I sucked down several drafts of KW Sunset Ale in between fruity Bahama Mamas in chopped off coconuts, with two types of rum mixed with coconut water. Later, the bartender called Brett to pick me up and I pretended like everything was okay, but I was sure he saw through the bullshit. For the rest of the evening, I hugged my toilet, throwing all of that liquid crap up and wishing my feelings for Yaz would fall into the commode too.
Today, my bags were packed and ready to go. I had my identification, money, music, and anything else I would need for the flight.
I’d gotten in my car early this morning to drive up to Miami and catch my flight. I could’ve taken our private jet, but then Brett would’ve been warned of my leaving. I didn’t want him or anyone else getting in my way. He would’ve tried to stop me.
I was ready to go. Leave. Get out of the Keys. Fly away. Never return. I was ready to leave Yaz and Brett—the two people who didn’t deserve me.
I was ready.
Then, why am I still here?
I sat in the car, parked in front of Soul Tribe. Rain stormed down around me, smearing the windows with a dripping view. Thunder boomed in the dark clouds while lighting sliced the sky. The air held a fresh scent, as if the storm was washing the earth away.
I sat in my car the entire time, letting the hours go by until I missed my flight.
By afternoon, someone knocked on my car window. I looked, but couldn’t make out the dark figure in front of me. I rolled the window down and Willow smiled back at me, holding an umbrella.
“Do you want to come in?” she asked.
“No.”
She shrugged. “Then, can I co
me in?”
“My car?”
“Yes.” She walked over to the other side without waiting for my approval.
Fuck.
I unlocked the door.
“Lots of rain today.” She hopped in. “This is a wet hurricane season.”
“They always are.” I checked her feet. She still wore no shoes. Drops of water covered her toes.
“So...” She rubbed her hands together, held them to her mouth, and blew through them like she was cold. “We should talk.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then, why have you been sitting out here most of the day?”
I didn’t respond.
“I know what you’re going through,” she said.
“I doubt it.”
“Trust me. I do.” She twisted my way and faced me. “My ex-husband used to do bad things to me. It didn’t matter how much I tried to love him. He just enjoyed putting his hands on me more than kissing my lips.” She showed me her arm. “He liked to cut me most of all. I think he loved the way it made me scream, made me cry out in so much pain. And then, afterwards, he would clean me up, kiss my wounds, and tell me he loved me.”
I gripped the steering wheel hard, wishing I could beat his ass. Any male that hit or cut a woman deserved to get his head smashed in several times. “Why didn’t you leave sooner?”
“Too damaged to see the door right in front of me.”
I gritted my teeth.
“But I did leave him eventually. Of course. It was hard and it took everything out of me, but I ran away.” She let that sink in. “I escaped, but it was only a physical escape. My mind still remained in that dirty old apartment where my blood would drip on the floor, and my cries would paint the walls in darkness. I ran away from that place, but my heart, my mind, my soul…stayed there.”
I let my hands fall from the steering wheel and rest on my lap.
“Where is your mind and soul right now?” she asked.
“Why didn’t you ask me about my heart?” I looked at her. “Do you think I don’t have one?”
“You have one, but I already know who has your heart. It’s with her, right where you left it. It’s with Yaz.”
My chest heated in pain.
“But, where’s your mind and soul right now?” she asked again.
“It’s in a cage.” I turned back to the front window, watching the rain drops hit against the glass. “What the fuck happened to me in that room yesterday?”
“I don’t know what happened to you, but your energy, your chakras were all blocked and clogged up with pain and negativity. Darkness. Lots and lots of darkness. What happened? I told you my story. You tell me yours.”
“My ex-wife was a serial killer. When I found out, she tortured me for two days.”
Willow whistled. “That explains a lot. So, what you did was put a bunch of band-aids on several gunshot wounds.”
“And what did you do, but make me go crazy and scream like a little girl?”
“No. I yanked those useless bandaids off. I dug into your flesh and pulled out the bullets. I was starting to stop the blood, until you ended the session. We need more time. You can heal, but only if you want to. Only if you believe. ”
I remained quiet.
“Like a pendulum swinging back and forth, Reiki sometimes flows through the body erratically, other times it’s smoothly. There are fluctuations of energy churning within, but those energies are meant to soothe and calm all your pent-up emotional tension and stress.”
“My body heated up.”
“Blocked areas are denser and sometimes the energy flows deeper to them.”
“It brought back all the shit she did to me.”
“If you have a dirty kitchen and you want to clean it, you’ll have to look at the space to know what to do. You will have to touch the dirt as you wash it away. You will have to smell where it stinks to know where to spray.”
“Would it do that every time?” I asked.
“No. After a session, you’ll feel different things. You may feel a variety of emotions—exhaustion, exhilaration. Maybe something in between.”
“I should go.”
“But you’re not going anywhere.” Willow smirked. “As we’ve already agreed, she has your heart.”
The rain started to lessen, but still, thunder boomed.
“Four sessions for the next four days, back-to-back. That’s what you need,” Willow said. “You’ll learn to relax more. Your state will shift quite naturally as the sessions proceed. And then, we can start skipping days. Hopefully, we can just keep it to a week, and on and on until you feel complete all by yourself.”
“I don’t understand. All I felt was pain afterwards.”
“Just because the bullet is gone, doesn’t mean the wound will stop hurting. You have to give it time to heal.”
“I can’t heal from this.”
She shrugged. “Then, you’re right.”
I snapped my head to her. “I can’t?”
“You can, but if you say you can’t, then you’re right. Whatever you decide is on you. Either you deal with the pain or you live in it. Either way, you’re right. It’s your decision.”
I closed my eyes. “Why did I feel other hands?”
“Do you want the real answer or the filtered one?”
“The real answer.”
“Those hands were your spirit guides. Did someone close to you pass?”
“My father. My friends.”
“That was probably them, telling you to let it all go. That they were fine.”
A shiver ran through my body. “Next time, give me the filtered answer.”
“Will there be a next time?” She gestured at the luggage in the seats and the paintings of Yaz I’d stacked right behind my seat. “It looks like you committed a crime and was booking it out of here.”
I didn’t answer. What could I say? I had committed a crime. I’d broken Yaz’s heart and she didn’t do anything to be treated that way.
You fucking idiot.
Willow peered out of her window and whistled. “That lightning is picking up. I should go. I just wanted to explain to you why you felt like crap. Some feel horrific when they’re first unclogged. It tends to be all these battling emotions. I dealt with that for a long time.”
“And you’re better?”
“Better than I’d ever thought I would be. I still have some things I need to work on, but we all have that.” She opened the car door and stepped out. “So, I’ll see you tommorow? Same time? Same place?”
“Maybe.”
She grinned. “I will. You’re not going to admit it, but you believe. You felt that God energy inside of you today. You’ve felt that God energy pulsing from Yaz. That’s what you’re really scared about. It wasn’t the session or her. It was the beauty of life that stopped you in your tracks. You’ve gotten so used to the dark that you’re shading your hands to deal with the light.”
I sighed.
“Fear will block you from life,” she said.
“Okay.”
“And you better hurry up and talk to her. It’s never wise to keep a sister waiting. Another guy would love to swoop in and replace you.” And with that, she shut the door.
My body relaxed for the first time that day. I didn’t quite understand everything Willow had said, but I did get the part of fear. The more I got closer to Yaz, the more anxiety came.
I’m scared to love her.
I had to finally admit it to myself.
Why am I scared to love her?
Then the answer came to me, slicing my heart apart.
“Because it feels so good. Because she’s perfect. Because I’m an idiot.” I turned on the car. River’s song Stupid Lies blasted from my speakers. It was the only song of his that I didn’t like, but today those lyrics ran close to home. Today, I finally understood what he was trying to say when he wrote them.
“You lose yourself in my wicked eyes, so scared I tell my heart stupid lies.”
“I say I don’t love you. Such stupid lies.”
I’d always been a smart man. A book nerd with pride. The pursuit of knowledge remained a simple quest. Numbers calculated the same way each time. Philosophers debated. History argued this point of view and that.
But when it came to women, I fumbled and dropped the ball. The whole time I loved, I looked for the safe person. Lisa seemed like that person—never arguing, never needing, never adding to my life or taking away. Just a body in my bed and a person cooking in the kitchen, saying all of the right things.
And then she ended up being a serial killer, so that theory of safety was dead wrong.
Then, there was Yaz. Wild and unpredictable. Soft and warm. A hurricane of crazy thoughts and actions. Love within chocolate skin. Flame red hair just as hot as that gorgeous face. There was no reason to ever think my crazy Cherry Bomb would be safe, but that was what she was and so much more. She was love. She was warmth from the cold, kisses in the morning, sex in the evening, and caring hugs to stop the nightmares.
She was everything I could never describe, but always needed. Always wanted.
“And we’ll die, if we don’t stop this, if we don’t ignore the lies.”
I rounded the corner, drove to my house, and parked in the front.
“And we’ll die, but neither of us care and we don’t know why.”
Chapter 21
Yasmine
It stormed outside. On the inside, a somber silence thickened within Dolphin View.
Yesterday, the ambulance had taken the blonde’s body. Cindy asked if I wanted to know her name. I shook my head. Her dead body had already been a center of all my nightmares last night. I didn’t need to know anything more.
The blonde’s husband cried and bellowed all night on the beach, drinking the hours away. In the middle of the night, I woke up and watched him from the window. He’d slung a bottle down in the sand and walked into the ocean. I never saw him come out.