“I don’t remember friends ever doing that,” she says, smacking my chest.
“How should I know? I’ve never had one. Don’t be alarmed if I rub up against you. Or pee on your leg.”
“Speaking of pee, did you know that someone pissed all over the couch at Jona’s house? The whole thing is covered in pee and he won’t get rid of it. Says it’s a work of art and art should be appreciated.”
Is this what friends talk about? At Flutes I wanted to gouge my eyes out. Jona’s pothead friends wouldn’t shut up about whatever it is potheads talk about when they can remember how to combine words before forgetting them. I only came because I felt bad for not going last time for Justine. I didn’t know Harley would show up with her square. I try not to think of them together. All night. There’s no point anyway. We’re done. I pushed her away and she listened.
“Respect the man.” I sit up. “You ready to go?”
As quickly as she took them off her jeans are back on. She pulls the visor down and checks herself out. She knows she’s sexy. She only checks for a second. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
I drop her off at her house, having no choice but to drive her inland past the rail road tracks. Before she gets out she leans over and kisses me on the cheek. “Bye, Bach.”
I nod. I don’t want to say it yet.
I roll down my window and let the shitty smell of the city that the beach can’t get rid of burn my nose as I pass by Forty-something’s bar. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Stepping into the bar the big guy from before eyes me. I give him a thumbs up. He gives me the finger. I shrug and slide into Patty’s section. She doesn’t know it’s me at first because my hood is on. I tap my fingers on the bar impatiently. She holds my escape in her hands. Couldn’t she hurry up?
“What’ll it be?” she asks, finally looking at me. Her false kindness fades. She looks tired.
“Miss me?”
“Scotch?”
I take out my wallet and extract a few bills. “Just give me the bottle.”
She takes my money, looks around, and then pockets most of it. “You have a ride home?”
“No.”
She gets a brand new bottle down from the rack and cracks the top. “You know if you keep this up you’re going to end up like him.”
Didn’t she learn the last time? I snatch the bottle from her and pour my own shot. “Thanks for the tip.”
“Where’s your momma?” She puts her hand on her hip. “You’re dad’s been in jail for years. I know he’s not around. Where is she?”
I shrug. I didn’t know. “Want one?” I wiggle the bottle.
“She still live in the same house?”
“Why?” I growl quietly, sick of her shit. “Are you going to tell on me? Guess what? She doesn’t care. She never did.”
“You’re her only child. She has to care.”
I hack out a long laugh. “You don’t even know her. You screwed her husband behind her back. That doesn’t give you the right to know her.”
“I know you’re a lost man. I know you’re throwing it all away because your momma and your daddy threw it away long before they had you. It ain’t your fault they did. But it will be your fault if you throw your life away too.”
There’s a hottie at the end of the bar eyeing me. Okay, I’m eyeing her. Eyeing her and wanting her. Now. Right now. I take another shot, needing something. Anything. I was only seven. I want to escape.
“Give me your keys.” She holds out her hand.
I take the bottle, give her my nicest smile, and then leave the bar. I know my way back to that house like I’ve driven there a million times. I park out front of my old house. Dylan’s dad’s truck’s outside. They never moved. Old Man Greer’s in his garage. I can’t see him but the lights are on and his badass truck isn’t as badass as I once thought. I open the bottle and swallow a mouthful of scotch.
I was only seven.
If I look past the pecan tree out front I can see the shed. The bottle shakes in my hands. They’re both shaking now. Scotch spills on my jeans. Burnt marks creep up the side of the shed and the roof is caved in. The tops are warped and curling, like the ends of burnt paper. The windows are blown out. I can still hear the glass shattering. I don’t know why I can remember the glass shattering but nothing after the ceiling falling.
The scotch burns all the way down tonight.
I get out of my car and breathe in the familiar scent of home. Of exhaust, screams, and secrets. I’m not completely gone yet. I’m just sober enough to remember that the path past the pecan tree has thorns, and that there’s a hole right in the middle. I jump over it and get as close to the shed as possible before my knees give out. I sit in the brambles and overgrown grass. The light in my old house is on. Mom’s home. I wonder if she knows her son’s in the backyard. I only wonder for a second. I know the answer. I’ve always known the answer.
She doesn’t care about me. She never has and she never will.
My eyes close. My nightmares love it right now. I’m giving them ammo. Tonight they’re going to attack with the same force as they did when I used to piss the bed when I was younger. Dylan was always nice about it. We shared a bed after Dad went to jail and Mom realized if she ignored me I’d find somewhere else to live. Dylan’s parents weren’t much better than mine, but they still remembered to feed the dog. I can barely get the bottle to my lips. Tears block my eyes. My chest is caving in.
I fall back and stare at the sky.
I was only seven.
I can’t be here anymore. I can’t see, or think, or feel anything that doesn’t revolve around that day …
My brain checks in sporadically. I’m in my car, on the road, there’s honking, and then stairs. Then it’s right back at the shed, burning me, smothering me with memories.
I don’t even know how I got here. But I’m here.
Her stairs are so long, I feel like it takes me an hour to crawl up them. Probably because I’m on my hands and knees. I fall against her door and hit it with my fist. When she opens her door the light from inside halos her.
I sag against the railing and watch the angel come for me.
“Oh, Bach. What’s wrong?” her soft angelic voice asks.
“Harley,” my sin tainted worthless voice begs. My heart squeezes in my chest. It wants—no, it needs—her good so damn bad. The bad hurts.
She sighs sadly. “Come inside before someone calls the cops.” She wraps her hands around my arm and helps me up. I trip and stumble into her.
“Sorry.” Her golden eyes are so close. I want to lean down and disappear in her lips.
“It’s all right. Can you walk?”
“No.”
“You drove like this?” She sounds mad. I don’t want her to be mad at me.
Everyone’s always mad. I’m always mad. With her help I get to the couch. My mind focuses for a few seconds, loses focus, focuses. I wait for it to focus again before I look at her. “I was only seven.”
“Shh,” she soothes, lying down next to me on the couch. She runs her hand over my face and her fingers through my hair, trying to comfort me.
She comforts me. “Harley?”
I don’t get a chance to finish. I don’t even know what I was going to say. Just that I needed to say it.
I wake up alone. My brain is getting worse at this. It can’t remember where I am. Who I am. That I was someone somewhere last night. Intense nausea slams into my stomach the second I move. I slide from whatever I’m laying on down to the floor.
“Here.”
All of a sudden there’s a garbage can in my face. How convenient. There’s already puke in it. I must’ve done this already. My body heaves, killing me with every influx. It smells like scotch and acid. When I can’t puke anymore, I lean my head back as wave after wave of pain assaults my body. My stomach is twisting, my head is splitting, and every breath feels like it’s breaking my ribs.
“Bach.”
I respond to my name not because it�
�s my name, but because of who says it. Harley’s sitting on the floor with her knees bent under her watching me with so much worry in her eyes I wonder how bad I look. She’s seen me at worse. This wasn’t that bad was it?
“I’m fine.” My voice makes me close my eyes. It’s ten times louder in my head. “Do you have any aspirin?”
She leaves. Since I know she’s coming back I don’t worry. When she does return she drops four little pills, and at this point I’m kind of glad they’re only aspirin, into my hand. I take the glass of water she offers and guzzle it down. She takes the glass from my shaking hand and puts on the coffee table. A buzzing, like the end of a song on a broken speaker, destroys my brain. I can’t even enjoy the sight of her. It’s been a week. A week of fucking hell without her. All I want to do is sleep.
“Can I sleep?”
She nods, but looks down at my hoodie. I do too. Damn it. A trail of puke paints the front. It’s all over my jeans. Harley looks scared again. I glance around. There’s puke on her couch too. It drips down the side. It’s on the carpet as well. I want to rip myself apart, destroy the pieces, so Harley will never have to see me again. Why do I always have to fall apart around her? I’m fine around Justine, around them all, but when it comes to Harley it’s like my insides think they can do this in front of her. I can’t do it anymore. She’s done with me.
“I’m sorry I came here.” I hate the sound of my voice. I can’t stop crying. Didn’t even know I was until she was too. I try to push to my feet but gravity pushes me right back down. I’m sick of crawling. I don’t want to crawl anymore. “I’ll leave,” I promise her. “I just need a few minutes.”
“You don’t have to leave. Take a shower and go to sleep in my bed. I’ll clean this up.” She grasps my hand in her good, delicate fingers. “Please, Bach? I don’t want you to leave like this.” Her bottom lip quivers.
Forget ripping myself apart. That’s too tame. I want to run head first into a wood chipper. Spray the pieces that are left of me all over the ground. Only then will I stop hurting her. “I’m fine,” I lie. I’m not fine. I don’t think I’ve ever been. “I’ll go. Where’s your date?” It’s been burning on my tongue since I woke up. I think it’s screwed up that it’s all I can think about. Her with another man. If he ripped her yellow panties I’m going to kill him.
Her face becomes lethal. “Don’t ask.”
“Did he hurt you?” I’ll put him in the wood chipper first.
“No.” She seems absolutely positive.
I drop it. For now. “Do you have a bucket? I’ll clean this up before I leave.” She’s still holding my hand. Won’t let it go even though there’s throw up in-between my fingers.
“You’re not leaving so stop trying. Wait here. I’ll start the shower.” She gently pries her fingers from mine.
I don’t want to leave. It’s what she deserves though. I shouldn’t be here. I’m the puke on her couch. I’m ruining everything. I blame my endorphins again. Too much booze and sex. I’m crashing, that’s all. I’m not falling apart. I don’t fall apart. I can’t. Then why the hell do I wait for her to come back? Why do I allow her to help me to my feet and into her bathroom?
She tugs my sweater over my head as I lean against the wall, dropping it in a heap on the floor. Next, she does my shirt, pausing only a second to see the large bruise-shaped hickey Justine left on my neck a few days before.
“You smell like her.” She adds my shirt to the heap.
I watch as she unzips my jeans, yanks the buckle apart angrily, and then pushes them along with my briefs over my ass. I didn’t think this would be the way she saw me naked the second time. I imagined making the first time up to her a lot. The memory of me crying and breaking down in the shower, isn’t much different to now. But puke was never a part of my fantasies. Tears weren’t either. I balance against her as I step out of my jeans and kick them into the pile. She pulls the shower curtain aside so I can get in.
“Can you stand up?”
I shake my head yes.
I don’t want to look at her so I let the hot water cover my face. There’s too much to think about. I don’t want to think. I grab her bottle of orange honey soap and lather my body with it. I make sure to scrub my dick hard, washing Justine off of it as best I can. I wash over her hickey, just as pissed off about it now as I was then. Hickeys are bad for business. I wash my face, get the puke off of my chin, and from in-between my hands. When I wash the last dregs of soap out of my hair I feel clean enough to let Harley see me again.
I carefully step out of the shower and grab the towel she put there for me. She comes in just as I’m wrapping it around my waist.
Her eyes slide over my face, chest, and body. “That’s better,” she says. “You smell like me. Let’s go to sleep. I’m exhausted.”
She looks exhausted. Her light brown eyes are tired. Her golden brown hair’s in a messy bun. Her robe’s tied loosely around her waist. I can see a sliver of her smooth flat stomach peeking through. I don’t even wonder if she’s naked underneath.
“Can I wash my mouth out first?” The inside of my mouth tastes like last night.
She grabs her toothbrush off the counter and squeezes a line of pale green paste on it, handing it to me. I put it into my mouth eagerly, wanting something that was inside of hers. It’s probably the only way I’ll ever have it again. She watches me as I brush, her eyes on mine in the mirror. I can barely meet them. When I’m finished I extend my hand to her and she takes it without thinking. Why doesn’t she think about it? She should. I thought she did.
The light through her bedroom window is orange and pink. “What time is it?”
“Five thirty. You slept most of the day.” She lets me go and walks over to close her curtain. “Get in, Bach. I can’t see straight.”
“Did you stay up all night?”
“You were barely breathing,” she answers, pulling back her covers. “I almost called 911 twice.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because just before I would you’d roll over and whisper my name.” She looks me right in the eye. “So I put my phone down.”
I don’t look away. I should. The wood chipper is still waiting for me. “That makes sense.” The only thing that’s made any sense lately is her.
She shakes her head a little. “You want something else to wear? Dylan probably has some clothes here.”
“Does my naked body bother you?” I don’t know why I’m teasing her. There’s nothing funny about this. Normally I’d make it funny. What other choice do I have? Stop, think, and remember? Making things funny is how I got this far.
She ignores me. She crawls into bed and covers her thighs with her robe, her eyes already closed. I take my towel off and slip in beside her. I don’t think about how Dylan probably laid in the same spot beside her just as naked, or that she wanted him there because she loved him. She wants me here because she knows when I leave I’m walking into a wood chipper. She’s only trying to stop me from myself. She doesn’t actually want me to lay next to her.
My endorphins are out of whack again. I quickly wipe my eyes off so she can’t see me cry like a pussy. What’s wrong with me? I feel like I’m slipping, like I’ve been slipping for a while. All of my escape routes are turning into traps. Each time I take one I end up more lost than I was before I ran.
I can’t sleep. I’m sober. Well, there’s still a slight buzz in the back of my brain, but it isn’t enough to guarantee my nightmare won’t burn me alive the second I close my eyes.
Harley moves as close to me as possible. Her hands grip my arm and she curls up on her side next to me. I lean my head against hers softly, breathing in the smell of her hair. Within seconds she’s asleep.
I lay awake. Her soft breaths brush against my chest. I can’t remember driving here. The last thing I do remember is staring up at the stars next to the shed. Why is the shed still there? It’s barely standing, burned and charred. I go there when my life starts to slip through my fingers to
remind myself that I got out. I survived. It didn’t remind of me anything tonight. I got out, but I don’t think I survived anything. I was only seven. I didn’t mean to do it. I was a shithead even when I was a kid. So was Dylan. So was every other kid in our neighborhood. They didn’t have a dad like mine though. They weren’t lucky enough to be born to Tyler Bachmen, the heavy-fisted, meth dealing drunk addict. All the fights I’ve been in since I’ve never felt a fist heavier. I used to imagine him holding cement blocks in his hands when he hit me. He probably did, the fucker.
I reach up with a shaking hand and touch Harley’s sleeping face to remind myself I’m not seven. I got out. I escaped. He didn’t kill me. I’m not still burning in the shed.
Eventually my thoughts become my nightmare. It happens the same way every time. I wake up in my bed. I’m seven. I’m always seven. A skinny messy haired punk. I don’t know what’s going to happen. All I know is that Mom bought cereal for the first time in forever and I want a huge bowl with milk filled to the top. I take my bowl of cereal to the living room so I can watch cartoons. The Road Runner never got caught, but it was fun as hell watching the anvil fall. But my dad’s sleeping on the couch. I’m pissed. He always does this. Slobber runs down his chin and his hand grips a needle. I want to watch cartoons. I walk over and kick his arm with my little dirt covered foot. He drops his needle and rolls over on the couch. “Get the fuck out of here, kid,” he grumbles. “Go play.”
“I want to watch cartoons,” I insist, not even thinking about the fact that I’m disobeying him. “Go sleep with Momma.”
He backhands me. I fall over and drop my cereal all over the floor. Milk drips into the floorboards. I touch my face, already crying. He sits up and looks at me in disgust. “Clean it up right now or I’m going take all those new clothes we got from the donation box and clean it up with them.” My jaw hurts so bad. My hands shake as I get the mop out and clean up the milk. My hands always shake. He watches me the entire time while he shoots up. I hate that I look just like him. There isn’t even a subtle difference in our faces. I am my father. He ties a rubber band around his arm and fills his syringe as I pick up the little pieces of cereal on the floor.
Destroy Me (Crystal Gulf Book 1) Page 13