Fragile Simplicity

by Tara Neideffer

  His finger traced the outline of her smile and he watched her study him for a moment before saying, “I’m glad you’ve found some closure, David. Dealing with grief is hard and to be able to find something good in it means you’re starting to move on from it. You’ll never heal completely from losing someone, but everyone needs to move on at some point.”

  Dropping his hand to lay atop her bare waist, he said, “You know that I haven’t had a drink in a couple of days, either.”

  Seeing the huge smile that took over her face was the best reward he could have asked for. “I kind of figured that and nothing makes me happier. Thank you for doing that for me,” she said as she leaned into him, kissing him softly.

  His eyebrows shot up as he said, “Nothing? Then I’m doing something else wrong.”

  He barely felt the sting of her hand as she smacked his arm. “You know what I mean. You don’t know how much you being sober means to me,” she said, her face going slack, and David watched her eyes take on a distant look, almost as if some thought or memory was threatening to take her away.

  “Yeah, I was getting out of hand,” he said, the bristly sound loud in the quiet room as he scratched his chin.

  “But, you are getting it under control now and that’s good,” she said as she slid in closer to him.

  The warmth of her body and the feel of her breasts against his chest brought him out of his sleepy haze and he began letting his hands venture downward.

  Snagging his hand, she said, “Don’t even think about it, I’m too tired.”

  He laughed, knowing he was just as tired as she was, but if she had let him, it would have taken no time for him to wake up.

  He closed his eyes as he felt her nuzzle against his neck, his eyes beginning to droop as her fingers lightly circled his thumb, and he let his hand slide over her breast as he felt himself succumbing to sleep. He couldn’t help but laugh when she shoved him away and rolled over on her side.

  Chapter 11

  Giving in to Guilt

  Eyeing the clock and seeing that it was already seven o’clock at night, David grimaced as he stood and threw his dirty rag on the floor. He’d been working on this bike all day, ever since Kyleigh had left this morning, and he still wasn’t halfway done with it. He stared down at the white Harley that seemed to taunt him, both with haunting memories and of falling behind in his work. He couldn’t see himself getting all these bikes done this week, which was when they needed to be done. There were just too many of them. He was going to have a lot of angry customers by the weekend.

  “Dammit, these bikes aren’t going to fix themselves,” he said in the quiet garage, hating the sound of his voice as it bounced off the walls. He walked over to his work bench and turned the radio up, blasting some Nirvana, and hoping it would get him moving a little faster.

  He bent down and began working again, feeling the heavy weight of wanting a drink slip into his mind, but quickly brushing it off, remembering his promise to Kyleigh. He could be strong and stop drinking. He had a feeling he had to if he was going to have a relationship with her, and after she told him about her father’s alcohol problem, he understood why she was so adamant about it.

  The music helped to get him back into the groove of things, and before long, he moved in a seamless rhythm, his hands turning and wrenching quickly. The music helped to drown out what the alcohol usually did. That itch was still there, but he figured it would be for a while.

  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been working when his cell phone began vibrating against his leg, breaking him out of the trance he’d been in. He was aggravated by the interruption, but figured it was time for a small break anyway. He stood up, looking at the bike that was finally starting to look pieced together, wiped the grease off his hands as best as he could, and pulled his phone out.

  “Hello,”

  “David?” said the quiet voice of a woman.

  David breathed in a long breath, knowing who it was, and wished he had paid attention to the caller id before he’d answered it. Now, he knew the rest of the night was going to be shot. Talking to his mother was always a chore and usually involved hours on the phone, with her doing all the talking. “Yeah, Mom, it’s me. What’s up?” he asked, hoping she just had a quick question this time.

  “Are you working?” she asked.

  “Yeah, Mom, I’m working. I’ve got a lot of bikes to finish this week. Is everything okay?” he asked, knowing it wasn’t and knowing that was just opening the flood gates, but he also knew he was supposed to ask, that’s why she had called.

  Crying carried through the phone, and he clenched the phone in his hand, not wanting all this to start again. Couldn’t she talk to her husband, Roger about all this? He didn’t understand why she kept calling him to release all her grief. It had been six months or so since his brother died and he still got weekly calls from his drunken mom, wanting to talk to or about Randy. Sometimes she was so out of her mind that she would mistake him for Randy. Almost every time she had called before, he’d also been shit faced drunk and had let everything she said go in one ear and out the other. But now, he was completely sober and the thought of talking about him, irritated him.

  “No, everything’s not OKAY!” she yelled through her sobs. “You of all people should know that. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with myself, David.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, gathering peace from the darkness, and then opened them and said, “Mom, why don’t you talk to Roger. I’m sure he will listen to you and help you get things figured out.”

  “Roger is out somewhere, I don’t even know where. David, I’m so lost anymore. I don’t know what to do or where to go, so I sit here in my room, all day. Do you know how that feels?” she asked.

  Yes, he knew exactly how it felt to be lost. To not know what to do with your life when someone was ripped from you. But at least she didn’t have to carry the blame of killing him. No, that was all his fault. “Mom, look, I’m busy, okay? I really need to get off here so I can get this work done. I can call you tomorrow, okay?” he said as he began pacing his garage.

  There was a long silence before she finally spoke again. “David, put your brother on. I want to talk to Randy.”

  Aggravated, he slung the dirty rag against the wall. He wanted to slam the phone against the wall, too, but instead, he bit his tongue at his mother’s delusional side coming out. He knew she needed to be admitted, evaluated for a mental disorder, but his step-dad, Roger was ignoring David’s suggestions. Roger would rather ignore his mother and pretend that everything was okay rather than do something about it. It angered him to no end. But, he was done with it, one way or the other he was going to get her admitted as soon as he could.

  “David, I said to put your brother on the phone right now. It’s been way too long since I’ve talked to Randy,” his mother demanded.

  He blew out a ragged breath, wondering how much she’d had to drink tonight, and how much longer he could hear his mother ask for his dead brother before he pulled out a bottle himself. It seemed they were all just a bunch of drunks. None of them could get by in life without the help of alcohol, including him. The need for alcohol ran through his blood as much as blood itself.

  “Mom, you need to understand that Randy is not here any longer.” He paused for a moment, dreading the next thing he had to say. He’d said it enough in the past six months to her that he knew exactly what her reaction was going to be. “Randy’s dead, Mom. Remember?”

  “You are a liar, David! How dare you say that about him. He’s staying at your place, remember. He’s been living with you now for a year. Is he out somewhere? He’s probably out with a girl, isn’t he?” his mom said with a little laugh that sounded maniacal, making him shiver.

  “No, Mom. Randy’s been dead for six months now. Where’s Roger?”

  More crying sounded through the phone and David grabbed a fistful of his hair in irritation. Going through this with his mom was almost as bad as going through Rand
y’s death all over again. It was as if he was re-living it every time he had this conversation with her.

  The need to drink the guilt away hit him hard. Hearing his mother ask for her son through a mess of confused tears tore him apart. He knew it had to be his payback for letting Randy drive away that night. God was punishing him for doing nothing. He was making him re-live it every week, through his mother. He sucked in a sharp breath, knowing he deserved all of this, but also knowing he couldn’t handle it. He needed something to dull this ache, to make him not care anymore; with each sob coming from the line the need grew even stronger.

  The crying was getting so loud now that it began to hurt his head. He couldn’t console her, she didn’t want it, wouldn’t listen. She just wanted to torture him with his guilt; hang it above his head until he caved and opened the bottle. He had the bottle in his hand before he even knew what he was doing. He looked at the bottle. So many conflicting emotions coursed through him that he didn’t know which way was up and which way was down. He just wanted it to stop.

  One way or the other.

  He opened the bottle and brought it to his mouth just as his mom cried out Randy’s name in a sob that sounded broken and ragged—just like him.

  With the alcohol beginning to burn his guilt away, he said, “Mom, I’m sorry for everything,” and hung the phone up.

  After taking another drink, he pulled out his phone and called Roger.

  “Hello.”

  “You need to get home and take care of my mother like you are supposed to. She’s a mess and you need to be there.” He hung up before giving him a chance to respond. He knew Roger would go home.

  Sliding to the cold, concrete floor, he leaned his head back against the cabinet and took another shot. The straight Vodka was harsh, reminding him of the smell his brother had on him the last time he’d seen him alive. He looked down at the bottle, not believing he’d picked this bottle out of the twenty he had stashed in the cabinet. He rarely drank Vodka, but Randy had, and that’s why it was here. It was his drink.

  He chugged more, needing the fresh memories to be nothing but a haze. It was too hard. He hated himself for choosing his guilt over Kyleigh. If she found out, she’d be gone, and he’d have another thing to feel guilty about. But he couldn’t do this sober. He couldn’t stop the pain and the memories and the guilt sober. There was no way. Alcohol helped him find his way out of it all.

  Chapter 12

  Broken Promises

  Pouring a glass of wine, Kyleigh took a long sip, needing the liquid courage for what she was about to do. She grabbed her notebook and pen from the table and found herself staring down at the blank page, the pen twirling aimlessly around her fingers. Suddenly, her mind was as blank as the white paper staring back at her. Her aunt was right; she needed to write something to him, but she didn’t know where to begin. There was no way she could just show up at the prison, say she forgave him, and move on with her life like everything was okay, like she didn’t have anything to say about what had gone on in her childhood. She had plenty of things to tell him.

  After an hour, words finally filled the paper. Her eyes scanned through what she’d written and a small feeling of relief came over her. She was more than blunt with how she felt about her father, her childhood, and what had happened, but she knew he needed to know where she stood. She felt a little better getting her feelings down on paper, knowing her father was going to read it.

  With the folded letter in hand, she set it on the table and decided she’d take a hot shower, hoping it would calm her nerves. She couldn’t stop thinking about everything that had been going on. She needed someone to lean on, someone other than her aunt to give her advice, and she wanted that someone to be David. Learning more about her parents had been great, but she wanted to share it all with him, to let him into her life, so that maybe it would be a step in the right direction. They needed to begin trusting each other more with their feelings so they could develop a deeper connection that would give their relationship the extra boost it needed to move forward. She couldn’t keep holding all this in, because sooner or later, it was going to kill her.

  Thirty minutes later, she grabbed the letter from the table, dropped it off at the mailbox, and was finally heading out the door to David’s.

  As she pulled into his drive she saw the garage light still on. She smiled, realizing he must be staying up late so he could get all his work caught up, and for a second, wondered if she should bother him. She decided to stop in and say hi for a minute, anyway, and if he was still planning on pulling an all-nighter, then she’d just crash in his bed and let him work.

  The music thumped against the walls as she walked down the sidewalk towards the garage, and she lifted the steel handle to the door, letting the music escape into the night. As she took a step in, the scene before her was nothing she’d expected to see when she’d pulled into his driveway a few minutes ago, and it took her a moment to understand what was going on. But once her eyes focused on the scenario, everything clicked and she felt her muscles tense and her breath coil up and refuse to leave her body. The emotions that hit her were almost more than she could handle. Betrayal, hurt, and anger grew inside her, almost suffocating her with their emotional force.

  He had promised, was all that came to her mind.

  Her eyes scanned over David’s body as he lay sprawled across the concrete floor, a large, half-empty bottle of Vodka was lying next to him, and the music was so loud it was hurting her ears.

  After she made sure he was still breathing and alive, she stomped over to the radio and hit the power button, the silence a harsh contrast to the loud noise. With her hand on her hip, she stood there staring at him, not believing what she was seeing. His broken nose from the fight the other night was swollen and horribly bruised, his hands were covered in grease, and he was completely out of it. He looked like an absolute mess. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to control her anger. He had promised, and not even forty-eight hours later, he was drunk again. She was so upset she couldn’t think straight.

  She walked over to him and nudged his side with her foot. She watched him twitch slightly and then she nudged him even harder. He slowly opened his eyes, and she watched him squint as he tried to focus on her. After a few seconds, his eyes widened and he jerked upright into a standing position, wincing as he cradled his ribs.

  A feeling of satisfaction flooded her when she saw him clutching his stomach in pain, but she felt bad at that thought and pushed it away, even though he had broken his promise to her. A promise that meant more to her than he would ever know.

  “David, what the hell?!” she yelled, pointing down at the Vodka bottle lying next to his feet. She watched his reaction display a mix of emotions, all in a matter of seconds. Under other circumstances, the look of shock on his face would have been comical, but she wasn’t in the mood to consider anything funny at the moment. His expression finally fell into guilt at the realization of what he’d done when his eyes dropped to the bottle she was pointing at, and then his features finally twisted into anger, which she thought he had no right to even feel. He had been the one to fall back on his word, and he wanted to be angry at her?

  He turned away from her, running a hand through his already messy hair as he said in a low voice, “Kyleigh, I wasn’t expecting you to show up tonight.”

  “Yeah, I can tell. So, what, you were just going to hide your drinking from me so you could pretend to care about my feelings, but still have your fun, too? Smooth, David, real smooth. And I thought you cared enough about me to change.” She kicked the bottle with her foot and watched it roll across the room, clanging loudly in the silence and slinging Vodka everywhere as the alcohol spewed from the opened top, until finally coming to a stop against the back tire of a white Harley.

  “Dammit, Kyleigh!” David yelled as he reached down and picked up the bottle. “You don’t even understand what I’m going through and how drinking helps me, but you just expect me to quit cold turkey?
I know I broke my promise and I’m sorry,” he said as he looked down at the empty bottle in his hands, an expression full of torture and anguish taking over his face, almost as if something inside was holding him hostage. He shook his head and set the bottle on the work bench.

  “I don’t know what you’re going through because you don’t tell me,” she yelled back, wincing as her voice echoed in the garage.

  “Like you have room to talk about keeping things bottled up,” he said, staring her down with a look full of intensity that dared her to argue with him. “You never tell me what’s going on in that head of yours,” he said.

  She swallowed, knowing he was right about that. She had come over tonight to open up to him, but he’d yanked her trust for him right out from under her, and now the feeling of wanting to give all of herself to him was gone. “Yeah, well, now you’ll never know what shit I keep inside. I told you last night, David, that I’d leave you without looking back. It’s obvious that alcohol means a lot more to you than I do.” She pulled her purse up higher on her shoulder and turned for the door.

  “Kyleigh, wait. Dammit, will you just stop and talk to me?”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, David. I’m sure you can find what you’re looking for in that bottle, because it’s not me.”

  Grabbing her arm, he spun her around and her eyes settled on a familiar face. Within the bloodshot eyes, flushed cheeks, and the overwhelmingly smell of alcohol hitting her in the face, she was face to face with a spitting image of her father many years ago. Flashbacks came at her full force in broken, sporadic pictures. The images wouldn’t have made sense to anyone else, but if you lived them like she had, you could decipher each piece and place them in the exact order they happened. She could never erase those memories.

  “Ky, please.”