“I’ll cut his dick off while he sleeps,” Isla growls.
“Do you think the bitch is still there? I think we should have a little chat.” Cleo cracks her knuckles.
“Let’s go key the fuck out of their cars,” Isla suggests with eager eyes.
“Oh, they’ve picked the wrong chick to mess with. Where’s my Amex?” Cleo mutters then starts digging through her purse. “I’m making some calls …”
I groan, scrubbing my hands down my face. “Girls, no. I love you both more than Mac’s new shade of red, but it won’t make any difference. He’s …” I try to swallow over the feeling of my heart climbing up my throat. “It’s over,” I finish quietly.
Jesus that stings. No, it doesn’t just sting. It fucking paralyzes.
“Man, that red is to die for.”
Isla nods. “Mmmhmm, you must love us a lot.”
I throw myself back on the bed in exhaustion. It’s bad enough I feel like I want to rip my useless heart from my chest, but I can’t handle trying to calm them down at the same time. I just want to be alone. Even if I am grateful they give a crap.
“Look at her …” Isla whispers.
“Can someone legit die from heartbreak? Oh, my God.” Cleo gasps.
“We’ll take shifts …”
“I’m fine!” I snap then wince. “Sorry. I just feel like being alone.”
Cleo scoffs, walking over to my bed and taking a seat. “Always with the alone thing. Tough shit, you can pretend you’re alone.” She lies down next to me.
Isla sits down on my other side and lies down too.
I stare out the window in my bedroom at the blinding midday sun, but I can’t bring myself to close the curtains. Some part of me worries that if I do, the darkness festering and choking me within will team up with the physical and finally pull me right under. The fear is irrational—I know that—yet it’s taken hold and buried deep. So bad that I even slept with both lamps and the hallway light on when I got home from Jared’s. Well, tried to sleep.
Cleo and Isla remain silent. Tears leak from my eyes, falling to the duvet below my cheek. But like the two women next to me, I don’t make a sound.
Being alone is what I know; it’s what I like. But the fact they know I need them right now and can see through my bullshit makes me realize that at least not all forms of love are toxic.
I’ve immersed myself in fictional tales of heartache and how true love can conquer anything. But I never knew what it was like, and I never thought I would. I’d accepted that and made some kind of reluctant peace with it. But then a pair of green eyes stepped into my world and forced me to experience it firsthand. If I were asked to describe it, I don’t really know if I could do it justice. It’s something I’m sure is different for everyone.
But to me, falling in love felt like getting drunk off the finest of wines the world had to offer. One sip, just one taste, and you’re hooked.
And even though you know what could happen, and that there are probably risks, you keep drinking anyway. Lost in the bittersweet warmth that slowly, deliciously spreads through your veins like wildfire.
It’s both euphoric and deadly. Because too much, and you’re on your ass, broken and alone, wondering how you’ll eradicate this poison from your soul and still get out alive.
And if you do, you’re left with only the bitter taste of what-ifs to keep you warm at night.
I now know what it is to fall in love.
And love is a burden I don’t want on my soul anymore.
After two days of feeling sorry for myself, I’m desperate to try to see out the other side of this now fogged over window that once seemed so clear.
My unbuttoned coat billows behind me as I stand on the street and stare down at the opposite end where the coffee shop is. I wonder if he’s there. If he’s even thought about me with anything other than hate and revenge on his mind.
But wondering only leads to disaster. Wondering is for fools who hand their hearts over without knowing all the risks involved. My curiosity and that deep-seated desire to discover what else might lurk outside my gilded cage has come with a steep price. More than I could’ve ever dreamed to afford. But if I could, I’d find a way. I’d sell my soul—any part of what’s left of me—to get rid of this sickening heaviness in my heart.
My gaze slowly moves back to the front of Always Booked. I don’t think Badger can help this time, but I don’t know what else to do. So dragging my weary feet to the door, I open it and step inside. The bell jingles and everything seems as it should, but there’s no sign of Badger.
“Badger?” My voice is hoarse from crying and being unused, I suppose. Clearing my throat, I try again when I get no answer. “Badger?” I walk past the rows of mismatched bookshelves, finding no sign of him or anyone. It isn’t like him to close early or leave the store unattended. He locks up if he leaves; he always does. I head to the back room, and that’s where I find him, sitting on the old stool he uses to reach the high shelves. He lifts his head from his chest then drops it again. “Vera …”
Panic, raw and ugly like I’ve never known, twists my stomach in half. I rush over to him, grabbing his face and lifting it. His eyes seem sunken, and his soft, aged skin holds a pale blueish tint. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”
He tries to smile then he drops his head and taps his chest. “It hurts. I think …” That’s all he manages to say before he collapses on me. I almost fall to the floor, trying to keep him upright. Gritting my teeth in fear and horror, I manage to lower him to the dingy carpet. I pat his clammy cheeks then dig my phone out of my jacket pocket when he doesn’t respond. His chest is rising, and I feel a pulse, but his eyes won’t open. Then I remember him tapping his chest. Maybe he’s had a heart attack. Shit.
I dial 911 and put my phone on speaker before doing my best to turn him on his side. The first-aid course Sally made everyone take every two years, the one I thought was stupid considering we were accountants, now has me wanting to kiss her ugly shoed feet. I adjust his head while telling the operator everything I can through trembling lips. He can’t die; he can’t. I know he’s old, but I need him. He’s the best person I’ve ever known. One of the only people I have left.
I don’t allow myself a moment to falter, not until the ambulance arrives and loads him into the back. Finding his keys, I lock the store and get in my car. But my hand is shaking too much to get the key in the ignition.
“Shit.” I drop my head to the wheel, but it falls too low because the horn blares, scaring the shit out of me and some poor guy on his bike, who almost falls off as he rides past my car. I wince but know it was the shock I needed and turn the car on to head to the hospital.
Waiting rooms are miserable places to be. I realize while sitting on the hard plastic seat with a baby screaming in my ear behind me that I’ve never had to sit in one before. I went to the hospital once when I broke my pinkie finger falling down the stairs at home. But my father demanded they rush me in right away. I remember it like it was yesterday because I was pissed off. I was twelve, and my first and only worry was that I couldn’t hold my books open properly with my right hand until it healed.
The clock ticks above my head. My feet shift on the sticky floor. I glance down, inspecting my black velvet ballet pumps. Huh. I don’t even remember putting them on.
The clock says it’s only been an hour since I arrived, but it feels like I’ve been sitting here for a week. Rigid, tired, and cold to my very bones.
“Do you think I could move in here?”
Badger laughs, the sound is dry but full of rich joy. “Here? And where do you propose you’ll sleep?”
I fiddle with my bottom lip, staring at my shoes. “Here will do. The chairs are old, but they smell okay. I’ll just sleep on them.”
I look over at Badger when he doesn’t respond, finding his keen blue eyes studying me. “My dear, you’re only twelve years old. You can’t leave home yet.”
Home. He says the word as if such a place really exists. And if it does, I wish I could find it. “It’s not a home. It’s a maze of ice hallways and two-faced hyenas.”
His head rears back, eyes widening. “You have quite the imagination.” He leans forward again. “But tell me, why do you think that?”
I lift my shoulders to my ears and take a deep breath. My lungs fill with the scent of old and used books. I let it out, feeling more relaxed, and look over at the window. Tiny specks of dust dance in the afternoon sun over the section of children’s books. “It’s just … always cold.” Staring at the scuffed Disney copy of Cinderella that’s on display, I blurt, “Do you think I’m an ugly stepsister?”
Badger tilts his head then reaches out to bop me on the nose. He pulls his hand back. “You know better than anyone that you’re far from ugly.”
My nose scrunches, my voice lowering to a whisper. “No … I-I mean inside.”
He scowls; his thick black and gray brows look like hairy caterpillars. “Who on earth gave you that idea?”
I glance away, my cheeks reddening.
“Vera, look at me.” It’s not a request but a command.
Badger hardly ever talks to me in that tone. But my father does, and my head turns back of its own volition. “I know you’re probably too young to understand this. But whatever you do, wherever this life leads you, always remember that only one person has the power to define who you are and who’ll you become, and that person is you.”
That was the only day in my life I’d walked away from Badger feeling worse than when I had arrived. Funny that out of all the profound things he’s said to me over the years, the most important piece of advice he ever gave me frustrated me the most. It eluded me. It didn’t make sense at the time. I felt powerless, trapped, but I was also too young to understand. And so I ignored his words, thinking them futile. They served no purpose in helping me escape my father’s clutches at the time, so they were forgotten.
Until now.
“Vera Bramston?”
I lurch to my feet in an instant. “Yes? Is he okay? What’s happening? I know I’m not immediate family, but I’m all he’s got, so please.” I swallow thickly. “You have to tell me.”
The nurse frowns, picking up a sheet of paper on her chart and looking down at it. She returns her confused gaze to me. “But it says here that you’re his next of kin.”
I nod, that makes sense. “Okay …” I nod again. I think I’ve lost control of my own reflexes. “Good.”
She purses her lips and looks back down at her paper. “Yes, Vera Bramston, granddaughter of Graham Rodgers.”
Rodgers. My brain tries to connect with where I’ve heard that name. Granddaughter. Erica Rodgers. My mother.
Wait. Badger is my mother’s father?
“He’s stable.” She continues as if she hasn’t just shaken me to the core. “He’s asleep and will need to stay in ICU until we can determine …” Her words trail off into the clustered waiting room around us. I hear them, but I don’t. All I can hear is that one word on repeat.
Granddaughter.
As we walk to his room, the nurse rattles off a list of things to me that I still don’t hear, but I nod my head again. We stop in the doorway to his room. Well, I do, but she walks in. When she notices I’m still at the door, she gives me a soft smile and comes over to pat my shoulder. “I felt the same way when my grandfather got sick. But yours is showing some very good signs, so I think he’ll be okay.”
I can’t speak; I just stare at his sleeping form lying in the hospital bed hooked up to an alarming number of beeping monitors. “I’ll give you a moment. Holler if you need anything.”
My head moves up and down yet again. Her sneaker clad feet squeaking on the floor indicate she’s walking away.
Despair creeps into the hollowed-out void in my chest, filling it as each excruciating second passes until I can’t breathe and I can hardly see.
I march back down the hall with my hand over my mouth as though I can stop any more of this torture from finding its way inside me. I can’t handle any more. I just can’t do it.
I drive home with my lips between my teeth, breathing shallowly through my nose. Once back inside my apartment, I move to the only other place capable of providing comfort. Heavy, dark oak bookshelves, all of them larger than anything else in this apartment, line the walls, and I’ve arranged the books alphabetically, by author. It’s all perfect. But now it feels all wrong.
Storming into the room, I make a beeline for the first books I can get my hands on. I don’t even look at them. I just start tearing them from the shelves.
Ripping, shoving, and crying, I tear pages upon pages from them so violently that my nails break. Good, I think amongst the chaos of my brain. I don’t need pointless tales of something I can’t have. I’m so sick of trying not to give in to the hopelessness that lives inside me that I try to forget with every page I read. It’s never worked anyway. They’ve let me down, crushed me by warping that naïve part of me that still believed.
I can’t believe. I’ve seen firsthand what believing will do. I’ve felt it. I’m still fucking feeling it. When you’ve had everything you’ve ever wanted, you’re not allowed to have anything that truly matters.
So I won’t.
They don’t matter. None of these carefully crafted stories with their beautiful words matter. None of them.
Not anymore.
Paper flutters to the ground around me while my breaking heart rages and wars within. I want it out. I need it gone. My hands rip and shred. The sound of someone weeping fills my ears. Wetness cascades down my face and down my chin, falling to the pages on the floor below me. I move onto the next row and then the next. I keep going until my legs weaken, and my hands and fingers are stinging. My whole body starts to shake with the force of my anguish, and I give in, falling to the rug on the floor, surrounded by my heart’s demise. The sole reason for everything that’s happened to me lies in perfect ruins around me.
It feels like part of me just took its final breath.
I’ve never felt more alone.