Page 24 of Hunter

“Heeey!” I moan before falling flat on my back and peering up into the most beautiful clear blue eyes I’ve ever seen. “Kev, did I die too?”

“Daniel Hunter, are you getting drunk in the middle of a cemetery at eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning?” I look up again to see her pretty face which is now hidden behind a mass of wavy chocolate-colored hair. She’s smiling as she turns the bottle to read the label. “Didn’t take you for a hard-core alcoholic; you hide it so well!”

She then redirects her smile to my face, and it takes my breath away.

“See, Kev? She’s totally hot, right?” I point up to her as I face his headstone again, not for one minute thinking she’s real. She’s an apparition of my deepest, darkest desire, and perhaps too much booze. “I bet her brother is around the corner, waiting to kick my ass. You should see the stuff he makes her wear; it makes that beautiful, curvy body look completely shapeless. I tell you, Kev, it’s a damn travesty!”

“Come on, boozy,” I hear her voice say at the same time as two arms slide underneath my shoulders and try to hoist me up to my feet. Even in my fantasy, she’s pretty petite, and I’m pretty big, so I help her by hauling my ass off of the ground. When I stand in front of her, she starts to giggle over my poor efforts to remain upright and stationary. She even lets me grip hold of her forearms as I try and steady the spinning world all around me. After much too long, I release a laugh and finally steady myself in front of her.

“Are you real?” I laugh with her, not even thinking about how mortified I’m going to feel if she is. “I mean, is your brother here with you…in…this…er, cemetery?” I take in the location and find it completely bizarre that she’s here with me. “What are the damn chances?”

“He went back to the bar,” she says, gesturing back to the road behind her, “told him I needed some time alone with my folks.”

“Oh, shit, where are they?” I look around for them, not wanting to meet them while I’m in this state. But when my eyes fall back on hers, all mirth has been replaced by an exasperated expression and a roll of her eyes.

“Take a look at where we are, Daniel, where do you think they are?”

“Oh,” I gormlessly reply, feeling like a complete idiot. I then point to Kev’s grave as if to silently explain myself. “My twin brother.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, being a lot more sophisticated about my loss than I was about hers. I nod, suddenly feeling more sober. “Wanna share a taxi and get a coffee?” she quickly asks, because things just turned awkward. “And I mean a lot of coffee…for you.”

“Good plan,” I nod and haphazardly walk up to the road with her laughing over my very unstable walking.

Chapter 11

Louisa

Daniel and I end up sitting in a window seat in a small diner I’ve only ever been inside of once. It was just after we buried Dad. Neither Phoenix nor I ate anything we ordered, we just sat there, saying nothing, and staring into space. Forced to grow up once again and wondering if a family can actually be cursed with bad luck. It was such an awful day that it was silently agreed we’d never return. And yet, in a strange twist of fate, here I am sitting with my drunk boss and his copious amounts of hot coffee. I’ve also ordered him a cooked breakfast to try and soak up some of the alcohol; the smell makes my nose twitch with disgust and feel thankful that I had the option of a bowl of fresh fruit and granola.

Our sad pasts at least made him sober up a little; I can tell because every time his eyes meet mine, you can see he is feeling a tad mortified. I can’t help but smirk, making him squirm, purely because it’s funny.

When our food eventually arrives, I giggle over the grimace he pulls; I can tell he would rather be back at the graveyard drinking whiskey than be here tucking into the fried food now sitting in front of him.

“Eat it or you’ll regret it later,” I sing song before shoving a piece of melon into my mouth. I then take a form of pleasure over watching him reluctantly cut up a piece of bacon and awkwardly place it inside his mouth. I can’t help but laugh over his misfortune, especially when it was self-inflicted. He looks up at me giggling at him and throws a piece of bread my way.

“So, can I ask what happened? To your brother, I mean. You don’t have to, but…” I flap my hands around my breakfast and look away, worrying I’ve overstepped my boundaries. His heavy sigh gives nothing away. “Sorry, Daniel, I shouldn’t have—"

“It’s ok,” he says with a shrug, “it happened about ten years ago.” He frowns with an expression that tells me he still finds talking about it very difficult, so I place my hand over his, trying to offer comfort over something so sad. He looks down at our connected hands and smiles. “Kev was in a car crash, a really bad one; he was with his girlfriend at the time. He and Addy had been together for a few years and were crazy for one another. But this one night, they were driving home and a woman holding her baby stepped out in front of the car. She was emotional, looked as if something awful was happening to her. Kev swerved the car to avoid impact but ended up hitting a tree and smashing the car up. Addy died on impact, and Kev was in a coma for a few weeks.”

He reluctantly takes another bite of his breakfast, chewing it with the same level of disdain as before. I feel as if I should say something but cannot think of a single word. I don’t know what’s worse, having to watch someone you care for waste away, or having your loved one die without any warning.

“When he woke and discovered Addy had died, he was destroyed; he couldn’t handle it. We all tried to give him counseling, tried to convince him that it wasn’t his fault, but he refused to listen. Even Addy’s parents told him he had done what anyone would have in that situation, but he blocked his ears to it all. A month after he got out of hospital, he was found hanging in the woods.”

“Oh my God, Daniel,” I whisper, squeezing his hand that little bit harder, “that’s, that’s…”

I have no words for how painful it must be for him. He shakes his head, looking both heartbroken and angry. It’s still raw and probably always will be. I don’t know what I would do if I lost Phoenix; I can’t think how twins survive without the other.

“Addy’s grave is right next to his,” he says with that sad smile. “I like to think that at least they’re together now. Nothing else good came of it; it was just such a waste of life, you know?”

I simply nod because what can you say to something like that? I smile but it feels worthless, almost cheap, after what he’s just told me.

“Can I ask you about your folks?” he says, turning the tables on me. However, after his confession and show of vulnerability, I feel like I can finally open up to someone; it may as well be my half-drunk boss.

“My mother died in a house fire when I was a little over one,” I tell him, trying not to reveal how gut-wrenching it was for me to never have known the woman who birthed me. “Arson. I never really knew her,” I tell him as though I should be ashamed of the fact; I find myself not even being able to look into his eyes. Instead, I focus on playing with my breakfast.

“Wow…I mean, I’m sorry,” he says, now squeezing my hand.

“Well, I can’t remember her face, or her voice, not even when I look at pictures. I see them and there’s nothing. I remember trying so hard to get a spark of something about her – a name she might have called me, a song she might have sung, a scent of something she might have cooked, but…nothing.”

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