Page 40 of Eden's Joker

“He looked like he was in such a hurry to get tome,” I slur. “And then he just speeds off. He was in even more hurry to get away.”

I’m pretty sure I’ve said this a thousand times before.

“You’re better off without that asshole,” Ariel tells me.

I’m pretty sure she’s told me this a thousand times before too.

“You deserve so much better than a guy who’d leave you standing in an empty parking lot,” she adds.

“I know, right?”

But no matter how many times we go over this, or how much I drink, I just can’t get him out of my mind. If he were here, I’d slap him. And then I’d let him kiss me.

“Oh, how pretty,” Ariel says. “Look! They’re dancing.”

I actually lean over to look out my window to see these dancing people she’s talking about, before realizing she means the Christmas lights I have all over my apartment. She finds my confusion incredibly funny and so do I. And after we’re done rolling on the bed laughing, I’m also done drinking. And being awake.

My dreams are disjointed. And even deep in one of them where Tyler is chasing me across a field of wheat that comes up to my chin, my head is spinning from drinking too much.

The dream morphs into Ariel and me in the middle of a stormy sea. She’s perched on a sun-bleached log and is calling my name and extending her hand to pull me onto it as well, but my head is spinning too hard and I kind of like the coolness of the water and the way the waves carry my body this way and that, supporting me while threatening to drown me. I’ve never swum in a stormy sea. I kind of want to. My life has been all smooth sailing, low to no stress thus far. But I want more. I want excitement and I want danger. And I really like how Tyler’s face is superimposed on the roiling sea crashing against me.

Only it’s not the sea and I’m not just dreaming the motion.

I realize all that as I wake up in a completely dark room, getting jostled around by the guy carrying me. Or is it two guys?

“Tyler?” I ask groggily.

“He’s not here right now,” a strange man answers me harshly.

“I’m gonna be sick,” I complain. “Put me down. Where are you taking me? Who are you?”

“Just don’t puke,” the guy says harshly.

If I wasn’t still so drunk, I’d probably know what’s going on. As it is, I think maybe my dream just shifted one more time. Into a very realistic nightmare.

“Are you abducting me?”

Both the guys carrying me laugh loudly.

“Man, she’s something else,” one of them says to the other. “So polite and clueless. Now I see why Joker likes her so much.”

“Who’s Joker?” I ask.

They both laugh again and don’t answer. I’m sure I’m just not asking the right questions. All I have to do is ask the right questions and everything will make sense again.

We’ve reached the bottom of the staircase that leads from my apartment to the back door. Only one of the guys is holding me now as the other opens the door. The cool night air smells of flowers, redwood trees and moist earth. Kind of like a graveyard.

I hear Ariel scream my name upstairs.

And that’s when I realize I’m not waking up from this nightmare. Because there’s nothing to wake up from. This is my real life.

I start thrashing in the guy’s arms, calling Ariel’s name, telling her to run, hoping some of my dad’s MC brothers are near and will hear my screams for help.

But I don’t get many of those screams out before a cool rag that smells like chemicals hits my nose so hard my eyes water.

And then I am water, I am that roiling, thrashing black sea I dreamed about before this nightmare started. I’m asleep again. Good. Hopefully I was wrong and this was just a nightmare. And hopefully the next dream will be better. Because even in my addled state, I know it probably can’t be any worse.

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