Page 3 of Whiskey Lullaby
I tossed my keys onto the entrance table and rummaged through the stack of mail the housekeeper left by the lamp.Bill. Junk mail. Junk mail.A heavy manila envelope laid at the bottom of the stack, and when I turned it over, my heart kicked up a notch. H. Blake. No return address. Just hername.
An uneasy heat spread over my body. Fate was really trying to do a mindfuck on me that day. Jesus, I needed a beer.I made my way through the foyer and the formal living room that had never been used, through the dining room with the table that seated fourteen people—again never used—and I walked into the kitchen. I threw the letter down on the counter and grabbed a beer from the wine cooler, then popped the top and took a sip, my eyes locked on that damn envelope the entire time.Why now?It was all I could think when I picked it back up. I’m not sure why, but I ran my fingers over her name. Maybe because that was the closest I had come to touching her in so long, and as much as I wanted to pretend I didn’t give a shit about what happened, it botheredme.
I hated how things ended betweenus.
I alwayswould.
My palms were slicked with sweat when I tore the envelope open. I thumbed through the handwritten pages, and the faint scent of amber and jasmine lifted into the air.Come on, Hannah. Did you really spray the pages with your perfume?Amber and Jasmine—Alien…Hannah’s the only person I’ve ever known to wear that. I used to stop in the mall and spray a sample of it on one of those little cards just to remember. I brought them to my nose and inhaled, and my eyes slammed shut. It was such a subtle way of forcing me to remember her. A brutal way, and it cut me to the bone, because I lost her. My chest grew tighter with each breath, like a boa constrictor wrapping around my heart. I didn’t know whether to scream or cry or just… I closed my eyes and breathed her scent in again. My stomachknotted.
I lostallofthis.
I lost everything I knew I never deserved but almost had. And I couldn’t take that reminder. I walked to the garbage can and held the bundle of letters over the top. Hannah was in the past, and that’s where those emotions, those memories—the person I was with her –needed to stay. Before I tossed them, I caught one line that caused my heart to bang ceremoniously in my chest:I was only weak because Ilovedyou.A dizzy heat all but drownedme.
Damn!
And just like that —like the proverbial damn bursting— everything rushed to the surface. As much as I knew it would hurt, I just needed to know. I wanted to believe I meant something to her, that there was something salvageable there. A love like that, it was something you either die from orignore.
And how could I ignore it now? I couldn’t, so I glanced down at herletter:
Noah,
We were friends. Lovers. Soulmates… and very horrible peopletogether.
I wonder, have you forgotten me by now? Have you forgotten the promises we made to eachother?
Do you remember the person I became, how I fell for you even though I knew it would kill me to love someone like you? I knew better, Noah. I did. And this letter isn’t to admonish you or tear you down. No, it’s to make you see what you do to the people yousayyou care so deeplyfor.
When I was with you, you made me feel safe and loved and wonderful, but in the end, I felt stupid and so vulnerable. I want to believe you never meant to hurt me; that you never meant to make me hate you. I want to believe all the things you said were true, but it’s hard for me. With everything I’ve found out since we didn’t say goodbye, you must understand why I wish I could forgetyou.
I will forever hate that I was so weak for you, but I was only weak because I loved you. Despite itall.
I’ll always loveyou.
Hannah
Guilt tugged at my conscience. Taking a seat, I placed her letters face down on the table. I scrubbed my hand over my jaw, remembering… what sucked was the memory of our last kiss. How her eyes filled with tears, and she looked at me like I was everything she ever wanted and hated all at the sametime.
I promised her I’d never hurt her, but Idid.
Didn’t say goodbye.Wedidn’tsaygoodbye.
3
Hannah
Summer 2015
The ER in that little hospital was crazy that night. A chainsaw accident. A stab wound. Two wrecks and more cardiac arrests than I wanted to count. Influxes like that were the norm in Fort Lauderdale where I’d done my preceptorship—big city, lots of patients. Rockford’s population barely tipped over four hundred, so it was unexpected, to say the least.Rockford, Alabama. I’m back in Rockford…I never expected to come back home. At least not to live, but sometimes, well, life throws you curveballs. I’ll admit, there was a certain comfort in being home. I just wished I’d come home under different circumstances—anyothercircumstances.
I finished up Ms. Thompson’s discharge sheet and stepped into the hall just as a gurney with a man covered in blood and gasping for breath whizzed toward the OR. Although I didn’t know him, my stomach knotted because that man was someone’s world, and I doubted he’d make it. Losing your world couldn’t beeasy.
At the time, I’d only been a nurse for a little over a month, but I thought the emotions of it all would wane over time. They hadn’t. Not in theslightest.
“Hannah.” Meg grabbed my elbow and yanked me around the corner. She swatted her platinum blonde hair away from her eyes but didn’t say anything. Just attempted to drag me down thehall.
“What are you doing?” I asked. The doors from the ambulance bay swung open. Medics pushed another gurney through the doorway, and she tugged on my arm again, but it was too late. I had already seen Max’s bloodied face. Max Summers, my ex, the boy that taught me how pretty lies could be, was laid out on the stretcher. His eyes swollen, and he clutched at his side, groaning with each breath. He didn’t notice me, and that was probablybest.
“Shit,” Meg huffed, dragging me to the side of the corridor. “I was trying to keep you away from thatshitshow.”
