Page 2 of ILY
My heart hurt for her that she didn’t make her goal.
The bar had been the dustiest part of the house when I moved in, and it might have stayed that way if it hadn’t been for fucking Michael driving me to drink. It’s well stocked now with gin, vodka, and mixers.
The mini fridge and freezer are functional, and my hands shake only a little as I open the small door and pull out the frosty bottle and the ice tray full of perfectly round cubes. Goddamn perfection, if you ask me.
The crack of the tray is beyond satisfying, but the clink the ice makes as it drops into the shaker is insufferable.
I stare at the clear martini glass—oversized and empty—and debate about chilling it, but I’m not a damn drink connoisseur. I don’t care if it’s cold or if it’s done properly. I care that the booze seeps immediately into my system and dulls the realization that I am, just a little—just a tiny bit—unhinged right now.
I can’t believe I went from a nationally certified ASL-English interpreter to a madman who scours the dark web.
I laugh out loud to myself as I pour in the gin, then the olive juice…then a bit more olive juice. What else do I have? Lime? Sounds good. Oranges? Maybe just a squeeze.
I draw the line at the jar of cherries, but I do add three orange slices to the oversized glass, then cap the shaker and use my whole body to mix it up. My teeth clatter, my muscles screaming at me.
Thom would tell me to go a little longer, to work those biceps.
“Fuck you, Thom!” I hiss at the vision of him standing in the corner of the room, looking all judgy. “I want to rot. Don’t tell me what to do!”
When I’m done shaking, I pour it into the glass. Thankfully, it’s cold enough to make the glass foggy. The liquid inside is a sickly pale olive color, and there are bits of orange pips floating around in it.
Hm, not that appetizing.
Something Michael would enjoy, I’m sure.
Oh fucking well. I toss a couple of olives in, then tip half the glass straight down my throat.
“Oh god, tastes like poison,” I gasp, then take another drink and fight the urge to laugh again. “Michael, this is your fucking fault. Look what you’ve done to me.” I turn to face the security camera, and ohfuck, there he is again.
The monstrous little shit is sitting three feet away with an entire goddamn zucchini he’s stolen off the plant clenched in his horrible teeth. He’s staring me in the eyes like he can see me, chomping away like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
Like he knows how long it took me to grow this one.
Fuckingweekslaboring over it. I even sang to it once.
I’m going tomurderhim.
And now might be my time. I might be able to get him this time if I’m very, very quiet.
I hold my breath like somehow that’s going to help me walk a little lighter, debate about taking another drink, but instead, I grab the bat with the nails glued to the end, which I realize is absolutely psychotic, but I don’t care anymore.
I’m leaning in.
Completely horizontally.
The door creaks on the hinges, and I glare at it.Shut the fuck up, please!The floorboards on the front porch squeak. Christ, is anything in this house quiet? Spending so many years in the Deaf community, I think I’ve forgotten just how loud the world can be now that I have to care about shit like that.
A nail falls from my bat and lands on the floor with a clank. Damn glue. Probably old. Useless. I bet my aunt hoarded it like everything else. I bet it’s from 1934.
Still, I’m not a quitter. I rise onto my toes, then slip down the steps and into the grass. The ground is soft, and luckily, there aren’t any goatheads because my feet are bare, and I round the corner of the house to where I set up the camera.
I raise the bat over my head, then let out a huge rally cry…andlunge.
There’s nothing like walking back into the house full of regret and shame. I toss the bat back into the corner where it belongs and stare down at my mud-covered front.
“FuckingMichael.”
He wasn’t there, of course. All that was left was a half-eaten zucchini and a pile of groundhog shit waiting for me. I would have walked back to the house like a normal person, but I wasso hyped up on adrenaline, GERD-inducing dirty martinis, and anger that I mistook the garden hose for a snake.
