Page 32 of Accidentally Mine
I tore out of bed, holding my head in my hands as I staggered into the bathroom and yanked open the medicine cabinet.I tossed back the pills without water, hoping it’d shake some of those lost memories back into place, even though I knew it didn’t work that way.Turning the nozzle to the shower, I let the water flow.
While it heated, I went out into the bedroom and picked up the picture of my father, willing his face back into my memory.Willing myself to hold on to those last threads of him.
Without those memories, he was just a two-dimensional figure, a picture in a frame.
I set the frame down and scrubbed my hands over my stubble-covered jaw.Then I went into the bathroom to shave and shower.
I was sitting on the stool at my center island, eating cold cereal, thinking of Roselynn, when Ernest walked in, all ready for the day.He’d already been out and had a box of vanilla glazed Dunkies, his favorite.
“America runs,” he said, offering me one.He was a Dunkin’ Donuts addict to the core.
“I’m good.”I shook my head, gazing darkly into my O-shaped cereal, dunking my spoon.
“Want a ride to Starlight?”he asked, reading exactly what was on my mind.
I nodded and checked my watch for the thousandth time that hour.Nine was much too late.I wanted to see her now.
I couldn’t fucking wait.I was like a kid on prom night.
“I was just thinking,” he said, brushing glazed sugar off the front of his lapels.“It’s been a long time since you’ve entertained a woman here.”
He didn’t have to remind me.
It’d been since my accident.I’d had a few one-night stands with women I met at functions or through friends, but it had only been sex and nothing more.They always had questions about my scars that I didn’t volunteer an answer for.I didn’t want to take anyone home, where they could watch my morning medicine routine or have to explain why I couldn’t remember their name when I came or why I woke up screaming during a nightmare.
“When it happens, it happens,” I muttered, pushing the half-finished bowl away from me.
“She’s pretty,” he said once again, knowing exactly what was on my mind.“And a Southie girl.”
“I won’t hold that against her,” I mumbled.What I didn’t tell him was that I didn’t think she was pretty.She was gorgeous.Also, she’d look fucking fantastic in my bed.
But first things first.
Ernest got me there well before nine.I went in, sat in the booth we’d shared the day before, and ordered coffee.I waited, tapping my fingers on the table.
And waited, my pulse pounding like a drum through my body.
About fifteen minutes later, the waitress who was nowhere near as friendly as Anita stopped at my table.“Is your name Brent?”
I nodded.
She handed me a folded piece of notepaper that had my name on it.Opening it, I read:Brent.From Roselynn.I can’t make it.Something came up.Sorry.
Fucking hell.
I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t disappointed.I didn’t think I’d ever been so disappointed about a woman not showing before.Of course, I couldn’t remember ever being blown off, either.
I stared at the message for a full minute before calling the waitress over.“Where did this come from?”
She shrugged, playing with the fraying end of her long braid.“No clue.It was a phone call.I don’t know when it came in.I didn’t take the message.”
“Thanks.”I crumpled the note into a ball and finished my coffee, then I paid the check and went outside.“No-show,” I said to Ernest as I slid into the car.
“That dame blew you off?”He sounded surprised.“Aw.She seemed too nice for that.”
I sat erect in the car and glared at the sign above the coffee shop door as disappointment pulsed through my veins.“She left a message by phone.Apparently, she’s so nice she couldn’t bear to blow me off in person.”
Ernest turned his thick body around in the seat.“Hell no.I’m no love expert, but I’ve been around the block, Brent, my boy.And in my unbiased opinion, she blew you off on account of something coming up.”
