Page 39 of His Heart

Brooke

The noisein the bar throbbed in my ears. Voices and music created a thick layer of sound that filled the space. Pressed against me. The dim light and constant noise wrapped around me, cradling me with their familiarity.

I sat on a stool, running a finger along the rim of my glass of… something. Whiskey, maybe? I’d already forgotten what I’d ordered. Didn’t matter. My head was pleasantly fuzzy, the buzz keeping my thoughts aimless. That was all I needed tonight—the haze of booze. The ebb and flow of people moving around me. Distraction. Anything to keep my mind off the hollow space in my chest.

Not that it worked very well. Nothing did. Even the oblivion of sleep never provided real relief. It was always there. The ache. Whether it was hovering in the background of my consciousness, or stabbing my awareness like a knife, the ache was a part of me, now.

It stole through my chest, radiating from the place where my heart had once lived. Nothing was left in that space. Just an empty hole. Sure, I still had an organ to pump blood through my veins. But my heart? It had been torn from my chest. Held outside my body, beating in time with the machines that had kept Liam’s organs functioning. It had stopped when Liam’s had. Died with him.

In the beginning, the pain had been debilitating. I’d awoken every morning and the ache had ripped through me, burning me from the inside. It would steal my breath, take the oxygen from the air, leave me gasping. It had been shocking to realize that the pain wouldn’t kill me. That my body would continue to function in such a state of desperate agony.

But it had. I’d gone on, day after day, still breathing. Still existing.

I took a drink. Felt the burn as it slipped down my throat. A hint of nausea turned my stomach over and my cheeks felt flushed.

“Hey Rick, can I get some water?”

Rick, the bartender tonight, nodded. He got me a glass of ice water and slid it across the bar. “Have you had anything to eat tonight, kiddo?”

I cracked a little smile. “Aw, are you worried about me? Or just worried I’ll puke on the bar?”

He wiped a few drops of moisture off the bar top. “You just look a little pale. Maybe you should call it a night. Go get some food and sleep it off.”

“You’re a sweetheart, Rick.” I flashed him another smile I didn’t feel. I always gave people a pretty smile. Real or not, it was what they wanted to see. “But I’m fine.”

He raised his eyebrows, like he didn’t believe me. Which was fine. I didn’t believe me either.

I wasn’t all that drunk. I knew where I was and what I was doing. But my level of intoxication had nothing to do with whether or not I was fine. Another girl could be smashed out of her mind, falling all over the place, puking her brains out, and she’d be more fine than I was.

Shifting on the stool, I glanced at the band. They called themselves the Death Pixies, which was pretty fucking stupid if you asked me. I thought it made them sound like an all-girl punk band, but they were a bunch of rocker guys in ripped denim and leather.

Jared met my eyes, a slow smile crossing his face while he sang into the mic. It made my stomach turn again. I took a sip of water, hoping it would help. His hair was slicked back, his jaw rough with a week’s growth of stubble. Full sleeve tattoos on both arms. Half the girls in here were ready to spread their legs for him, and he acted like he only had eyes for me.

He wasn’t my boyfriend. He liked to put on a show in front of other people, claiming some alpha-male style ownership over me. Give a shout out to his girl in the crowd, fling an arm around my shoulders, grab my ass when he knew people were watching. Make his groupies jealous. He loved that shit. Ate up the attention like it was booze-filled candy.

But he was just as likely to fuck some random tonight as he was me. He didn’t love me, and I didn’t love him. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I even liked him. He was an asshole with an ego so big I was surprised he fit in the bar.

It raised the question: What the hell was I doing here, sitting in a crowded bar, drinking too much while Jared and his band played mediocre music?

Mostly, I didn’t have anywhere else to be.

I’d lost yet another job, and this time, my apartment with it. I’d known Jared and the other guys in the band for a while. We traveled in the same social circle, if that’s what you called a bunch of people who partied together and generally knew each other’s names. They all lived in an old house not far from here, and they’d offered to let me come crash with them.

Hooking up with Jared offered me the protection I needed, living with a group of five guys who were drunk or high more often than not. Jared had claimed me, so the other guys left me alone. And he wasn’t all bad. We did have fun together. He had a crazy streak—liked to flirt with danger. Chase the adrenaline rush. So did I. He often said he liked me because I was the only one who could keep up with him.

Our non-relationship worked for me. I wasn’t capable of loving someone, and that wasn’t what he wanted. He liked the appearance, having someone to call his muse, without the hassle of having a real girlfriend. And if I slept with him sometimes, there was no harm in it. He was a distraction. Something to fill the empty space inside of me, even if only for a little while.

I wasn’t my mother, with a desperate need to be with a man. To not be alone. I hadn’t moved from guy to guy since losing Liam. Sure, I lived with Jared now, but it was temporary. I’d get back on my feet and move on.

That’s what I’d been telling myself, at least. But as I took another swallow of whiskey—or whatever this was; it didn’t taste like anything to me—I knew the truth. Every day I inched closer to being just like her. My only hope was that I retained a degree of self-awareness that she’d lacked. And maybe that would count for something.

My mother had always blamed everyone else for the way her life had turned out. She’d gotten pregnant with me when she was too young. My dad had skipped out on her. The guys she’d dated had screwed her over. Everything had always been someone else’s fault.

I knew how badly I’d fucked myself over. I didn’t claim to be a victim of circumstance. I’d lost my job because I’d stopped showing up. Lost my apartment because I hadn’t paid the rent. My life was a disaster, but it was all on me. I could blame Liam for dying, but other people had loved him too. They weren’t sitting half-drunk in a dive bar, listening to their non-boyfriend’s band, picking up a few shifts at a crappy diner as their only means of feeding themselves.

The problem was, it was hard to give a shit.

I felt as if I’d died when Liam had. It wasn’t that I was suicidal. Even in the darkest days after the accident, I hadn’t wanted to end my life. But I didn’t really care if I lived, either.

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