Page 13 of Never Say Never

It shows me that she’s nothing like the woman she’s the exact replica of. The one who crushed my heart into dust once upon a time.

The thought hits hard and I suck in a breath just as she looks up, those big green eyes full of shadows.

“You okay?” I ask.

Brandi doesn’t answer.

“Hey.” I step into room completely. “You had a nightmare, but you’re okay now.”

She doesn’t quite focus on me, and her voice is quiet, almost dull, even as the tears slide down her face again. “There isn’t a night that I don’t have them. Not since before I can remember. It’s stupid. I know. And it got worse after what happened to Maya when she was my roommate.”

There’s more there, but I don’t know what and I can’t ask outright, either. I don’t know her well enough. She’s not mine. She looks both vulnerable and resigned to the broken life she’s living.

Shit.

I want to touch her. Hold her. Take away all her pain. Because it’s pain that I see written on her face. The type of pain, I’m not exactly sure. But I can see it for what it is, and I don’t know what I should be doing. Should I offer comfort? Sample the softness her skin promises by kissing her until we’re both needy and breathless? I need to keep my hands to myself and get drunk enough to forget I want her the way I do.

Instead of doing any of those things, I hand her the glass I’m balancing in my hand.

Her fingers wrap around it like a lifeline.

“I hear you,” I say uselessly. “We’ve all got shit we’re dealing with.”

Brandi looks at me over the rim of her drink. “Maya’s all I… after it happened, I couldn’t sleep and when she moved out, the nightmares got worse. I wish she hadn’t. I’m selfish—”

“No. You’re not.”

“I can’t even remember what happens in them. I think that makes everything that much worse.” She wipes her eyes on the sleeve of my shirt she wears. “I just wake up and I feel this… terror. I can’t move. Sometimes I can’t even breathe, they’re so bad.” With a cough, she clears her throat and offers me a small smile. “You must really hate me for this. Not only do I steal your bed, but I wake you up in the middle of the night. Thanks for the drink.”

Before I can warn her to go easy, she tosses it back and then splutters and coughs as the alcohol clears her airway.

I can’t help it; I smile as I take a long swig from the bottle and then let it fall to my side. Until she makes my heart stutter as she reaches out and touches the label. The label is sitting dangerously close to my already-hard dick.

“Jack Daniels Honey Whiskey?” she asks, shaking her head as she pulls back her hand, and I pretend not to notice the shake is still there.

“Sorry, this is the only hard stuff I have, and it looked like you could use a stiff drink.” I take a swig straight from the bottle and then offer to refill her drink. “Another?”

She glances back and forth between her glass and my hand, like she’s trying to decide if it’s worth it. A few long seconds later she takes the bottle, pours herself another, and then holds out the bottle as an offering for me to take.

I stare at the bottle back in my hand, trying to come up with a reason to stay with her. “It might help to talk it out. Tell me what exactly happened. Sometimes, if you face your demons head-on, they go away. At least for a little bit.”

“Ha. If I’m going to do that, I’m going to need a lot more of this.” I watch, transfixed, as her throat bobs when she tosses back the contents of the glass like it’s filled with water.

“Impressive.” I clear my throat and motion her to move. “Scoot over and tell me.” I sit down on the bed, careful to leave some space between us, and take another deep drink straight from the bottle before I top hers up again without asking.

She turns her glass around and around with her hand, her fingers seeming less shaky than earlier. “You know a year ago Maya was attacked in our house and she almost died. I wasn’t there. I should have been there for her. When I got home the next day, there was crime scene tape everywhere. I couldn’t go into the house until the whole thing was gone through and cleared… and I didn’t know what had happened or if Maya had even survived until they told me that she was at the hospital.”

Brandi stops talking for so long I start to think she’s finished, that she’s not going to share any more of the horror she’s been through. But then she speaks again, her voice sounding smaller than I’ve ever heard her before.

“When I got there and the doctors told me she was alive, I was relieved. I hated that because for just a moment, I felt relief for me that I didn’t have to move. Of course, I was relieved she was okay and I love her, but the fact that for just a second, I was more concerned about me than her, one of my best friends…” She shudders and my heart hurts for her. “It haunts me like the remnants of a bad hangover that I’ll never get rid of.”

“Human nature,” I say.

She nods, but the press of her soft lips tells a different story. “Hearing she’d be okay, I thought it was fine. That everything would be okay. I was wrong. I could go in my house. So I did. To get it ready for Maya to come home. And I saw her room. I saw the blood. I thought there was nothing worse than what I was seeing until I was on the third coat of paint and I could still smell the iron all around me. I can still picture it. I can still smell it as soon as I think about it. How was there so much blood on the wall?”

She stops talking and takes a small drink, and I make myself look away, concentrating on the bottle, on everything she hasn’t said.

“Did you know that we all had to go to counseling after her attack?” I ask, picking at the left corner of the cream-colored label. “We didn’t catch the guy at first, you know. It messed with a lot of us. Maya’s part of our law enforcement family, you all are. The fact something happened to her and we couldn’t even catch the guy screwed with our heads. We had some group sessions about it. But it got better after he was caught. I didn’t have nightmares or anything. Just that feeling, like I should have done more. Like I failed her.” I still don’t look at her, but I do take another drink from the bottle.

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