Come to Me Quietly (Closer to You #1)(10)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I just nodded, couldn’t speak.

“Hmm,” he continued, “your application looks good. We don’t have a lot going on right now, but I could maybe fit you in somewhere. You’re not going to be close to making what you were at your last job, though.”

Disappointment hit me, but I shook it off. “That’s fine.”

Kenny laughed. “Desperate, huh?”

I shifted my feet, feeling uncomfortable and on display. I forced myself to stand still. “You could say that.”

“All right, then. Why don’t you come back here Monday morning and you can fill out some paperwork to get you started?”

“Thank you, Mr. Harrison.”

“Call me Kenny.”

I shook his hand and began to back away, mumbling my thanks once again before I headed out his door.

I knew I should feel relieved, grateful, but the only thing I felt was the anxiety that had ramped up during the day. I felt it buzzing under the surface of my skin. I jumped on my bike, slipped onto the freeway, pegged the throttle, and hoped to outrun it. Hot air blasted my face and whipped through my hair, stirring the aggression higher. I darted in and out of cars. Ran.

Today the adrenaline from the speed didn’t do. It only wound the anxiety tighter through my chest, made it hard to breathe as I pushed harder and faster. As the late-evening sun began to set, I cut across rush hour traffic and took the exit not that far from Christopher and Aly’s apartment. I found I couldn’t go back, but I was incapable of going far.

I ended up behind a deserted building with a bottle of Jack. I figured if I couldn’t run from it, I’d drown it. I tipped the bottle to my lips, welcomed the burn as it slid down my throat and coated my stomach. I brought it to my mouth again and again, rested my head back on the coarse stucco of the old building, and listened as the night began to crawl through the streets of the city.

I never understood why sounds became more distinct at night, why I could hear the churn of an engine from miles away, the rustle of birds as they settled in the trees, the echo of an argument happening behind closed doors down the street. It all penetrated and seeped, bled into my consciousness as if each sound belonged to me. What some would consider peaceful felt entirely overwhelming. Tonight, those old cravings hit me hard, the intense desire for complete numbness, a moment’s reprieve. I just wished that for one goddamned night I could block it all out. I drained the rest of the bottle. My head spun, and I squeezed my eyes shut tight.

But I could never outrun it. Could never drown it.

I would never forget.

My hand tightened on the neck of the bottle, and I staggered to my feet. I roared as I chucked the bottle across the lot. It shattered. Glass burst and pinged as it scattered across the ground. The sound stoked the memories, and all I could hear was glass breaking as it rained down all around me.

I spun and my fist connected with the building. Skin tore from my knuckles as it met the jagged, pitted wall. The tissue whitened and blanched before blood seeped to the surface. I welcomed the frenzy it created inside me.

I slammed my fists into the wall again and again and again until I was panting and the blood dripped free, wept from my skin in the way it should have instead of hers. Rage curled in my chest and erupted from my mouth.

It should have been me.

It should have been me.

Exhausted, I dropped my forehead, pressed my palms to the wall as I gulped for air. Heat rushed down my throat and expanded like fire in my lungs. My head rocked and my body shook as the aggression finally spiked, broke, and the effects of the alcohol brought me to my knees.

“Fuck,” I groaned, slumping onto my stomach with my cheek pressed into the hard ground.

I never should have come here. It was all too much, this place that echoed my past and thrummed with familiarity. I refused to take comfort in it. Most of all, I fought against the desire to stay.

SIX

Aleena

I drove toward the old neighborhood. I had an hour before I had to be at work, and after Jared left this morning, I had an urge to go home. It wasn’t as if I never visited or spent long spans of time without seeing my parents and my younger brother, Augustyn. I saw them often. But right now I felt the need to be back in the old neighborhood where I’d spent so much time with Jared when we were young.

I turned left onto the street where I’d grown up. It was an older neighborhood with a lot of families. I smiled, thinking of how quiet it always had been unless Christopher and Jared had been causing some kind of upheaval in the middle of the street.

Pulling into the driveway, I parked in front of the closed garage that fronted the modest house. Mature trees grew tall in the front yard. My mom, Karen, had planted them when Christopher was just a baby to remind her of her home in Idaho. Mom had met Dad when she was just nineteen, married him when she was twenty, and was expecting Christopher by the time she was twenty-one. She said she never thought twice about leaving her home behind to be with Dad, but that didn’t mean she didn’t miss it.

They bought this house when Christopher was nine months old. They met Helene, Jared’s mother, the first day they moved in. Mom said she’d never forget the blue eyes on the six-month-old baby Helene had held on her hip when she rang the doorbell to welcome them to the neighborhood. Mom and Helene had latched on to each other, those kinds of fast friends who felt as if they’d known each other their whole lives, and all of us kids had literally grown up together.

I trailed up the sidewalk and rang the doorbell once before I let myself in. The door creaked open. “Mom?” I called.

“Aly?”

I followed her voice, stepping into the foyer and through the living room. I walked through the arch leading into the kitchen just as she yelled, “I’m in the kitchen.” Her attention was all wrapped up in the cookie dough she was spooning in small mounds onto a cookie sheet.

I slinked up behind her and poked her in the side.

She jumped and I laughed when she spun around. “Oh God, Aly. Do you have to do that every time?”

“Um, yes, because you fall for it every time.”

I think I startled her nine times out of ten, even after I gave her a warning I was there. She was such a jumpy thing.

She laughed and pulled me into a hug. “This is a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

I shrugged. “I had a little extra time, so I thought I’d stop by before my shift starts.”

She turned away to slide the cookie sheet into the oven and punched a few buttons to set the timer. I leaned back against the counter. She turned back with a gentle smile. “Well, that was really nice of you to take the time to come all the way over here. I’ve been thinking we need to have a mother-daughter shopping day. Maybe grab some lunch?”