The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,11

parts of me that hurt.

This stuff is like rocket fuel, burning through my veins and heating me from the inside out.

Damn. I knew it’d be quick, but not that quick.

Satisfied, I head up and change into an old t-shirt and cotton pajama pants with ironic little pink hearts up and down the leg and settle into my bed for some mind-numbing TV watching. I can’t fall asleep to the sound of silence and my own thoughts tonight. Canned laughter should do the trick.

Warmth blooms from my head and neck, spreading down my arms in real time.

My body relaxes for the first time in days.

The jersey sheets on our bed are freezing. This time of year, I usually insisted we switch to flannel, but Brooks always preferred sleeping naked in a bed that felt like old t-shirts, and I never argued because Mom always told me to pick my battles.

I hesitate before running my hand along Brooks’s side of the bed. Three nights ago, everything was on track, the wheels of our future as husband and wife set in motion.

Last weekend, he came home with a cookie dough ice cream cake for no reason other than the fact that I’d casually mentioned craving one the day before when a coupon came in the mail for my favorite ice cream shop in Glidden. I didn’t care so much about the ice cream cake as I did about the fact that he went out of his way for me.

And four mornings ago, he made me a banana protein smoothie on his way out the door for work because he knew my hair dryer went out and I was running late for work and wouldn’t have time for breakfast.

How could he be so sweet and then change his mind about me?

I lie in bed, questioning whether or not things were ever really that bad. I’m sure I have an entire stockpile of shitty things Brooks has done over the year, all tucked away in the back of my mind, ready for the plucking at just the right moment.

But I can’t seem to recall a single one right now.

It’s funny. The second someone’s taken from your life, you only remember the good.

Fear or guilt or the threat of an ominous God watching my every move keeps me from focusing on the bad.

If I sit here long enough, I could probably ruminate about all the times he came home late from work without so much as a phone call, the way he insisted on controlling our finances like I was some 1950s housewife. The way his clothes took up three-fourths of our closet. His spoiled, only-child temper when he didn’t get his way. His propensity for pretention at all the wrong moments, like the time he volunteered at a soup kitchen dressed in head to toe Armani and reeking of two-hundred-dollar cologne.

But if I dwell on those things too much, and Brooks leaves this world, I’ll never forgive myself.

He’s not perfect, and neither am I.

And now is not the time for judgment.

I flip my pillow to a fresh, cool side and pull the covers up to my chin. I’m artificially safe like this, all warm and burrowed. I’m getting drunker by the minute. With each passing second, my mind quiets and my body feels lighter. It’s temporary, but I’ll take it.

My lids weigh down as I struggle to stay awake to catch the last five minutes of some handsome, late night comedian interviewing celebrities, but it’s an uphill battle. Everything darkens around me, wrapping me up in a world void of everything that could possibly hurt.

Ding-dong.

The ricochet of my heart into my throat brings me back to life. No one rings my door this late at night.

Brooks.

I know it. I feel it. Someone’s come to tell me he passed. My stomach sinks.

Knock, knock, knock.

I grab a robe off the bathroom door and hold onto the wall as I stumble toward the stairs. The ground beneath my feet sways and undulates. Everything around me spins. It’s a miracle I make it to the front door without throwing up all over the rug.

This is what I get for drinking on an empty stomach.

With one hand on the doorknob, I take a deep breath and prepare myself for what’s about to happen next. My body is braced for a hurricane, every muscle tensing until it aches. I can prepare my outside for the delivery of bad news, but I have no idea how to prepare the inside.

Only all the