She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,136

this book for me? Why did he circle these photographs? Who are these people?” I turned to the back, to her picture, held it up. “I know you know!” I shouted these last words, unable to control the adrenaline coursing through my body, the book shaking in my hands.

“Three,” she whispered.

“Three what?!?”

The gun came up fast, a black metal blur in her right hand from under the sheets to her mouth. She pressed it so far back into her throat, I thought she planned to swallow it. Her thumb cocked back the hammer and—

I saw the back of her head explode out over the bed a fraction of a second before I heard the explosion of the bullet leaving the chamber. A rush of air pattered my face. All the air left the room, and the loud blast was replaced by a louder ringing in my ears.

Ms. Leech sat there for a moment, her eyes frozen with a quick wonder. Then she slouched forward and dropped from the bed to the floor.

I backed out of the room, out of her apartment, crossed the hall into my own apartment, and closed the door as quickly as I could. I tried to catch my breath, needed to catch my breath, but this night simply wasn’t going to let me.

Sitting on top of my backpack was a fifth of Jameson whiskey, along with a note:

Welcome to the party, Jack! Toast with me.

– David

I grabbed the Jameson bottle and note and managed to get back to my car before the shakes started, barely. I tore the cap off and took a hardy chug, welcoming the warmth as it burned away the—adrenaline, fear, anxiety, confusion, pain, sadness, hatred, anger—churning under my skin. I didn’t care where the bottle came from. I didn’t care what the bottle might represent. I didn’t care if the bottle was laced with the most acidic of poisons (I think part of me hoped it was). I needed the whiskey to drive away the image of Ms. Leech etched into the back of my eyelids. I would keep the drinking in check, though, goddamnit, I would keep it in check. I could do that. I would do that. To prove this to myself, I drank only enough to lower a veil over the world. Then I twisted the cap back on and dropped the bottle on the floorboard of the passenger seat.

I was back on I-79 before I realized I had even started the car, and I was driving fast, nearly twenty miles-per-hour over the posted limit. I eased back on the accelerator, stopped swerving from lane to lane, and fell in line with the rest of the morning traffic. These people, these drones, driving to work, putting on makeup, eating breakfast sandwiches and laughing at the stupid little jokes coming from the radio. They had no idea. None of them.

When I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror, I didn’t recognize the person staring back at me. My hair was filthy and matted, eyes bloodshot. My skin was covered in dirt and mud and little specs of red. I tried not to think about those. I took Exit 63, just outside of Wexford, and pulled into the back of a Phillips 66 gas station. The bathroom door was locked, but someone had crowbarred the metal doorframe, rendering the heavy dead bolt useless. Inside, a loop of rope hung from the door, and someone had screwed a crooked hook into the wall to create a makeshift interior lock. I pulled the door closed, twisted the rope around the hook, and stripped out of my clothes. I expected the water from the tap to be brown, but it flowed clear and icy cold. I took what Auntie Jo would have called a “whore’s bath.” The paper towel dispenser was empty, so I used one of the shirts I’d packed to wipe away the grit from my face and hair. When finished, I changed into clean clothes from by pack, stuffed my dirty shirt, jeans, underwear, and socks into the trash in the corner of the room, then took the entire trash bag out and stuffed it into the Dumpster at the corner of the parking lot inside a cardboard box that once contained frozen burritos.

Back in my car, I shoved the bottle of Jameson under the passenger seat and checked my somewhat improved reflection in the mirror. I got back on the highway, careful not to speed again.

4

When David Pickford climbed back