I let the darkness wash over me, knowing it’s the only way the pain will go away. I close my eyes, thinking back over the last eight years and wondering about all of the things I should have done differently, the choices I made that have led me to where I am now. If I had never let her control me, never succumbed to the undeniable connection I had to him…if we hadn’t experienced that initial pull towards each other, maybe things wouldn’t be ending this way.
I hear shouts and the pounding of footsteps in the distance, but I can’t force my eyes open no matter how hard I try. They are probably just coming back to finish the job, not satisfied with how much they have already broken me, how much they have already taken from me.
Maybe if I had realized sooner, listened earlier, put away my pride and the belief that everyone has some good in them deep down, I wouldn’t be where I am now—fighting for my life and wondering if the person I love cares enough to save me from this hell.
Three months ago…
Even though my mind is going a hundred miles a minute, worrying about how I’m going to pay the growing pile of bills in my hand and keep a roof over Gwen and Emma’s head, I'm still one hundred percent aware of my surroundings, a blessing and a curse given to me by Uncle Sam.
The four-door, blue sedan parked three spots down from me has a rear tire that's losing air and will most likely blow a flat within three days.
The wind is blowing from the southeast at around five miles per hour.
Fireside Bookshop, the store across the street, is three minutes and twenty-seven seconds late opening this morning.
Mr. Jensen, the owner of the building I rent, has a yappy, shit-kicker dog named Mitzy. They live upstairs from Marshall Investigations, and on nice days like today, he leaves a window open so Mitzy can get some fresh air.
Pushing open the door to the office with my shoulder, I sort through a stack of mail as I make my way inside, blindly reaching one hand out to the wall and flipping on the light switch as I walk by. Mitzy manages to bark thirty-five times from the moment I open my car door to when I reach the quiet tranquility of my office.
My dark fucking office.
The fact I can barely see what’s written on the envelopes in my hand now that I’m inside the building and out of the bright, early morning Nashville sun can only mean one thing.
“Son of a bitch!” I angrily mutter to myself, shaking my head in irritation. I back up a few steps and feel across the wall with my hand, flicking the switch up and down a few more times and cursing under my breath once more just for the hell of it.
When the florescent lights from above fail to blind me, I smack the pile of bills and junk mail down on the closest desk with a loud snapping noise and make a move to touch the light switch again.
“Playing with it over and over is not going to miraculously pay the electric bill.”
The flat, unenthusiastic voice stops me mid-step, my hand in the air just hovering over the switch. I roll my eyes at Gwen as she walks into the office area from the kitchenette in the back. Every time she walks into a room, I can still feel my jaw drop slightly. My baby sister's always been the quiet one, never doing anything to draw attention to herself until she showed up on my doorstep one night looking like she'd gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson.
My parents live in a world where the country club dictates their every move. If what they're doing doesn't make them look good to snobby friends, they don't bother doing it, and unfortunately, that affected our childhood—Gwen's more than mine. She’s always been the picture perfect daughter: shy, well-mannered, wearing clothes and her hair just as Mother insisted.
When Gwen burst through my door that night and headed straight for the bathroom, I didn't know what to expect. A few minutes later she came out holding her long blonde ponytail in her fist, her tiny shoulders shaking with fury.
“Never again, Brady!” she half-cried, half yelled. “That woman is never going to tell me how to live my life again.” A little while later, we were slumped against the wall,