Breathe Me - C.R. Jane Page 0,16

my front door slam shut a minute later.

The house is filled with a lonely silence. And I hate it. So fucking much.

I put my head in my hands and growl.

I look at the time on the phone, it's ten-twenty now. Ten-twenty is practically noon, right? And people drink with their lunch all the time. It doesn't make me an alcoholic. If a drink every now and then is what I need to get through a hard time, that's no big deal. People do it all the time.

The words sound stupid, even in my head.

But knowledge of that doesn't stop me from heading to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of Grey Goose. I get a glass out of the cabinet and pour a splash in it, before filling it up all the way.

It's Friday, and the weekend looms before me. Not that the weekend really means much to me at the moment. It once meant that my teammates and I would be either gearing up for a game on Sunday if it was the season, or we would be getting ready to party somewhere if it wasn't.

I wake up hours later from being passed out on the couch. The room is dimly lit, meaning I literally have slept the entire day away. I think for a moment about the physical therapy appointment I was supposed to have attended at one, and then I shrug my shoulders and close my eyes again.

Who the fuck cares?

Unbidden images float through my mind. Images I've done my best to forget, of a time when I had two best friends who would do anything for me.

Anything except let me have the girl.

My thoughts get dark after that. Just like they always do whenever that memory hits me. It's even separated in my mind. The time before almost has a golden glow to it when I think of it, and the time after is completely dark.

Sometimes I wonder if we could have worked something out. If saying “no” was worth losing the love of my life.

But I'd just gotten the scholarship to play football at Alabama. The whole country was watching me step up to the big stage. I never could have explained the fact that my girlfriend was also with my best friends.

For just a moment, I let myself imagine what it would have been like to go through college and my early years in the NFL with the three people I trusted with my life. The worst sort of soul-sucking leeches had surrounded me for ten years, and now that I had hit rock bottom, where do you think all those people were who couldn't get enough of me?

Certainly not here right now.

I don't bother checking my phone. Besides most likely a missed call from my P.T., there wouldn't be anything else.

I sit up, lean over, and clench my hair, pulling on it so hard, I’m surprised that I don’t rip it out.

When had life gotten so fucked up?

I'd once had it all.

You would think with that statement that I was talking about when I was drafted number two in the first round of the NFL draft, or when I won the College National Championship…or maybe when I won the Super Bowl.

Nope.

Having it all in this moment meant a time when I had the three people around me who would have done anything for me. It meant two guys who knew all the worst parts of me and still chose to be my best friends. It meant a teenage girl with eyes you could get lost in, with skin the color of caramel, and with a laugh that reminded me of freedom.

Sitting here on the couch in my bathrobe, a little drunk, has me longing for them.

Sitting here, all alone, has me wishing I could trade all the trophies in my house for one more perfect day with the three of them.

One of the trophies was sitting on the coffee table in front of me at the moment, mocking me.

I pick it up in a sudden rage and throw it against the wall, carving a huge chunk out of the wall, breaking off a piece of my college National Championship trophy, and knocking a glass figurine off the shelf, causing it to shatter all over the floor.

Fuck.

I was just about to get up and grab the other bottle of vodka in the freezer when the doorbell rang once before I heard a key turning in the front door lock.

Fuck. It was my assistant