CHAPTER SIXTY
Gizmo
P anic claws at my throat, choking me as I push through the streets.
She saw.
She knows.
I move faster, weaving between people, desperate to get away before she catches up. Before she asks the questions I can’t answer. That I don’t want to answer. That says so much more about me than I’ve ever shared with anyone before.
Before she looks at me with pity... or worse, disgust .
All I hear is the taunts from childhood, the whispered words from people who thought I couldn’t hear them.
Crazy runs in the family .
He’ll end up just like her .
That poor kid, doomed before he even had a chance.
That woman must be a drug addict to be that crazy.
I don’t stop until I’m blocks away, until the air burns in my lungs, until I can’t hear my mother’s voice muttering gibberish in the back of my head.
Then I do what I always do.
I throw myself into excess. Into forgetting.
I find the loudest bar and order the strongest drinks. It’s the quickest way to silence the war inside me. I knock the shots back one by one, letting the burn settle in my chest and hoping the numbness spreads quickly tonight.
I don’t want to feel shit.
I don’t want to think about the way Hendrix looked at me, the way she saw something she wasn’t supposed to.
“I don’t think I’d ever be able to trust him. Not while on the road. Not with all the women tempting him. My life is waiting for me and I can’t wait to go back to it.” She doesn’t love me. She doesn’t want me. Same old, same old.
I don’t want to think about the way she stood beside me, like she belonged there.
Because she doesn’t.
She can’t.
She doesn’t want this shit.