Distraction
“Fuuuuuuck!” I scream in my car, a death grip on the steering wheel.
My body vibrates in my seat with anger. “FUUUUUUCK!” I cry louder.
This time, while punching the middle of the wheel, signaling the horn to go off in the parking garage.
I ignore the painful effects it has on my throat.
What she did was worse than any physical pain she could have caused.
“I did everything I could to make you mine!” I yell at Thalia as if she were sitting in my passenger seat. My eyes burn from the tears I try to hold in. “You weren’t supposed to be like her! You were supposed to be mine and mine alone!”
My body shakes, and I try to take a few breaths, running my hands over my face. My tears fall hard onto my coat in my lap. You knew this was going to happen when you followed them into her apartment. The agonizing voice stands out in my mind.
“Yes, but I wanted it so badly not to be true. I just want her to want me like I want her,” I answer my unwanted thoughts aloud.
I flower down at the key to her apartment with hate, anger, love, and sadness all at once.
It feels tiny in my hand when I put the key in the middle of my fist and squeeze as hard as I can.
I crave to feel anything other than what I feel right now.
The metal ridges are hard on my skin, but it isn’t enough.
I pull out my car key from my coat pocket and push it into the ignition, and another defeated sign leaves my lips.
My drive home is the longest it has ever felt.
The sunrise starts to peak over the horizon as I sit in silence through the long stretch of road in the middle of the busy city. My body feels numb and tired. I go through the deadening motions of driving when I pass through the large buildings and bright lights.
While I endure the many minutes of dissociation, I manage to find my way home. My body drags as I make my way inside my house and throw my coat on the back of the couch, and kick off my shoes in the middle of the living room floor.
Today, I couldn't give a shit about their rightful place. Nothing fucking matters anymore. My aching head pounds against the tense silence in my large house. I need a drink. Maybe you’ll disappear from my thoughts.
At least just for today. I grab a smoky gray whiskey glass from a long row of identical glasses in one of the cabinets.
My bourbon glows in the bright light in the kitchen.
Trying to make itself known from my liquor cabinet.
I generously pour the amber liquid until it reaches near the rim.
While closing my eyes and with overly shaky hands, I put the glass to my lips. The warm liquor slides down my throat, and all I can think about is her.
She was so beautiful when I first saw her behind the bar. Images of her face keep flooding my thoughts. Her large, piercing hazel eyes met mine, and it was as if we were frozen in time .
Her gaze stayed on me when she watched me drink the first drink she made me the night we met.
The memory of her tripping over her words during our first conversation causes my mouth to turn up in a slight smile.
My eyes gloss over with my hot tears, and I tip the glass back, making the liquor flow quicker to the back of my throat.
Fuck, I love you, and I don’t think I ever truly loved anyone else.
I grip my glass and pour in more bourbon, filling it to the rim again.
“I need you to go away. Why won’t you go away? ” My sobs echo through the empty house.
With each drink, she stays in my mind, embedded in my brain like a fucking computer virus.
I lean my forearms on the granite countertop with my head in my hands.
Just her face comes to mind and I rub my eyes to try to black it out.
With each moment, my palms digging into my eyes, my vision goes dark, but my memories of her become clearer.
I recall all of her sweet grins, ones I’ve caught from when she glanced up at me.
The first time I held her small, delicate hand in mine as we crossed the street from The Neon Rose to my car.
I smile coyly at the memory of how excited she looked when I called her my “little crime solver” at the diner.
It fades when I remember what soon came after, “I’m not ready to be alone right now.
” I hear Thalia’s voice repeat inside the torture chamber that is my thoughts.
Oh, please, not this one. Anything but this one.
I grab my drink with my shaky hand again and engulf what it contains as if I have been dying of dehydration, pouring more bourbon into the glass for the third time.
Oh, God, that fucking night. Why did I have to go in there with you? Why did you let me be alone with you if you knew you were going to shatter me to fucking pieces? My body continues to vibrate with a plethora of different emotions. Sadness and anger are at the prominence of my mind.
“If you kiss me, there isn’t any coming back from me.
I won’t be able to stop myself.” I play the somber flashback in my head like my mind is a projector, replaying the events from the night on a large screen in front of me.
Blankly, I stare ahead towards my empty living room.
I am the only one who came to watch the sad son of a bitch fall for the hot, edgy bartender.
A tale as fucking old as time.
My absent stare continues while I go over in my head what I said to her that night. “I’ve waited so long just to fucking kiss you.” Why did you kiss me, Thalia? That fucking kiss that made me fall harder for you!
I throw the now-empty glass against the backsplash above the kitchen. It shatters and leaves shards and tiny splashes of bourbon in the sink, on the counter, and across the kitchen floor. My mind falls back to that same night.
“I need you, Alan.” Goosebumps cover my arms while I still hear her moans in my mind.
I stand up and run my hands down my face, now saturated with tears.
Without warning, my body on autopilot, I find myself walking to my bedroom.
I start searching for something—anything that will help me feel the pain I feel right now.
I grab the baseball bat I’ve had since I was a kid.
It sits in the corner of my bedroom like it’s figuratively lit up under a fucking spotlight.
My hands run down the smooth wooden handle and grip around the smaller end.
With my eyes filled with a mix of rage and tears, I move towards the kitchen .
As I stand in the middle of the large space, I scan around at the freshly painted cabinets. “Oh, God, I wish you were here!” I scream. My loud voice bounces off the surface of the cabinets and the walls. “Why won’t my thoughts of you go away?!”
I pick up the bat and with every memory of her and I swing.
The bat smacks into the half-empty bottle of bourbon that sits on the kitchen table, with the thought of her pale, smooth skin that felt like silk underneath my fingertips.
The glass cracks under my feet, and I don't flinch when the sharp edges cut into my skin through my gray socks.
The way my heart breaks is worse than the shattered fragments digging into my flesh.
My feet leave bloody footprints when I make my way to another part of the kitchen.
“Fuck, Thalia. You're more beautiful than I had imagined.” Seating tears continue to fall down my chin onto the kitchen tile.
The once happy memory of her exposed breasts is replaced by the loud sound of wood crashing into each other. The top row of newly remodeled cabinets is shattered. Several pieces of wood fragments are collected in the same scattered piles as the shards of glass.
I take a few steps to the right and look at the top row of cabinets that have been untouched.
“I want you, Thalia. I’ve never wanted anything so bad.” Another memory I wish would dissolve turns the few remaining pristine cabinets into a broken mess of wood and crystal.
With every painful memory of every time she screamed my name and begged me to make her come, I splinter any piece of wood and break all of the glass or ceramic that remains.
Standing in the middle of my spacious kitchen, now filled with demolished remnants of what was a beautiful picture of home design, I find myself just like the broken glass at my feet.
I drop the bat, and I fall to my knees with my head in my hands.
More pieces of glass digging into my kneecaps.
No amount of pain will ever match the mental torture that Thalia has caused.
“FUUUUUUUCK!” I cry out again, the agony inside me too much to contain. The realization has set in, and the louder my sobs become. She has broken me.
I drive past The Neon Rose and see her pouring drinks like she does every night.
My heartbeat speeds up when I see her smiling at the patron in front of her.
Even my heart isn’t ready to let you go.
She hands him a drink she just made him without a fucking care in the world.
She has no inclination that she just ruined me and all of the future plans I had for us .
My stare out of my car window is evident as I keep driving. Tonight isn’t for you.
I continue the drive until I notice a smaller building with a row of people in a line waiting to get in.
This is another bar that Lee supplies. He keeps all of his clients in close proximity to each other.
How lucky for him, this one happens to be close to The Neon Rose Lounge.
Maybe he’s just as intrigued in her as I am.
Just thinking about his name makes me strangle the leather steering wheel with rage.
A man whom I once considered my brother is now my adversary.
I bite my lip until I taste blood, and my thoughts are clear of all emotion.
My lips turn up into a smirk when I notice the small space across from the club, and I parallel park.