Chapter 27
Tad
The house feels wrong without her.
But it’s not because Breezy’s loud in a way that demands attention. Hell, she’s graceful as fuck. Half the time, she moves like a cat, barefoot and soft, humming nonsense under her breath while she raids my fridge or steals my clothes.
I don’t know what it is about her presence in my house, but the place breathes differently whenever she’s around.
Tonight, the air feels too thin. Like half the oxygen has been sucked out.
Norah and Bennett had to make an overnight run for some art thing for Bennett, so Breezy’s at their house in the room Autumn calls “Bee’s woom,” probably with a toddler foot dug into her ribs and a cartoon murmuring low on the television.
And I’ve gotten so accustomed to her being in my bed that I kind of feel like one of my limbs is missing, but I tell myself it’s good she’s spending time with her niece.
Still, the quiet sits on my chest like a brick house.
I try to make myself useful. I try to find remnants of my old evening routine before Breezy started staying here most nights. I make a lap through the kitchen and open the fridge, but when nothing inside it urges an appetite, I close it.
Though I keep standing in the kitchen anyway, I have zero desire for food. I even grab my phone off the counter and see if I have any missed messages from Breezy. There’s nothing to be found besides my lock screen with the time and date staring me back in the face.
Saturday, March 13th
11:58 p.m.
My tongue goes dry.
I look away from my phone. And then I look back. 11:59 p.m.
The house hums with noise—the fridge, the baseboards, and the wind sweeping across the roof. Under it, though, something starts up in me I don’t invite. A faint ringing. Heat where there isn’t any. The sharpest whiff of smoke that is absolutely not in my kitchen, not in this life.
I wish Breezy would text me something silly to yank me out of it.
A simple Hey, Farm Daddy would do. But when I thumb my phone awake again and pull up our ongoing text thread, the photo of Autumn in tiny cowgirl boots she sent me a few hours ago stares back at me.
Still, my fingers hover over the keyboard long enough to feel stupid about it until I set the phone back on my counter.
The last thing I’m going to do is text her and risk waking up her and Autumn. That’d be cruel. That’d be fucking selfish.
I’m not even trying to look at my phone, but the date and time on the screen manage to pull my attention.
Sunday, March 14th
12:00 a.m.
Every muscle in my body goes tight like they got the memo first. My breath pulls short, my ribs constrict, and the refrigerator hum becomes a siren a mile away. The kitchen light is suddenly too bright, and I have to squint to cope with it.
Sweat starts to bead at my forehead, and I brace both hands on the counter. Officially ten years. You’d think that number would blunt it. It doesn’t. The body remembers what the mind can’t stand to.
Out. I need out.
Boots. Keys. Coat. Door. The cold night air hits my face sharp and clean, but all I can taste is ash on my tongue.
The farm is a hunched shadow, fences and bare trees and the squat dark of the feed shed.
For a split second, I swear I see a lick of orange behind my eyes, and then I blink and it’s gone.
But I’m already moving, in my truck and out of my driveway, ten miles per hour faster than I should.
I don’t know where I’m driving until I get there.
And I park in the familiar lot I’ve left my truck in overnight hundreds of times.
When I step inside, The Country Club is jam-packed with laughter and live music and people drinking and dancing and having a good time.
The door shuts behind me, and the noise thumps my bones. It’s too much and exactly what I came for all at the same time.
Clay looks up from behind the bar and does a double take. “Well, I’ll be damned. Didn’t expect you tonight, Hanson.”
“Figured I’d grace you with my presence,” I say, and my voice sounds like it’s been dragged over gravel. I grab a stool and plant my ass on it. “Whiskey.”
He studies me a half second longer than I like. “You sure about that?”
“Just one,” I lie. It’s never just one.
The first glass slides down easy, and I finish it off in two small gulps. The second bites a little meaner, like the booze is trying to remind me I’m still here.
By the third, I stop tasting and start forgetting. Thank fuck.
The band drops into a fiddle run that makes the room clap along, but the music kind of turns to static white noise in my head. Somebody laughs too loud. Somebody hollers, “Hell yeah!” But it all feels far away. Like I’m hearing everything from underwater.
Clay sets the fourth down and doesn’t let go of the glass for a moment. “You’re really making up for lost time, huh?”
“Yep. Clock’s ticking,” I mutter and toss back a long gulp.
After I finish the last drop of I don’t fuckin’ know or care what number, my forehead finds the cool of the bar top.
The wood smells like lemon oil and old beer, and somewhere way back in the room, a woman cackles at a joke I don’t care to hear.
The floor vibrates with the bass drum, and my chest vibrates with it too, whether I want it to or not.
“’Nother, Clay-man,” I mumble without lifting my head.
He leans closer to me, and his voice drops low. “You sure, Tad? Thought you were done with this shit.”
“Done?” I give him a laugh with no humor in it. “Cants be done with a life sentence.”
He tries to pry the empty glass from my hand, but my fingers decide they don’t want to let go.
“Happy anniversary to me. March fourteenth,” I whisper to the top of the bar. The words crawl out on their own. “The day I shoulda died.”
Clay eventually gets the glass out of my hand, but there’s a beat when everything goes still.
All I can hear is the soft rush of air in the taps and the faraway clatter of pool balls.
I can’t see for shit because my eyes don’t feel like stayin’ open, but what good are my eyes that couldn’t see the risks that had the power to take everything away from me.
“Fill ’er up, Clay-man!” I shout, but when I find the strength to open my stupid eyes, there’s no whiskey beacon to be found.
“Think you’ve had enough, Tad,” Clay says like he’s my fucking dad or something.
“Nope. Just gettin’ started.”
“I’m calling Randy.”
“Call the whole damn county!” I tell the wood grain of the bar. “Tell ’em to bring a shovel!”
He moves away. Or the room does. I don’t know; it’s hard to tell.
The music floats up and away like balloons pulling against their strings, and the faces of people I should probably know blur into smears of color.
The thing about anniversaries is you don’t need cake to know what you’re marking.
Your bones tell you. Your skin tells you.
The fucking clock tells you when it clicks over and you’re forced back on the ride to hell.