“The point is, son… everyone has baggage, some more than others. Some people have a tote bag. Others have an entire trunk full of drama. You, Blaine, have a carry on. And that girl of yours has a full set of luggage. You know that as well as I do. And the type of person you are, the type of man that you have grown to be, you expect to be able to shoulder all that baggage alone. You can’t; that’s not your job. You can’t take away all her problems. No matter how bad you want to, you can’t carry it all and expect for that heavy burden not to crush you under its weight.”
I felt his hand on my shoulder. “Stop trying to carry it all alone. Taking it away doesn’t make it any less hers. It just weighs you down, son. You’re only one person. One man. You can’t expect to save someone that doesn’t want to be saved.”
I swallowed down my next gulp of beer through the tightness in my throat but the foul taste of rejection remained. I knew my uncle was right. Hell, he usually was. But I wasn’t ready to hear that. I wasn’t ready to accept that Kami just didn’t want me.
She didn’t want me to save her. She didn’t even believe she was worth saving.
The booming sounds of my cousin’s boisterous laughter flooded my ears, drawing my attention from the harshness of truth. I hated to admit it, but his presence was welcomed. CJ was a distraction. And right now, I needed that the most.
Tinkling feminine laughter accompanied him, stopping right beside me. Uncle Mick snorted before climbing to his feet. “Remember what I said, son,” he said before heading to the back, shooting his son and his company a frustrated look.
I could feel CJ’s eyes on me, but I continued to look ahead. CJ was a lot of things but he wasn’t stupid. He knew when no words were necessary. Too bad his entourage didn’t get the memo.
A small hand slipped over my shoulder, squeezing the tight tendons. I was too numb to even care enough to brush it off. “Hey, Blaine, it’s so good to see you again.”
I recognized the voice as Wendy’s, but I didn’t bother to offer my own greeting. Judging by the way her manicured fingers raked down my arm, it didn’t seem to offend her.
Without saying a word, CJ slipped behind the bar, earning a frown from Corey, the other bartender. He bypassed the liquor displayed on the shelves and dipped down to a hidden cabinet where we stored the premium alcohol reserved for big spenders aka pretentious douchebags.
Two glasses and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Platinum were placed before me. The girls behind us nearly shit themselves when they saw it, until they realized there were no glasses for them. Luckily, CJ handed them apple martinis to shut them up before opening the scotch and pouring a good amount in each glass.
“To not giving a fuck,” he said holding up his glass.
Another petite arm snaked around my shoulders, and Wendy pressed her double Ds into my back. I could almost feel her hardened nipples through the thin barriers of clothing. I looked down at the amber liquid before me and picked it up. Wendy giggled and ran her fingers through my hair.
“To not giving a fuck.”
The familiar buzzing of my cell phone grew louder and more annoying as I worked to ignore it. I couldn’t acknowledge it. Couldn’t even begin to let myself wonder who it could be. That involved feeling and right now with my emotions pressing at the dam of my resolve, feeling was out of the question.
I packed away the food on the table including the uneaten flan—the flan that I had made especially for Blaine that he would never try. My stomach twisted and roiled as my heart dropped into my gut.
Don’t go there. Don’t do that to yourself. He’s gone. He’s done with you. That’s what you wanted. Don’t start that pity party shit now.
I shook my head, trying to quiet my cynical, inner asshole, and focused on washing each dish with thorough precision. I wanted everything spotless, everything beautiful and sparkling. I could control this. I could clean and make everything neat and tidy. But my life? My life was shit. Dark, vile, filthy shit. I couldn’t change that. I couldn’t control it. And every time I felt like I had gotten a handle on it, fear bitch-slapped the taste of hope right out of me.
I fingered the jar of tiny iridescent stars between my fingertips and sat down on my bed. 253. Two hundred fifty-three reasons why I couldn’t let Blaine love me.
I hated these fucking stars and everything they represented. I hated that I couldn’t just throw them away and never feel the impulse to count them again. But most of all, I hated myself. I hated what he created, what he left behind…and what she forgot.
The jar shook in my hands until I let it tumble onto the comforter. I flexed my fingers, staving off the trembles that preluded the panic attack on the horizon. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t revert back to some pathetic, wounded bird every time this shit happened. This was how it would be; this was my life. There was no reason to cry about something that I couldn’t control. I needed to just suck it up and stop letting it affect me.
The buzzing started back up again, and this time I jumped up to stop it. Anything to distract my mind from the breakdown that was on its way in 5…4…3…2…
“Hello?”
“Kam? Damn, girl, it’s about time,” Angel shouted from the receiver. Rock music blared on the other side, accompanied with random peals of raucous laughter. “We’ve been calling you all night!”
“Why?”
“Well…um…we came into Dive, and…”
“And if you don’t get your ass down here right now, I will be spending the night in jail,” Dom’s voice boomed. Angel furiously whispered for him to calm down and shut up before she was back on the line.
“Kam, sweetie, uh, I just think you should come by. Like, the sooner the better.”
“No.”
“No? But why not?” she whined.
“Because I don’t feel like it.” That wasn’t entirely true.
“Please? Um, I’m really drunk. So is Dom. We need a ride home.”
I knew she was lying. I just didn’t have it in me to call her on her bullshit. Not when I was currently up to my elbows in my own.
I took a deep breath and gazed at the alternative. Shimmering stars laughed back at me, taunting me, holding me their captive.
Fuck them.
“Be there in 20.”
I sat in the Dive parking lot, scraping together the last bits of my courage before entering. I knew Blaine was here; his truck sat in its usual space as it did most nights. So why the hell was I here? Why was I walking into God-knows-what when I should be running away to hide? Why was I torturing myself by going straight to the man that I needed to avoid?
Because I was stupid, that’s why. Stupid in love with him, and tired of running.
I was sick of playing the victim. Sick of depriving myself of the only thing I wanted. Dammit, I wanted to be with Blaine. I wanted to love him fiercely and unabashedly and just dive right into this crazy, mixed up whirlwind of emotions with him. I wanted to give the middle finger to fear and let him kiss away all my reservations.
Maybe he could do it. Maybe he could make me forget what I was. Blaine had the ability to make me face my fears and kick them in the nuts triumphantly. I wanted to be a better person with him. I wanted to be a better person for him.
I picked up the red paper heart I had brought along as a peace offering. I smiled, imagining the spot he would reserve for it on his dresser. Blaine made even the silliest things meaningful and significant. That’s exactly what he did for me. He gave me meaning. He made me feel like I was an important piece to his puzzle. Like I belonged. I shook my head at myself. How stupid of me to push him away when all along he was exactly what I needed.
He wasn’t just my exception. He was my reason.
Tears clouded my eyes as I made my way inside. Not because I was afraid or sad. But because I was ready. I was ready to love that scary-beautiful man and give him my whole, broken mess of a heart if that was what he wanted. He wasn’t the one to reject me. I rejected him. I rejected myself. I couldn’t even see a logical rea
son for all the drama I had caused. I just knew that I had to make it right.
“Hey, Kam,” Corey greeted me with a tight smile. “What brings you in tonight?”
I quickly scanned the bar. It was oddly crowded for a Tuesday night and music was blasting from the jukebox. I could tell Corey was swamped so I didn’t want to keep him too long. “Hey, is Blaine here? I saw his car.”
Corey looked up from the drink he was preparing with hesitation etched in his face. His blue eyes darted to the right then back to me before he cringed and mouthed, “Sorry.” I turned my head to see just exactly what he could possibly be sorry about, but part of me knew without looking. The hope I had felt just minutes before had already dissolved.
Blaine sat in a dark corner booth with two girls on either side of him. I noticed one of them as Wendy and it seemed like her plastic knockers were getting the attention they craved as she tucked a full shot glass between them snugly. Blaine was laughing hysterically at CJ who sat across from them, entertaining his own eager guests as he licked salt from some chick’s cleavage. Then he plunged his face into her silicone-filled boobs to retrieve his own shot of tequila with his lips and teeth. Throwing his head back, he downed it in one swift move. Then he sucked a slice of lime that was nestled between another girl’s lips before probing her mouth with his tongue.
It looked like some freaky alcohol orgy and was tacky as all hell. I thought I had been propelled into a raunchy dating show on VH1 involving a washed up musician and 20 penis-pawing groupies. I instantly felt sick.
“Your turn, Blaine!” one of the girls called, gripping his t-shirt with neon pink acrylic nails.
Two booths down, Angel and Dom stared daggers at Blaine, both too consumed with rage to notice I had walked in. I should have told them I was here. Hell, I should have been snatching handfuls of cheap, blonde extensions and staking my claim on Blaine, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I was that scared, meek little field mouse thrown into a pit of lions, too crippled by fear to do or say anything at all. I would be eaten alive.
I tried to swallow down the sour taste of betrayal but my throat was too tight with an unleashed sob. Prickles assaulted my eyes, signaling rapid approaching tears. With a shaky hand, I laid the folded piece of red paper on the bar among a sea of dirty glasses, spilled beer, and crumpled napkins. At that moment, I felt just like that paper heart: lost, alone, and in a place where I didn’t belong.
I knew what would come next, and it was stupid to torture myself further. I didn’t need to stick around to watch Blaine lick salt off Wendy’s tits. I didn’t need to witness him sucking the lime from another girl’s lips, not when I still could taste him on mine. I forced myself to walk swiftly yet steadily from the bar. If my body had its way, I would have burst into a full sprint to my car with tears streaming down my face the entire time. I was a coward of the worst kind—afraid of seeing the truth.
I didn’t let myself process the scene back at Dive until I hit the doorway of my bedroom. Then I broke. Piece by piece, bit by bit, I fell apart. I cried until my soul hurt, until the ache of loving and losing had me on my knees. I wrapped my arms around my middle tightly, as I struggled to breathe through the pain. Air fled my lungs like the tears that ran down my face. I was empty. Completely devoid of the wholeness that I had once felt with Blaine.
A while later, quick raps on the front door startled me from the overwhelming sobs that had me shaking uncontrollably on my bedroom floor. My clouded mind knew I had to get up. The way I had been wailing like a wounded animal, it could very well be one of our elderly neighbors wondering what the hell was going on. I had to stop this shit. I had to pick myself up and dust myself off. I had been down this road before. I knew how it felt to not get what you wanted.
Then why did this time hurt worse than anything I had ever experienced? Why did I feel every jagged shard in my chest break, stabbing me from the inside out with years of regrets and disappointments?
The knocking resumed, forcing me to abandon my thoughts and focus. Slowly I made my way to the door, working to wipe away my smeared makeup. The collar of my shirt was drenched with tears. There would be no denying that I had been crying. And honestly, I didn’t have two fucks to give. I was beyond hurt. And masking it wasn’t an option. Not anymore.
The moment my hand grasped the doorknob, intuition should have hit me. But something else entirely hit me instead. Something hard and brutal enough to force me to abandon the edges of consciousness and slip into cold, desolate darkness.
Bad things happened in the dark. I’d had the displeasure of finding that out the hard way. But this time was different. Because before the darkness could fully claim me, I saw his face.
Him.
My father.
“Mommy, why does Daddy hurt us?”
Mommy’s eyes got real watery, and she blinked a lot. She smiled but it didn’t look right. Not like a real smile. It looked like it hurt her to do it.
She began to brush my hair again. “Daddy hurts us because he loves us.”
I frowned. That didn’t sound right. “I don’t understand.”
Mommy nodded like she didn’t understand either. “He has to. To make sure we act right.”
“But I do! I promise! I try to be a very good girl.”
“I know, Langga. I know.”
I heard Mommy sniffling. She cried a lot. Usually when Daddy was home. He laughed at her when she cried. He laughed at me when I cried too so I tried not to do it. I didn’t like it when he noticed me. That always led to pain.
“Mommy, I don’t like it when Daddy loves me,” I whispered, though he was nowhere in sight. Daddy didn’t always come home. I liked that.
Mommy was quiet. Maybe I had made her sad. Maybe she thought I was bad.
“I don’t like it either, Langga,” she whispered back.
I turned around to face her. “If you don’t like it, then why doesn’t he stop? Can’t you make him stop?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head as tears rolled down her face.
Seeing Mommy cry made me sad. I didn’t mean to upset her. I reached out to wipe them away. “Why not?”
“Because…because I’m scared.”
My face grew hot, and my own eyes got watery like Mommy’s. My throat felt funny, like something was stuck in it. I tried to swallow it down, but it only made it harder to breathe. To breathe through the pain.
“I’m scared too, Mommy.”
A stinging sensation on my cheek and a muffled voice tugged at the seams of my consciousness. Then pain. So much pain. My head. My neck. It all felt stiff, as if I had been sleeping awkwardly for hours. But when my hand grasped my forehead and felt warm stickiness, I knew that an uncomfortable night’s rest was not the cause of my unease. I couldn’t be so lucky.
“Wake up, you little bitch!”
A palm struck my cheek, engulfing it in pricking flames. I tasted blood from the flesh inside my mouth that had ripped open from the impact. I coughed and sputtered, too stunned to cry out.
“I said wake up!”
I knew this voice. I knew it like I knew the fears etched on each star on my windowsill. Knew it like the monsters that haunted my dreams. Knew it like the ache that spread through my chest from years of loneliness and rejection.
He was the reason for it all. He had created those fears. Had spawned those monsters, and had left behind that debilitating ache.
Him.
He was here. He had found me.
Pure, undiluted fear raced through my veins and seized every sense. I was paralyzed with it, rendered completely useless against him. Screaming, fighting, crying—it was futile. He stole it all from me.
“You thought you could run from me,” he sneered. “You thought you could hide, and you would be safe. Ha! You’ll never be safe. I’ll always find you.”
Against my better judgment, I opened my eyes. They stung from the blood that dripped from my forehead, blurring my vision. Green eyes, wild with rage, yet so similar to mine, stared
back at me. Full lips, resembling my own, were tightened into a murderous sneer over yellowed teeth.
He was me, and I was him. Features so alike that there was no denying that he was my father, and I was his daughter. Features that made my mother hate me because I was the living, breathing reminder of the man that killed her.
“Now that I have your attention, you little cunt, time for you to give me what I want,” he growled.
I could hear the words but I didn’t understand. I didn’t get what he wanted from me. Hadn’t he done enough?
You answer Daddy when he speaks to you. Don’t hesitate. Daddy doesn’t like it when you do that.
“I don’t know what you want,” I croaked, around my swollen tongue. My lips felt foreign. Puffy, like the rest of my jaw, the way they did when pumped full of Novocain from the dentist. But I wasn’t numb. No. I felt everything. I writhed in overwhelming pain.
My father knelt in front of me. “Don’t play dumb with me!” he spewed, grabbing a handful of my hair and yanking my face close to his. I took in his crazed features, trying to focus my senses. He was obviously older, and the years had not been kind to him. Drugs and alcohol had corroded his once dashing face, leaving his jaundiced skin marred with pockmarks and scars. Some of his teeth were missing, and the ones that were left were yellow or rotten. His brown, once full, shiny hair was thin and matted. And his eyes—eyes that once shone brightly whenever he picked up a guitar, eyes that had occasionally exuded kindness and love, eyes that looked exactly like mine—were dead and cold. Lifeless.
My father was dead inside. He was gone, just like my mother. He had taken their lives in a murder-suicide a long time ago. I had been an orphan all this time; I just hadn’t realized it.
“Please,” I begged, my voice no more than a strangled whisper. “I don’t know what you want from me. I’ll give you anything. Anything! Just please don’t hurt me.”
He shoved me back, releasing the tight grip on my hair before breaking into a full-belly guffaw. “You stupid little bitch. My money! You will give me my money! Where is it? I want it now! Give it to me! Now!”