1
Adam
I’m not used to the silence. It’s fucking torment.
In my head, there’s nothing but silence. All around me, kids yell and laugh and bump into me as I try to make my way through this shithole.
Blacklights make this place look a hell of a lot different than it does with the harsh fluorescent lights on. You can’t see the dingy walls from the ceiling leaks, the cracked linoleum that I watch a kid trip over, or the ancient mechanisms that I have to run and fix to stop some kid from screaming about.
I never bowled with Rose. Never experienced the sound of a bowling ball smacking pins and the cheer or groan that came next. I wouldn’t find her in such a shitty place. I close my eyes as I walk, and I can almost smell her. But it’s all wrong. It’s been so long since I’ve smelled her.
I don’t deserve companionship. Not after what she made me do in the past; her jealousy twisting lust into something morbid and decaying.
I wonder if those two women were ever found.
I’d run too far to hear anything each time and counted my days until someone showed up, ready to cuff me and summon me back to hell.
I still dream of their screams.
Am I sane now? Because I don’t fucking feel like I am. And the people in this town have no problem staying away from me.
Good. Fuck ‘em.
But Rose…Rose leaving me alone here is the ultimate betrayal.
I don’t function the same without her. And while it’s been ten years since I’ve physically touched her, since we wreaked our havoc on the lives that dared to harm her, it’s been nearly three hundred and sixty-five days since I heard her voice in my head. One whole year without waking up drenched in sweat, full of adrenaline and a dick that ached to be inside her.
I hid something from her, and she went away forever.
“Watch it, freak,” I hear someone say as they shove into me. Some lanky kid who might match me in height but is nowhere near me in strength.
I could snap his fucking neck in the next breath. But I ignore him and keep walking.
I’ve been here six months and I can already feel my neighbors’ curiosity boring into my back as I unlock my apartment door each night. They probably hear the sounds I make as I dream.
But these dreams are fucking nightmares. Because maybe I fucking took lives like it was easy, but I pay for my sins each night in my sleep.
I don’t speak much outside of my nightly screams.
Prison taught me to keep my head down and be quiet. The number of scars I wear from the ass beatings I took makes my skin look patterned.
So, I walk through these annoying ass kids and their tired ass parents like it’s nothing, not making eye contact, not bothering to look up anymore.
As I make my way toward the back of the bowling alley, where only the employees are allowed, I hear a laugh. Familiar, but a little huskier than I remember.
It’s like ice down my back but lust to my goddamn loins. I damn near shiver at the sound.
Rose?
When I look toward the sound, scanning the crowd, I see a crown of blonde hair—so blonde, it’s almost white. She stands off where the blacklight ends, toward the entrance where the fluorescent lights shine.
And it’s not her but…I’m silently begging for her to turn around so I can see her.
The back of her is covered in some sort of draped black fabric. Is it a cape? I can’t fucking tell.
She finally turns, and my eyes squint to take her in through the darkness as she walks toward where I stand.
The closer she gets, the faster my heart pounds.
Goddamn, it’s almost like seeing Rose living and breathing before me. But this version of her…I can tell she isn’t like Rose.
She doesn’t stand on edge the way Rose did. Doesn’t scan the crowd, doesn’t keep her lips pressed together like she can’t trust people to receive a smile.
No, this Rose smiles like someone pays her to. She’s fucking beautiful.
But her eyes are all wrong. Too dark to be Rose’s. Her long hair is lighter, as if that were possible. She’s a little shorter and her tits are larger. Yeah, under that cape is a scarlet and black witch’s costume that shows off her cleavage and I can feel that animal-like desire to rip fabric and touch skin. To hear moans and have tight wetness surround me.
“You okay?”
One of my coworkers—Ryan—stands next to me, dirty bowling shoes in his arms.
I grunt in reply and turn to walk into the backroom.
He follows me, much to my annoyance. “It’s gonna be shitty, cleaning up once this is done. These kids fucking suck.”
He isn’t telling me something I don’t already know. And I’ve relished in the hard work, loving how fatigued it’s made me, looking forward to falling into an exhausted sleep.
I’ve noticed that my coworkers are content to let me work, sitting on their asses as I labor. I don’t give a shit. I’d work for free if it meant keeping my thoughts at bay. Hard work and keeping secrets from demons I’d fallen madly in love with are my life now.
But sometimes, I ache to throw the pills away.
And that was what kept Rose from coming back to me.
I blamed her, but it was me. I couldn’t handle her anymore. Couldn’t love her past her insanity; couldn’t take on the task of seeing her beauty through her sheer fucking madness.
No more mishegas.
So I had to stay back here, because seeing the girl who looks so much like my Rose could trigger my goddamn relapse.
“Bro,” my other coworker says as he comes in, his eyes wide, “so many hot chicks out there.”
Ryan drops the shoes in the corner, his gaze flickering to me for a moment. Because we both know I’ll be fucking cleaning them later.
“I know, man. Did you see Abelia out there?”
I roll my neck and stare at the wall to my right, where the employee lockers are lined up. There are only five of us who work here. Why so many lockers?
“My cousin’s friend said he fucked her.” The small guy pushes up his glasses as he smiles, ready to smear gossip all over this girl’s reputation.
“Yeah, right. Everyone knows Abelia doesn’t put out,” Ryan says, shoving the nerdy little asshole.
I’m reminded just how young these morons are.
“Adam, mind taking over the register?” Ryan pulls a joint from his front pocket and heads toward the back door with his little sidekick.
I have to remind myself that Adam is my name here.
And what the fuck am I gonna say? That I can’t because some girl out there looks like my dead soulmate who used to haunt me?
I get my ass up and head toward the register. Monster Mash is playing, and I have half a mind to shove the idiots crowding my way. I silently maneuver instead and make my way to the register where there’s thankfully no line.
Just as I breathe a sigh of relief, there she is. She’s saying something, but I can’t hear a goddamn word over the blood rushing in my head.
I snap out of it.
“What?” I ask, leaning away as she leans forward, her tits mashing against the countertop. I want to run away from this little demon who smiles pleasantly with no clue how she affects me.
“I think the last guy gave me the wrong shoes. These don’t fit.” She slides the pair onto the counter toward me, and I wait until she lets them go to grab them.