I have nothing. No money saved, only debt from school and from bailing Jenny out countless times. No answers to what happened.
He has answers. The nagging voice reminds me of that fact as I walk around my coffee table, leaving the book where it sits, and heading to the kitchen.
He wants to use me and pressure me into this when I don’t deserve this shit. And he’s the one with all the power. The one with all the answers.
Answers that belong to me. If he wants that debt to be paid, he’d better hold up his end of the deal. He’d better give me answers.
Grabbing a glass from the dishwasher and one of the many open bottles of red wine from my fridge left by all my unwelcomed guests, I decide on a drink. A drink to numb it all.
It’s what I relied on last night too, after hours of searching my sister’s old room for anything at all. Drugs she could have bought, cash she stored somewhere. I have no fucking idea how she owes so much, but her room was barren.
When Jase Cross dropped me off and told me he’d be seeing me soon, that was the first thing I did. Then I searched everywhere else. I searched and dug until my body gave out. And then I drank, somehow finding a moment of sleep, only to wake up with a pounding headache and that sick feeling still in my gut.
The way he said he’d be seeing me soon, before unlocking the car doors and walking me to my front door, the way he said it was like a promise. Like a promise a long-lost lover makes.
Not at all like the threat it really is.
The cork pops when it comes out, that lovely sound filling the air, followed by the sweet smell of Cabernet.
One glass quiets the constant flood of questions and regrets.
Two glasses numb the fears and makes me feel... alive. Free? I don’t know.
Three glasses and I usually give in and pass out and everything’s better then. Until I wake up and have to face another day with nothing to take this emptiness inside of me away.
He has answers.
Jase fucking Cross.
Ever since he let me go, my wrists and throat have felt scarred with his touch, and his voice has lingered in the back of my thoughts.
I hate that he makes me feel so much. There’s a spark between us I can’t deny. He doesn’t hide it, and that only makes this all hotter. It’s in the way he talks to me, his candor and tone. The way his gaze seems to see through me while also seeing all of me, every bare piece of me. There is nothing that isn’t raw in the tension that ties us together. Raw and thrilling… and terrifying.
I shouldn’t find the arrogant prick so hot. He’s a criminal and an asshole.
It doesn’t matter if I want to fuck him. I still hate him. I hate what he does to earn a living and what he stands for. I hate that in her last months, he may have seen my sister more than I did.
Hate doesn’t do what I feel toward him justice.
He has to know there’s no way I can pay him three hundred thousand dollars.
He has to know and that’s why he’s given me this “out” – it’s coercion at best. I could take him to court, but I already went to the cops. And going to them got me nothing. Not a damn thing but Jase fucking Cross knocking at my door.
“I don’t trust him,” I whisper to no one, letting my fingertip drag along the edge of the wine glass before tipping it back, gulping down the chilled liquid. “I don’t trust anyone anymore.”
I almost called the cops. The very second I shut the front door after saying goodbye as if he was an old friend, not a bad man wrapped in a good suit, and pushed my back against it. I almost did it and then I remembered doing the same damn thing yesterday, and the day before and the day before that. No one can help me.
Jase has answers. The voice doesn’t shut up. I slam the glass down hard on the counter. Too hard for being this sober. Barely caring that the glass isn’t broken, I grab the bottle and pour the rest of it into the glass. It’s more than enough to help me pass out and to leave me with a hangover in the morning.
With both of my hands on the counter, I lean forward, stretching and going over every possibility.
If I stay, he’s either going to try to fuck me or kill me. And I must be insane, because I think it’s all worth it if I get answers.
I’m willing to risk it just to feel something else – something other than this debilitating pain. “I’ve lost my fucking mind.”
Just as the words leave me, I hear a ping from the living room and turn my head to stare down the narrow walkway of my kitchen.
My gaze moves from the threshold, to the fridge and I purse my lips before making my way to where the other bottles are hiding from me.
My bare feet pad on the floor and it’s the only sound I hear as I grab the next partially drunk bottle from the fridge, the glass from the counter, and move back to where my ass has made an indent in the sofa.
Pulling the blanket over my lap, I sit cross-legged and read the text. I’m trying to prepare myself for any number of things. The trepidation, the anxiety, both are ever constant, but dampened with yet another sip of the sweet wine.
It’s only Laura, though. Seeing her name brings a small bit of relief until I read what she wrote.
Where the hell are you?
Home. What’s wrong?
I went there yesterday. What happened to your door?
That sick feeling creeps up from the pit of my stomach and rises higher and higher until I’m forced to swallow it down with another gulp. This wine is colder, and it gives me a chill when I drink it.
Lie.
Just lie.
I know I should. I need to. I won’t bring her into this bullshit. It’s my problem, not hers.
You know I’m Italian, I answer her. Hoping the bit of humor mocking my hot-tempered heritage will lighten her mood.
You broke your door?
Italian and Irish, can’t help it. Even I smirk at my answer. My mom used to tell us we’re mutts, a mix of Italian and Irish, so people should know we’ll hit them first if they’re coming for us, and we won’t stop hitting until we hit the floor. She was a firecracker, my mom.
The memory of her, of us, stirs up a sadness I keep at bay by filling my glass again. Three glasses, in what, twenty minutes? Even I can admit that’s too much.
What happened? Laura asks.
Staring at the full glass, but not taking a sip, I settle with a half-truth. My boss told me I have to take time off.
Is it paid?
I get a little choked up thinking about how everyone chipped in to donate their PTO and debate on telling her the details, but hell, I can’t deal with all this shit right now. I’ve never felt so overwhelmed in every way in my entire life. So I keep it simple.
Yeah. It’s paid.
I miss you, she writes back. Thankfully, not continuing a subject that’s going to push me over the edge.
I’m teetering on the wrong side of tipsy, exhausted, mourning, angry and in denial of fear and loneliness. And being coerced into … probably sex, by a man I thought was going to kill me.
Fuck any kind of therapeutic conversation right now. Whether it’s with Laura or anyone else. I don’t have the emotional energy for it.
I miss you too.
We should go drunk shopping next weekend. Laura’s suggestion sounds like a good way to have a minor public breakdown and max out my credit card. Which is fine if I do decide to leave town on the bus to Jersey City.
We can start at the mall, hit the restaurant bars in between the department stores? she suggests. The best times I’ve had with Laura were on the edge of a barstool holding a bag in one hand and a drink in the other, all while laughing about old times.