“We’re not fucking simple,” he growled. “And I’ll always be Luke, the man, and you’ll always be Rosie, my woman. That shit ain’t changing. But I’m not stupid enough to stand here and argue with you about it. You’re determined to hurt yourself because you think you’re doing the right thing.” He eyed me. “Maybe it is the right thing. But I’m not about right anymore. Never want to be again if that mean’s I’ll never sink into that sweet pussy.” He moved forward, so every inch of his body was a hair’s breadth from mine. “And I will be. Just so you know, this isn’t me walking away. This is you pushing me away. Not for good, but for right now.”
Then he turned around and left. I watched the empty air for a long time.
Then I calmly walked to the last door on the right, opened it.
Lucy smiled at me, sitting on Keltan’s knee.
I smiled back, pretending I wasn’t bleeding inside. “Lunch?”
So yeah, light and its unforgiving glow showed me in stark detail why I needed to stay the fuck away. But then night came, the darkness snatching away all those reasons and whatever strength and resolve I’d built when the sun came up.
One night, I found myself lying awake, unable to sleep, unable to hold onto a thought that didn’t involve Luke.
I needed a life without him. And I sure as shit needed a mind without him too. It didn’t help that I was determined to make up for all the time I’d missed with my family, with my best friend, so I tried to see her as often as possible, help keep her insane while she fully healed.
That meant I ran into Luke. Not often, but even a second in his presence, under his cold gaze, was enough to fuck with me. Destroy me.
I was done with that shit. Heartbreak.
We normalize heartbreak in our society. Mostly because of how painfully normal it is. So when we hear a song, read a book, watch a movie, all crammed with the dramatic truth of it, maybe it reminds us that we’re not alone. That there’s more out there, and our heartbreak isn’t the end of the world.
It’s a nice thought.
But it’s utter bullshit.
We are, and always will be, alone with our own pain.
And heartbreak may not make this chunk of rock in space stop spinning, but it is the end of someone’s world. Despite how well we keep up appearances.
And I was walking, talking, laughing Rosie, covering up the pain, just like the rest of them. I thought I was doing good, great even, at hiding it all until Polly’s wedding.
Yes, wedding.
She’d dated Craig for three weeks, then married the fucker.
We’d tried to gently change her mind, but she was like me: stubborn and would never let anyone change her heart. Which was funny, since she was jumping right in with her heart, and I was yanking mine right out.
We hadn’t been able to find anything on the fucker, which meant we had to watch our beautiful, romantic, and innocent girl marry an idiot named Craig and pretend we were happy.
I was already pretending.
Or so I thought.
“So,” Keltan said, standing beside me on the rooftop where the wedding was being held, watching Polly and Craig dance. “How is it being home, back to reality?”
I gave him a sideways glance. “Wouldn’t exactly call our life reality,” I answered.
He grinned, sipping his beer. “You are not wrong, not wrong at all. You ladies get more action than I did in the desert in the middle of a war.”
I sipped my own. “Yeah, well, that’s just how we play it. We don’t like boring.”
“You’re not at risk of that,” he said.
We were silent for a second, watching Polly dance, watching a smiling Lucy talk to her father.
“He’s a mess,” Keltan said quietly.
My head whipped to him.
“Luke,” he continued. “Has been since the day he sat down in my office, askin’ me to look for you. Was before that too, I’d say. He’s pretty darn good at hidin’ it. Didn’t know him before so I’m not an expert, but the man I’ve worked with for well over a year, he’s not whole, babe. I know it ’cause that was me too.” His eyes crept over to Lucy, unhidden love and devotion sparkling in them. “Thank fuck I am now. Couldn’t imagine a lifetime of it. That’s not a life at all.” He turned his gaze back to me. “You’re not whole either. You’re trying real fucking hard. I’m not even going to be arrogant enough to suggest I know the shit between you. It’s gotta be big, I’m guessin’, for two good people to think they’re doing the right thing, making themselves unhappy. Bet it’s not fucking simple. But just in case you were thinking that he was livin’ whole and happy and that’s what was stopping you, he’s not.” He sipped his beer. “It’s my piece and it’s not my place to say it, but I don’t give a fuck. You’re Lucy’s family, which means you’re mine too. And I don’t like my family hurting. Don’t like my mates hurtin’ either. So my place or not, I’m gonna do what I can to rectify that shit. Ultimately up to you. But just remember, he’s survivin’, not livin’. Just like you.”
Then he kissed my head, not expecting me to answer, and went over to my soul sister.
And I stared after him, his words swirling in my head.
That was last night. And I should’ve done something to listen to those words. Because they hurt. Every single one of them.
But I didn’t. Because I was a coward.
Instead I went out and did what I’d been doing in the darkness for the past month. I’d started the old job again. New location, no team, same objective.
Looking for lowlifes.
Teaching them lessons.
Maybe not my smartest idea, since the laws in LA regarding grievous bodily harm were somewhat stricter than in Venezuela. And I didn’t have someone on the force to bail me out anymore. Though, in the dregs of society, wherever you were, life was always the same price. Dirt cheap.
So that’s what I was doing that night, running away again from decisions, when darkness made my decision for me.
I’d been doing it for a month. Using my connections in the underworld to find out who the real assholes were. Not the ones who had to bend a few rules and break a few arms to get their heads above water, but the ones who ruined lives and trampled on dreams for sport.
“You know, you really give outlaws like me a bad name,” I said conversationally to the man I had my favorite gun pointed at. That was, of course, after I’d relieved him of his own weapons. Couldn’t be a full-time drug dealer and part-time rapist and not have somewhat of an arsenal.
“Fuck you, bitch. You’re dead,” he spat. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
I tilted my head at the man with a steroid-enhanced body, prison tattoos and too much jewelry for anyone with a Y chromosome.
“Yes, that’s why I’m here, Jerome,” I said, circling him. “I know exactly who you are. I know you cut your dope with kitchen cleaners to make it go further and rip off people already down on their fucking luck. I also know that a seventeen-year-old boy overdosed on your little cocktail just last week. Mother of three the week before. Police didn’t find her for three days.” I shot his foot and he let out a yelp of pain, collapsing onto the floor. “Her kids were surviving off moldy bread and curdled milk,” I continued over his screams.