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AFTER I FALL: CHAPTER 2
Parker
There is being alone and there is being lonely. And sitting on the other side of a locked bathroom door, listening to my future fiancé grovel is not nearly being alone enough.
“Park, I said I was sorry. I overreacted.” His voice has never grated on my nerves as much as it does right now. Maybe it’s because I can still feel the bite of his fingers gouging the skin of my upper arms. “I just love you so much. I can’t stand the idea of you looking at another man.”
I swallow hard and lift the ice pack off my upper arm. The bruises are already red and tinged with purple. These are going to stick around a while.
I thought the fight about the dick pic was over. Boy, was I fucking wrong.
“You can leave any time.” My voice doesn’t shake or tremble. He’s lucky I didn’t call the cops, but I don’t feel like dealing with the scandal.
And it’s not like they’d believe me anyway.
It’s not really a big deal. It’s just a couple of bruises.
“What can I do to fix this?”
Start by respecting my fucking request to leave my apartment. But I don’t say that. Because it feels too much like overreacting. He’s never hurt me before. Never laid a hand on me or raised his voice.
And isn’t that just a sad commentary on my life right now?
“Look, none of this would have happened if you’d just been honest with me when everything went down. You have a nasty habit of lying to me, Parker. I’m sorry but I’m not going to apologize for being suspicious. If you lie about sex…”
I lean my head back on the door, looking up at the ceiling. Oh, that is so rich. I don’t even know how to respond. I say nothing instead, biting back tears, wondering how everything got so fucked up.
Six months ago, I was happy. I was engaged and working on my application for business school.
Something slams into the door, scaring the shit out of me. My heart pounds against my ribs, breaking beneath the weight of the hurt.
“Damn it, fine. Have it your way. Take a couple of days to cool off, but when I come back, we’re going to talk about this. And the wedding. And the weekend at the Outer Banks with my parents that I am not cancelling.” His voice twists just a little. It’s sad that I notice the change now. I never noticed it before. When things were good between us. “I’m going to let you have your little tantrum. But you are not going to embarrass me in front of my parents.”
There are fifteen tiles in the ceiling. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” I whisper.
Because no one would believe me, even if I tried. That’s the way this stuff always works for girls like me, isn’t it?
I finally push to my feet and look at my arm in the mirror. It’s not the end of the world. He grabbed me a little too hard. It’s fine.
But the bruises blur in the mirror. My eyes fill and shame crawls around my spine, squeezing tight until I can barely breathe.
I need an out. An escape. A way to get Davis to call the whole thing off so that I don’t get blamed for ruining everything I’ve carefully constructed since my mom died and I tried my hand at rebellion.
I don’t rebel anymore. I’ve been practicing staying inside the lines. Trying so hard to make my father proud. To make him even notice that I exist.
If I end things with Davis, things would go back to the way they were after my mom died. The birthday cards from the secretary. The silence on the other end of the phone when I call.
The emptiness reminds me of everything I lost when my mom died. If I lose Davis, I lose my dad.
Again.
The apartment is empty when I finally leave the bathroom. I hate this feeling of being trapped. Of being useless.
I’m many things, but I’m not useless. At least not normally.
But tonight, my arm is throbbing. I need a way out. Out of this apartment. Out of the trap that my life has become.
My purse is on the kitchen island, the contents shaken out across the blond marble surface.
Sighing, I start to gather my belongings.
Then I see it. Crumpled beneath the desk. The paper with the internship information on it.
I swallow, looking at the bar’s letterhead. The Pint.
I don’t rebel anymore. I’m a good girl. And good girls don’t go to bars by themselves.
And that is fucking bullshit meant to keep us from living the life we want. Teach us how to be good and we never break the rules, never upset the status quo.
The quo in me needs a little upsetting tonight, damn it.
I wrap my fingers gently around the bruises of my upper arm. There is a faint feeling, somewhere in the vicinity of my bruised heart.
Tonight, I’m feeling a teeny spark of rebellion. And it feels…good. More than good. It feels like me, coming out of a fog. Just the idea of doing something feels so much more right instead of being a passive little doll.
Tomorrow, I can go back to being Davis’s arm candy.
Tonight? I’m going to make some new friends.
Eli
Kelsey strolls in, thirty minutes late for her shift. She tosses her purse behind the bar and immediately starts slinging drinks next to Deacon, who she apparently isn’t speaking to. Again.
I refuse to get involved in whatever is going on between them. My business management instructor would probably say I need to fire some folks. My father taught me that’s not how the loyalty works.
And while none of us is in the Army anymore, some lessons are hard to shake.
Besides, Kelsey is a goddess behind the bar and she’s usually got a quick smile and a smart mouth on her. Tonight, though, she’s a little off.
Deacon frowns in her direction, then focuses on pouring another round of Goldschlager for the sorority girl party that walked in. It’s like they voted to spend some quality time in support of the local veterans’ charity, aka my bar.
Which is good because that means the word is getting out about the bar.
Deacon grunts and passes the tray of drinks to one of the sorority girls. “You make any headway on getting the internship filled?”
“I told you we’re not hiring an intern. We don’t need the trouble to trying to train up someone new.”
Kelsey leans over, topping off one of Deacon’s drinks in a way that makes it clear she’s correcting his pour. She’s poking at him tonight. Wonder why. But I’d rather bite my tongue off than ask.
“I may have filled that for you. Met a girl who’s going to come in tomorrow to talk to you.”
I roll my eyes. It’s like I didn’t even say anything. Sometimes, it’s like Deacon and Kelsey are running things around here and I just write the checks.
“Yeah? And what are her qualifications?” I ask. Not because I’m troubleshooting her but because I’m actively curious. Kelsey has never invited anyone here. She’s prickly at best around us and that means she’s hard to get close to – for anyone.
“Well, she’s cute, she seems only mildly insane, and she seems to need a place to work. Seeing how you don’t exactly have the business school breaking down your door, I figured she’d be as good a shot as any.”
I lean forward over the bar and pluck a cherry from the fruit tray. “Cool. Thanks for looking out.” I pause then. “What do you mean, only mildly crazy?”
Kelsey knocks back a shot of vodka straight up. Good god, the woman can drink. But I’ve never seen her drunk. Which, for working in a bar, is saying something.
“She was muttering something under her breath when she nearly ran into me. Someone in her life has clearly pissed her off.”
I lift one eyebrow. “She doesn’t have a Freddy Krueger starter kit or anything?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” Kelsey hands off two pink drinks that are smoking on top. “Maybe some mild psychoses but nothing we haven’t seen before.”
Deacon shakes his head and passes her a couple of shot glasses. “We’re used to our own special flavor of crazy around here. The kind that comes with a literal trigger warning.”
Kelsey rolls her eyes and laughs. “These are the kinds of jokes that run off the high-paying clients. First rule of veteran crazy club: we don’t talk about veteran crazy club.”
It’s Deacon’s turn to roll his eyes. “That was pretty terrible.”
She takes a bow.
And apparently, all is right in my little world once again.