Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
The last thing I’m going to do is text her and risk waking up her and Autumn. That’d be cruel. That’d be fucking selfish.
I’m not even trying to look at my phone, but the date and time on the screen manage to pull my attention.
Sunday, March 14th
12:00 a.m.
Every muscle in my body goes tight like they got the memo first. My breath pulls short, my ribs constrict, and the refrigerator hum becomes a siren a mile away. The kitchen light is suddenly too bright, and I have to squint to cope with it.
Sweat starts to bead at my forehead, and I brace both hands on the counter. Officially ten years. You’d think that number would blunt it. It doesn’t. The body remembers what the mind can’t stand to.
Out. I need out.
Boots. Keys. Coat. Door. The cold night air hits my face sharp and clean, but all I can taste is ash on my tongue. The farm is a hunched shadow, fences and bare trees and the squat dark of the feed shed. For a split second, I swear I see a lick of orange behind my eyes, and then I blink and it’s gone.
But I’m already moving, in my truck and out of my driveway, ten miles per hour faster than I should.
I don’t know where I’m driving until I get there.
And I park in the familiar lot I’ve left my truck in overnight hundreds of times.
When I step inside, The Country Club is jam-packed with laughter and live music and people drinking and dancing and having a good time.
The door shuts behind me, and the noise thumps my bones. It’s too much and exactly what I came for all at the same time.
Clay looks up from behind the bar and does a double take. “Well, I’ll be damned. Didn’t expect you tonight, Hanson.”
“Figured I’d grace you with my presence,” I say, and my voice sounds like it’s been dragged over gravel. I grab a stool and plant my ass on it. “Whiskey.”
He studies me a half second longer than I like. “You sure about that?”
“Just one,” I lie. It’s never just one.
The first glass slides down easy, and I finish it off in two small gulps. The second bites a little meaner, like the booze is trying to remind me I’m still here.
By the third, I stop tasting and start forgetting. Thank fuck.
The band drops into a fiddle run that makes the room clap along, but the music kind of turns to static white noise in my head. Somebody laughs too loud. Somebody hollers, “Hell yeah!” But it all feels far away. Like I’m hearing everything from underwater.
Clay sets the fourth down and doesn’t let go of the glass for a moment. “You’re really making up for lost time, huh?”
“Yep. Clock’s ticking,” I mutter and toss back a long gulp.
After I finish the last drop of I don’t fuckin’ know or care what number, my forehead finds the cool of the bar top. The wood smells like lemon oil and old beer, and somewhere way back in the room, a woman cackles at a joke I don’t care to hear. The floor vibrates with the bass drum, and my chest vibrates with it too, whether I want it to or not.
“’Nother, Clay-man,” I mumble without lifting my head.
He leans closer to me, and his voice drops low. “You sure, Tad? Thought you were done with this shit.”
“Done?” I give him a laugh with no humor in it. “Cants be done with a life sentence.”
He tries to pry the empty glass from my hand, but my fingers decide they don’t want to let go.
“Happy anniversary to me. March fourteenth,” I whisper to the top of the bar. The words crawl out on their own. “The day I shoulda died.”
Clay eventually gets the glass out of my hand, but there’s a beat when everything goes still. All I can hear is the soft rush of air in the taps and the faraway clatter of pool balls. I can’t see for shit because my eyes don’t feel like stayin’ open, but what good are my eyes that couldn’t see the risks that had the power to take everything away from me.
“Fill ’er up, Clay-man!” I shout, but when I find the strength to open my stupid eyes, there’s no whiskey beacon to be found.
“Think you’ve had enough, Tad,” Clay says like he’s my fucking dad or something.
“Nope. Just gettin’ started.”
“I’m calling Randy.”
“Call the whole damn county!” I tell the wood grain of the bar. “Tell ’em to bring a shovel!”
He moves away. Or the room does. I don’t know; it’s hard to tell.
The music floats up and away like balloons pulling against their strings, and the faces of people I should probably know blur into smears of color.
The thing about anniversaries is you don’t need cake to know what you’re marking.