by Sabrina York
Stella, one of my favorites to work with since she’s always full of humorous stories involving her over-active toddler, spots me from behind the bar. Her eyes light up. “Ah, Kelly! Good to see you out on your night off! You alone?”
“Just coming back from Thanksgiving with Theo’s family!” I yell over the loud rock, claiming one of two free barstools. “Thought I’d stop in to see how you guys are doing!”
She hands change to one of the patrons before settling in front of me, her arms folded over the bar. “It’s been a crazy night. The band brought in a bunch of the college crowd. I guess they’re pretty popular on campus.” She suddenly slaps her hand over my wrist. “Oh shit, I almost forgot! Mick about had to kick some poor guy out earlier. He was going on about being your friend, said it was urgent that he talk to you. I didn’t catch his name, but he was a complete mess. Tall guy, gorgeous eyelashes and sultry lips, kind of looks like the Wall Street type. Not sure what he’s doing here. This doesn’t seem his kind of crowd.”
I balk with my jaw dropped. Erik? Why would he want to see me? “Is he still here?”
Stella tilts her head to the side. “Last I checked he was sitting in one of the tables in back. Mick decided to give him a break since he said he knew you, and made him drink a cup of coffee to sober up.”
“Thanks,” I tell her, sliding off the stool.
I haven’t had a real conversation with Erik since moving out. My heart hammers in my chest as I finally squeeze through the group dancing around to the band and reach the far end of the bar. Erik’s slumped over a coffee mug, dressed in a dark button-down and jeans, his usually perfectly styled hair just as despondent as he seems. I can only see part of his face since he’s looking down.
Taking small steps his way, I ask, “Erik? What are you doing here?”
His head pops up. His eyes are blood shot, red-rimmed and wet, but grow wide when he sees me. “Kelllly,” he slurs, rising from his chair and knocking it over.
“Hold on,” I say, hurrying over to his side.
He collapses against me, burying his face in the crook of my neck. The stout odor of whiskey oozes from him like he bathed in it. I struggle to stay upright with most of his weight on me. His arms wrap around to my back, crushing me to him.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he mumbles into my skin.
The sudden hug and his lack of control with booze frighten me. I’ve never seen him this way. I’m about to ask what he’s doing here when I feel something hard pressed against my stomach. Eyes wide, I back away from him to confirm the wild thoughts racing through my head.
He has a gun.
Chapter Eighteen
I can hardly breathe with the sight of the black handle peeking out from Erik’s rumpled shirt. My first instinct is to find Mick or call the police, but I’m too terrified to make a move. Plus for whatever reason Erik has a gun, I don’t want to do anything that will upset him. He’s already in a terrible state, which could be dangerous in itself.
I struggle to help him stay upright without knocking us both over. “You need to sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit,” he snaps, pulling me back to him. “I want to hold you.”
A group of women behind us begin to stare, giggling. I need to shut this down before he causes a big commotion and we’re surrounded by people. The best ideas I can come up with are to either call Adam, or ask Mick for help. I can’t just leave him in a bar, drunk with a deadly weapon.
I finally get him to sit down. While he sulks with his hands on his head, I try calling both Adam and Jewels, only to get each of their voicemails. They didn’t have any plans after the parade, except to order takeout and watch movies all day. Knowing them, they’ve already gone to bed and put their phones on silent. One of these days they’re going to miss an urgent call. Like this one.
I search above the bouncing bodies for any sign of Mick, but it’s so packed that I can’t even see the bar from this angle.
Erik’s drunk enough that I could possibly grab the gun from him. But then what? I’d be the one with a deadly weapon in public, and that doesn’t seem incredibly wise, either. Plus he’s bigger than me, so it wouldn’t take much for him to overpower me if I tried. I can’t just send him home in a taxi, wondering if he’s going to lose it on his way home and shoot someone. With the state he’s in, we wouldn’t make it more than two blocks on foot, and he lives over seven away.
“C’mon,” I say, looping my arm around his back. We’re only a couple dozen feet from the door leading up to my apartment. I help him to the stairway where he stumbles over the first few steps, falling to hands.
I help him back up. “Okay, here we go.”
The bar noise becomes muffled when the door closes and I suddenly feel like I can actually formulate a plan. Unlocking the door to the apartment with my free hand, I help him through the doorway and flip the light on. Erik wiggles out of my hold to take the place in, running into walls like he’s a bumper car. He continues down the narrow hallway before ducking into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
I bang my head against the doorframe to my room, welcoming the sharp pain that follows. Erik is incredibly drunk, possibly high on who know what, carrying a weapon, and obviously has some kind of ax to grind, and now we’re alone in my apartment. I’ve officially reached expert level in making mistakes of epic proportions.
How’d I let this happen?
I’m reaching for my phone to call Theo when the toilet flushes and Erik emerges from the bathroom. He brushes past me, disappearing into my bedroom. I stick my phone back into my pocket and let out a long, frustrated sigh before following him in. He stands hovering over my things, reaching out to touch everything he sees.
I try to keep my distance from him. “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?”
“Considering my brother doesn’t want anything to do with me, you’re the only other person who ever gave a shit about me. Or at least the only one who was ready to give me a chance.” He finds my red-laced bra on the dresser and sticks his finger through the strap, dangling it in front of his face. “You should model this for me.”
I pull the bra from his hands and set it back down. “Did something happen?”
“Apparently I happened.” He begins digging through my things again. “I went over to confront him once and for all, tried to tell him how I feel about that night I tried to shoot him, but he didn’t want to hear it. Kicked his own little brother out. On Thanksgiving.”
Fear strikes my core with lightening fast speed and I whimper. He went over to see Adam and Jewels with a gun? Is that why neither of them will answer their phones?
“What’d you do to them?” I whisper, my stomach flipping around to the point of nausea. “Jesus, Erik, you have to tell me what’s going on.”
He flops on the bed next to me. The gun pokes out from his waistband. “I didn’t do anything. He wouldn’t give me a chance. He told me I’m a spoiled asshole, and that if I really felt remorseful then I’d tell our parents what went on that day.”
With my breath stuck in my throat, I don’t move my eyes off the gun. “Why do you have a gun? What were you planning to do with it?”
“Your pretty little friend and my brother are fine, if that’s what you wanna know.” He blows out a long breath before pushing his face into my neck and trailing his lips up my skin. “I need to feel the inside of you again. We had a good thing, baby. You make me feel good. I want to feel that. I need to feel something.” His hands spring into action, one reaching for my breast and the other cupping my ass. He’s quick to press his mouth over my lips, jamming his tongue down my throat.
“Stop!” I plead between his kisses, trying to pull away. “Erik! I said stop!” I finally break free from his tight grip. “I’m with Theo now! I won’t do this with you!”
Something flashes across his drunken gaze. I can’t pinpoint what, exactly, but it most definitely isn’t the look of understanding or even comprehension. “I should�
��a known you wouldn’t wait for me to get my shit together. You’re too good for me. I knew it the first time I saw you. At least there’s a way you can help me.” He wraps his hand around mine, bringing it to his waistband, resting over the gun. “Apparently I’m too much of a coward to do it myself, but you could pull the trigger and end this thing. We’d all be better off—you, me, my brother, even my parents. No one would probably even fucking notice.”
Feeling as if I’m about to have a heart attack, I slip my fingers around the barrel of the gun and pull it out with shaking hands. I’ve never held a gun before. It’s warm from being down Erik’s pants, and much heavier than I expected. Terror renders me breathless.
“That’s right, baby.” Erik’s lips trail up my neck, and his hand returns to my breast. “You can do this. Make the pain disappear.”
With the gun clutched in my hands, pointed at the floor, I jump from the bed. “I’m not going to fucking shoot you, Erik! I can’t believe you even asked me! You obviously need help!”
Bending over, he runs both hands through his hair. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. I just want…you gotta help me.”
“I am helping you. But I’m not giving you the gun back. I won’t call the police if you can promise me you won’t do anything stupid.” I sneak over to my small closet, never taking my eyes off Erik. I’m suddenly grateful for Mick’s suggestion to invest in a small safe for my valuables. He assured me they had never been robbed, and that his sister trusted my roommates, but he reminded me Avery was known to bring strange men home and didn’t want to see me cleaned out. I quickly punch in the code to the keypad and set the gun inside like it’s made of dynamite.
Erik’s crying softy into his hands by the time I return to him.
I cradle his head against my chest. “I’m sorry you’re dealing with this all alone. Sometimes it just takes certain people a little longer to let themselves forgive someone who’s hurt them so deeply. Once Adam hears about this, he’ll know just how sorry you really are. You have to give him more time. You can’t quit this easily.”
I allow Erik to cling to me until he passes out.
I wake to a persistent knock on my door. Erik lays at my side, cuddled up into a fetal position, his mouth slightly parted, eyes fluttering in his sleep. As upset as he was the night before, I decided it was safest to stay by his side incase he decided to get up and find something in the medicine cabinet to make the pain stop.
I prop myself on my elbows and grab my phone from the nightstand to see it’s after ten. Even though I was exhausted after calming Erik down, I still can’t believe I slept so late. There’s a string of missed calls and texts from Theo. He had asked the night before if I wanted to join him for a run in Central Park, and I know he’s usually finished by nine.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself. Then I call out, “Yeah?”
The door opens. Avery stands in the doorway with wide eyes.
Theo, dressed in cold-weather running gear, stands at her side.
Fuck.
Theo’s thick eyebrows draw down as his eyes dart between me and Erik. I can’t muster the words to explain what happened. I’m so astounded with the sight of Theo standing in my apartment, catching me in such a compromising position that I can only sputter fragmented sentences. “It’s not…this wasn’t…not what it looks like.”
Erik stirs at my side, running his hand over my stomach. I try to wrestle his arm away, which wakes him. His eyes fall on mine, filled with all the emotions of someone who wanted to kill themselves and now regrets it. Even though Avery and Theo can’t possible understand what it’s about, I’m sure to them, it’s an extremely intimate look.
Double fuck.
I look up in time to see Theo throw me one last glare of the upmost disappointment before storming away. My heart plunges with his disgust.
“Wait!” I cry, jumping from the bed and racing past Avery. “Theo, it’s not what you think! Please don’t go! I love you!”
Theo stops in the doorway, his back to me. “I was in love with you, too, Cavenaugh.”
He slips out of the apartment without looking back.
Together Adam and I are able to convince Erik to check himself in to treat his drug addiction and fragile mental health. Adam calls their parents, who are quick to buy tickets for the first flight out to visit their troubled son. It’s late afternoon before Erik is situated in the treatment facility and I’m free to absorb my own complications.
I sit in a ball of misery on Jewels’s couch, my arms wrapped around my legs. Silent tears disappear into my hair. Theo won’t respond to any of the dozens of texts I’ve sent, trying to explain what happened and saying I love him too much to hurt him that way.
Of all the things I’ve fucked up in my life, this was by far the most damaging to my spirit. I’ll never be able to erase the hurt look Theo shot me before walking away or the way he said he “was” in love with me. It overpowers all his beaming smiles and the lust-fueled moments we shared. I can’t even blame him, considering what he thought he walked in on.
Jewels sits by my side, rubbing my back and shooting Adam weary glances every so often. “What can we do, Kel? It kills me to see you like this.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I whisper. “It’s over.”
“Finally!” Adam cheers excitedly, looking down at his phone. “He answered me. He’s saying he doesn’t want to talk, but I’m going over there anyway.” He grabs his coat and bends to kiss Jewels on the forehead. He glances at me. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix this.”
I shake my head. “He thinks I lied to him. He’ll never forgive me.”
“I’ll make him understand what happened. This is my fault. If I had listened to Erik, maybe invited him in, he wouldn’t have gotten loaded and come looking for you. I promise you, Kel, I’ll make this right.”
He’s gone mere minutes before Chloe appears. My two best friends pop in a horror movie to get my mind off the fact that Adam’s the only hope I may have to reclaim the heart of the first man I’ve ever loved. I curl up into Jewels’s side, eventually falling asleep.
As the movie credits roll, Adam returns with very little to report. Although he was able to get Theo to listen, there was very little emotion in response to my side of story. Theo thanked Adam and asked him to leave. It reminds me of the night I told Theo everything about my past: he took it all in with almost nothing to say before he confessed that he was angry with the man I slept with.
Chloe and Jewels eagerly try to convince me that I need a night out, but I refuse. All I want is to go back to my apartment and sleep.
In the days that follow, snow begins to accumulate, and the winter chill Chloe warned us of sets in. It doesn’t really affect me as I spend most of my time either working or hiding out in my room. I don’t even care that I’m missing the Christmas lights throughout the city that I had been eagerly looking forward to.
I haven’t heard from Theo since the night he walked in on Erik in my bed—not a single text, tweet, or old-school phone call. I spend my free time scrolling through pictures of us together, and all the snapshots he sent me in the past weeks of himself. It’s the final twist of the knife piercing my heart. I was strong enough to stand on my own the first time he left me, but this time it’s different, because this time he took my heart with him.
Chloe, Mick, and Jewels make several attempts to pull me from my funk without success. My parents even offer to pay for a flight home so I can spend Christmas with the family, but the thought of faking a smile while surrounded by a room filled with happy people burns through my insides.
My heart has shriveled up into a black mass and died.
Before I know or care, December has arrived. My roommates set up a Christmas tree, and I’m forced to help decorate Flanagan’s with obnoxious red bows and clusters of ivy even though the Christmas spirit is dead to me.
Jewels and Chloe come stumbling into the bar one afternoon while I’m finishing up my early shift, patting the snow from their bo
dies with their mitten covered hands, and stomping their boots. I swear each of them looks like they’ve stepped from a fashion show the way all their winter gear matches and their hair is perfectly in place. I haven’t done more than brush my hair and throw it into a ponytail since I last saw Theo.
“Ohmigod, this is one crazy-ass blizzard!” Chloe declares, removing her hat from her head and shaking her hair. “I haven’t seen this much snow since three years ago when half the city was shut down for a week! You wait, there will be accidents like crazy starting today. You’d think people would learn to take it easy in the snow, but it’s like there’s some kind of challenge in seeing who can still get around in record time.”
“Hey, guys,” I greet them in a monotone voice.
Stella waves at them from my side behind the bar. “Hey, ladies.”
Chloe takes a sweeping glance of the near-empty bar. “Where’s Mick?”
“He took the day off,” Stella answers with a shrug.
“I suppose he’s entitled to one or two of those,” Chloe says.
When she miraculously doesn’t say anything more, I exchange a surprised glance with Jewels. Chloe and Mick have started texting each other, and I even saw them friend each other on Facebook. Otherwise, I don’t think either of them has made a move, although they both seemed pretty interested. Maybe if I wasn’t busy wallowing in my own sorrow, I’d do something to nudge them a step closer.
“We’ve come to take you out for the night,” Jewels tells me, setting her mittens on the bar between us.
“I told you—” I start to protest.
“Nuh uh!” Chloe scolds, clamping her hand over my mouth. “There won’t be any of that tonight! We’re not taking you to a club, we’re going to watch them light the tree in Central Park. All I’ve heard since we first met was how much you couldn’t wait to see the Christmas lights. While you’ve been hiding in your room—losing far too much weight, I might add, because you’re starting to look like a bean pole—they’ve been lighting this city up in the way you were looking forward to. This is one of those things you have to witness once in your life if you’re going to be a true New Yorker.”
