by S. Ferguson
After watching her in a borderline obsessive way, it hits me: she’s on autopilot. She may be alive, but she isn’t living. What happened to you? I thought. What exactly had gone down in her life to make her homeless at 16, and what had happened with the ex? He was clearly on Ron’s shit list, which is definitely not a good place to be. I can’t help but think, here’s my chance.
4
Bree
I was relieved that Declan turned out to be who he said he was. I didn’t want to have to tell Ron that someone had been nosing around me or his business. I knew I was only as valuable as my silence, and I didn’t want to find out what would happen if that changed. It may seem kind of pathetic to still have the will to live, but despite everything, it was there.
Declan seemed determined to spend the majority of the night watching me. I mean, really watching me. It's unnerving. I knew he would want to pay attention to how I ran the bar, to see where everything went, but I felt like I was being studied. Memorized. Under his scrutiny, I found myself afraid of what he was seeing. I prided myself on remaining invisible. I never talked to anyone at the bar, except for Ron, beyond the necessary small talk. I never socialized with anyone outside of the bar, except for my hookups, if you wanted to call that socializing. I was afraid he would see me, really see me, something no one except Alex has done. The thought that Declan would see what a bitter disappointment I was, frightened me. I didn’t know why. His opinion shouldn’t matter to me. Besides, I can’t be upset about someone seeing the truth, yet I grew more and more tense as the night wore on. Most of the guys were pretty good about leaving their impressions of me as being a pretty face, a reliable bartender, and someone loyal to Ron, but if any of them bothered to look deeper, they would see the bitter truth. I was damaged, flawed, and oh so very broken.
I was also trying to wrap my head around Declan replacing Alex. I knew it was going to happen, eventually. I knew Alex wasn’t coming back, and that I was the reason he left, because I wasn’t good enough, but somehow Dec working at the bar gave it a sense of finality, something I had been dreading. As long as he kept to himself, and stopped fucking staring, I would deal with it. Ron’s word was law and there was nothing else I could do. The feeling of being powerless, yet again, is a vice on my chest, and I find myself taking a shuddering breath, feeling like I’m suffocating.
Things finally started winding down around one in the morning, and I actually had a moment of joy when I realized I wouldn’t have to do the closing work all by myself for once. Ron always left from his private door around midnight, unless something big was happening, and the guys were always drunk or in the middle of luring a girl upstairs by the time closing came around. I rarely slept well, and was nearly at the point of exhaustion by this time of night. Ron had a cleaning service, but I still had to make sure everything was restocked, and that all the glasses were clean and ready for opening the next day.
Quinn was completely wasted, sitting on the far end of the bar near Ron’s office and he had been watching me all night, too. Unlike Declan, who seemed to be learning me, Quinn’s gaze was predatory. Sitting on a stool, leaning on his right hand with his left arm resting on the bar, he was just staring. I knew he kind of had a small thing for me, but I also knew he wouldn’t try anything because he was mostly a good guy, and there was an unspoken rule about leaving me alone. Besides, I had been here for four years, one of those years without Alex. I’m pretty sure if he was gonna try anything, he would have already. Tonight, though, there was an entirely different look in his eyes. It made a chill run up my spine. His eyes just didn’t look right to me; something was off. I pushed those thoughts aside as I walked up to him, raising my eyebrows, silently asking if he wanted another. He was way past needing to be cut off in my opinion, but it was Ron’s bar, and he was one of Ron’s guys. He would get whatever he asked for.
“You’s so pretty, Breeeeee,” he slurs into his almost empty glass before downing the tiny bit left, and slamming the glass down so hard on the bar that I was amazed it didn’t shatter.
“And you’re drunk, Quinn,” I mutter, beginning to wipe the bar top a little harder than necessary, avoiding eye contact, and becoming more and more uncomfortable by the second. Please don’t keep talking, I mentally plead.
“I’s so sorry he left, Breeeee. He’s fuckin’ sssstupid. You’s knows if you was mine I wouldn’t be lying to you like—“ Quinn’s drunken speech is abruptly interrupted when Ron walks up behind him, and grabs his shoulder, giving him a strong squeeze. I’m shocked Ron is still here this late. Quinn is so drunk it doesn’t really faze him, but I can tell he gets the point because his eyes widen and his mouth snaps shut. Unfortunately, Ron wasn’t quick enough to stop me from feeling the cold stab in my heart I feel every time Alex is brought up. Tears build up behind my eyes, and I take a deep breath trying to center myself. It wasn’t enough that Alex had to show me how worthless I was to him; everyone here got a front seat view of just how little I was worth too. They all saw how easy it was to replace and forget me.
“Time to go to bed, Quinn. Why don’t you go upstairs and sleep it off? Your drunk ass will never make it home on your own, and I got shit to do.” Ron makes his point by squeezing Quinn’s shoulder again.
“Sure thingssss,” Quinn warbles while stumbling to his feet and walking with a distinct sway towards the kitchen door that leads to the bar’s back exit, and ultimately the stairs behind the building to the second level.
I keep scrubbing the bar top with my rag, furiously, until Ron turns back to me and puts his hand on mine. I jump back and look up at him. He sighs, giving me the worst kind of look, the kind that is full of pity.
“Quinn’s a drunk idiot. Don’t pay attention to anything he says, kiddo,” Ron says, looking at me with concern, as I use nothing but pure willpower to push the tears back. He looks like he wants to say something else, but I quickly cut him off.
“I know. No biggie.” I shrug like it’s nothing, and throw the rag into the pile on the floor to be washed. I turn to Declan, who is restocking the liquor shelf. He makes a show of looking busy, but I know he saw and heard everything. The way he’s been silently observing me and the bar tonight, there is no way he just missed that.
“We’re done for the night. Once you bag up the rags and towels, you can leave them in the alley for the cleaning company and head home. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.” I keep my eyes down, afraid of what he would see if I met his gaze, and then do a little half wave at him as I walk outside.
“Do you want me to walk you home?” Declan asks, looking far more concerned than I’m comfortable with.
He shoots a nervous glance towards Ron’s office when he asks and it makes me wonder if he’s been warned off of spending time with me.
“No, I’m good,” I mutter, doing everything I can to dodge his insistent gaze.
I know I need to sleep, but on my cold walk home, Quinn’s words are running through my head on a continuous loop.
“I’m sorry he left, Bree.”
“He’s an idiot, Bree.”
“I’m so sorry, Bree.”
The same phrases, over and over again, said to me by Quinn, Ron and a few of the other guys. Greg had even offered to break Alex’s legs for me if I ever found him. I’m pretty sure Jake tried to break his legs once or twice before he even left. I think it had something to do with the circumstances when we started working for Ron, but none of that was Alex’s fault. It was mine.
I don’t know why everyone acts like Alex is the bad guy. He didn’t do anything that anyone else wouldn’t have done. He’s not the villain of this story, I am. No one seems to realize that he left because of me. He left because I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t the one that could do better; he was. He did. I know trying to sleep now would be a wasted effort, so I divert my path to the park.
Putting my earbuds in, I scroll through my phone until I find what I’m looking for, and as the melody hits me, I let the first tears fall.
5
<
br /> Declan
It didn’t take a psychology degree to realize something Quinn said was a trigger for Bree. I had spent enough time seeing the same look on my mother’s face to know. I was all too familiar with triggers myself: unlocked bedroom doors, people walking into my space without announcing themselves and sometimes even seeing a cop’s nightstick was enough to make my mind fill with memories I never wanted to relive.
The face Bree made after Quinn’s drunken speech was the face you make when you’re trying to hide a terrible, terrible pain. I tried to run into Jake towards the end of the evening, but he was wasted out of his mind. I did manage to overhear a conversation between Jake and Ron while I pretended to give that side of the bar a deep cleaning.
“I know she only wanted that piece of shit back there with her, but she’s getting overwhelmed and over worked. I’ve waited for him to get his shit together as long as I’m gonna. He’s not welcome here anymore,” Ron said, giving Jake a knowing look while Jake nodded his agreement.
“I don’t know why you put up with his ass. Fucker was lazy and treated Bree like shit. Should have kicked his fucking ass before he left,” Jake mumbled. I wanted him to elaborate, but just saying that had seemed like a monumental achievement in Jake’s drunken state.
“Kiddo never had a shot with her fucked up life. I didn’t get the chance to do right by my little girl but I’ll be damned if Bree gets fucked over because her…well she’s one of us.” Ron actually seems disconcerted talking about his mysterious daughter.
I was fascinated that the rumors of Ron’s long lost daughter seemed to be true, and I really wanted to know more about Alex, if only so I could use the information to hunt him down and beat the shit out of him after I told him what a monumental mistake he made in ditching Bree. His loss will be my gain.
I didn’t know what happened after Ron took them in, but I guess they broke up, and the asshole left Bree behind. I don’t need to know more than that. I can already tell she is better off. She is fucking gorgeous, and Ron cares about her, which means every motherfucker on his payroll cares about her. They weren’t the greatest group of guys, but I’d rather have them with me than against me.
I nodded at Ron as I gave up my pretense of cleaning and headed to the backdoor, to drop the bags of dirty linens in the back alley. Would it kill them to have some fucking outdoor lighting? The crispness of fall brings heaviness in the air. It’s my favorite time of year to be honest. If it weren’t so late, I would have gone for a second run.
I found my thoughts were staying on Bree as I walked, absent-mindedly kicking the occasional fallen leaf out of my way. She was definitely a loner, and I wasn’t sure that was a good thing. Sometimes people stay alone because they think they don’t deserve anything better. Those are the people that need help the most.
When Bree didn’t think anyone was paying attention, she watched everyone laughing and hanging out with the same look on her face that a kid does looking through a toy store window. Why?
I made a mental note to try to talk to Ron about her, and then immediately changed my mind. He would probably break my kneecaps for just asking about her. It wasn’t just that I was interested in her. I mean she’s gorgeous and okay, I wanted her in the worst kind of way, but I’m mostly worried. She is someone in a world of pain, and she needs help before it consumes her…like it consumed my mom.
Thinking about Bree for ten minutes doesn’t make it hard to decide where I want to go, so I’m standing across from the park again, Bree’s park, just a few minutes later. I want to make sure she’s ok. I need to know she’s ok. I look towards the bench and see Bree sitting there. Something inside me says not to disturb her, so I stand like a creep under a street lamp watching her. She has her earbuds in; their white color is in stark contrast to her dark hair and black clothes, even in the dim light. She seems to be staring off into space, like she was when I saw her this afternoon. Her shoulders are shaking slightly, and I realize she’s crying. Everything in me screams to comfort her… to shelter her and give her some of my strength. My inner caveman rears his head, wanting to throw her over my shoulder and take her home to keep the world from hurting her anymore.
I don’t know how much time passes, but my legs are numb from the cold when she finally stands and starts to walk towards her building that I’m still standing in front of. Shit, she is going to think I’m such an asshole. She has her head down, and doesn't see me, until she’s almost right on me.
She looks surprised to see me, but doesn’t say anything, as she gives me a look so full of pain I have to clench my fists, digging my short nails into my palms, to keep from reaching for her. Her eyes are red and swollen; tear tracks from her mascara run down her cheeks. She looks so broken and beautiful. She holds my gaze for a moment, and beyond the pain I see something else, longing maybe? Does she want me to comfort her? I take a hesitant step towards her, but she gives a slight shake of her head and pushes past me, her shoulder briefly making contact with my bicep. I turn slightly, watching as she lets her head hang down again, and walks inside her building.
On my walk home, I mull over what just happened. We definitely just had some sort of moment, and my need to understand her, to help her, has increased by tenfold. She really was just sitting on a park bench at almost four in the morning, in the cold, crying her fucking eyes out. She is worse off than I thought. It would be easy to just assume this had to do with the ex, and I really do wonder what the fuck that bastard has done to her, but I have a feeling this goes much deeper.
6
Bree
I wake up with another headache from crying so hard, even after I’ve come back inside from my bench. Usually I can hold my emotions in, and limit my crying to when I’m in the park, my safe place. On top of all that, knowing that Declan saw me crying last night makes my head hurt even more. I feel so incredibly vulnerable that he knows not only my special place, but how truly torn up I am inside. There was no way to hide my pain last night. Even the best warrior gets too tired to hold his shield up sometimes. Despite the fact that the park was technically public, I’ve never run into anyone there, much less anyone I know, before Declan. Was he following me? He had to have been, why else would he be there so late at night, and for the second time in such a short period of time? I feel a flash of anger that my private place has been found. I feel like I’ve been violated.
The park is my shelter, my safe place. If I can’t go sit in the park, I don’t know what else I can do to cope… if you want to call this coping.
After popping some Advil, and chugging a glass of orange juice, I distract myself with cleaning my already spotless apartment and doing laundry. The day passes quickly. To be fair, I woke up at noon, so there really wasn’t too much of a day left anyway. As I’m putting clean towels away in my linen closet, I find myself just staring at the closet. It’s messy. I never saw the point in trying to fold fitted sheets, and I usually just reach in and grab what’s on top when getting anything I need. I feel the surge of emotion in my chest right before I hear her voice echoing in my head.
“If you have your linen closet organized, that means you really have your life together,” I hear her icy voice, dripping in judgment, in my head. “Does this look like you have your life together, Bree? Hmmm, does it?”
The last thing I need to think about right now is her.
“You’re such a disaster, Bree. No one is ever going to want you. You’re such a mess. Lazy, spoiled selfish little bitch. You can’t even keep one simple closet clean.”
I close my eyes and sink to the floor of my bedroom, wrapping myself in a ball as I lay my cheek on the cold wooden floor as the memories flood my brain.
I haven’t had a trigger hurt me as badly as Quinn’s from last night did in a long time. My mind is moving at a furious pace, memory after memory flooding me. My view of reality is shifting, I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not anymore. Everyone must know. All the guys… Ron. They must know what a fucking train wreck I am. De
clan. I can’t bear to think about what Declan must have realized about me last night.
I look over and see the one thing I took from Mother’s house staring back at me. A single wadded up shirt, the last thing she ever bought me. It’s something I never wear now and I don’t know why I even brought the stupid frilly pink shirt. I don’t even know why it’s out of the closet. I walk up to it, picking it up carefully. As a reflex I begin to straighten it out, smoothing the wrinkles out. Suddenly, every painful memory I have is flooding my mind, and my chest feels like it’s collapsing in on itself.
4 Years Ago
I rushed through the house frantically trying to make sure everything was in order. Mother would be home soon and there would be hell to pay if the house, and myself, didn’t look perfect. She had a work dinner tonight, and was expecting me to go with her.
“Bree, where are you?” I hear her call as she walks through the front door, shutting it behind her.
I slowly walk into her view from the living room. I had been meticulous with my appearance, applying careful layers of foundation and concealer to hide the bruises on my cheek, making sure my dress had sleeves long enough to hide the bruises left from her grabbing my arms.
“You’re not really expecting to go like that, are you?” she demands without having even looked at me. Her venom doesn’t even sting right now. I learned a long time ago that I would never be good enough for her.
“I made sure my dress was ironed, and I spent 2 hours on my hair, Mother,” I say in a quiet voice. I know any argument I make will be futile.
