by T. T. Kove
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
About
Afterword
About the Author
Also by TT Kove
Bruised Heart
a Bruised short story
TT Kove
Arctic Circle Press
Bruised Heart © TT Kove
Published by Arctic Circle Press
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except for in the purpose of reviews.
This book is a work of fiction and as such all characters and situations are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people, place, or events is coincidental.
Bruised Heart is set in London, UK, and as such uses British English throughout.
First edition June 2017.
Copyright © 2017 by TT Kove
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Contents
About
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Afterword
About the Author
Also by TT Kove
About
It’s not a happy ever after—but it might be the beginning of one.
I’m waiting for Kasey to come home. I didn’t expect the drunk girl I had to take care of to the point I had to take her home because I couldn’t get hold of the one person who could get her. I did not expect there to be a whole lot more to this girl than what I’d initially thought, yet of course, there was. I was never so lucky as for things to be simple in my life, after all.
When Kasey does come home, the girl’s still there, and I’m done caring for her. I’ve been without my boyfriend for two whole weeks and all I want is one day alone with him—but when it turns out the girl’s got a lot more issues than originally thought, I can't help but worry about her.
Chapter 1
“How’s your boy toy?”
I turned my head to glare at my best friend, who only grinned cheekily back. “Don’t call him that.” He might be younger than me, but he sure wasn’t my toy.
"You're as grumpy as ever." Chad rolled his eyes and turned back to the canvas he was currently working on. It was turned away from me, while he faced me, so I had a feeling I was being used as a model for whatever he was painting, but… I was bored, and I didn't care.
“He’s at his parents’. Spent Christmas there and they wanted him to stay for New Year’s too, so.” I shrugged.
Chad chuckled. “Ahh, so that’s why you’re hanging out here with me. Because you’re lonely.”
I huffed. “Fuck off.”
“You can’t deny it! You never want to spend much time with me.”
"What the hell, Chad?" He was my best friend. Of course, I wanted to spend time with him. He was my only fucking friend. I had acquaintances now, sure, but Chad was the only one who knew me well. Who I'd known since our school days.
“Just admit it. You hardly ever have time for me, so for you to show up on your own and just sit around here… you must have it bad, huh?” He still had that cheeky grin. It ticked me off. “So you’ve spent Christmas and New Year’s alone? Why didn’t you go with him? Weren’t you invited?”
"I've only known him for like two seconds." We'd only got together back in November after all; it wasn't even two months yet. "I can't go meet the parents. That's a recipe for disaster."
“Why’s that?” He mixed some colours on whatever the fuck it was called he held in one hand and brought the brush up to the canvas again.
“Have you met me?” I asked drily.
He laughed. “Yeah, as it happens, I have. You’re gloomy and prickly and an arse. Okay, I get your point. You can’t meet the parents. So, what, you’ve been alone all over Christmas? That’s shit, Wynn. Why didn’t you come over here?”
“Spend Christmas with you and your two lads? I don’t think so.”
“What the hell’s so wrong with us?” he demanded hotly. “We spent Christmas together this year, just the three of us. Best Christmas I’ve ever had—no hallucinations, no voices, no hospital stay. It was brilliant.”
“Exactly. And you wish I’d been here to ruin it?” It was good to hear he’d had a good Christmas for a change. He tended to cycle often through the year, they never got his bipolar under control for long, and the stress of Christmas and family always seemed to get to him. Last year’s Christmas had landed him in hospital for two months.
“You wouldn’t have ruined it. Come on.” His voice took on a whiny tone. “We’re all each other’s got, right?”
"That is a blatant lie." I tilted my head back and over so I could stare at him again. His attention was focused on the canvas. "You've got your two guys, your aunt, her new family, your guys' families. And I've got—" Not shit. "I've got you and my club. And Kasey now."
“Yet you still didn’t go home with him for Christmas,” he pointed out.
I narrowed my eyes into a glare. He didn’t even see it, too busy with his painting. “Did you go back to your boyfriend’s family your first Christmas together?”
"I did actually." He pursed his lips. "Wasn't the best of times though. I went into psychosis, thought the house was surrounded by people out to get me and freaked everyone the fuck out. Was sectioned before we even got to Christmas dinner."
Oh right. I remembered it now he mentioned it. I hadn't been in a good place back then either, but at least I'd managed to stay out of hospital. I was pretty sure I'd spent most of that holiday in bed—of my choice rather than because I'd been unable to get out of it. My yearly depressive cycle usually happened during spring, and it lasted everywhere from one month to three. Or so it had been for the last few years, anyway.
"You're still here though, so that's good. With them, I mean." I didn't know Chad's boyfriends all that well. Both of them were older than us, and I didn't have shit in common with them. One was a teacher, the other a chef and they had no interest in drinking or partying or going to clubs.
“Yeah, I am.” He went quiet. “Sometimes I wonder why they bother.”
“With you?”
“Yeah. I mean, I am a bother. Medicine doesn’t work on me—we’ve tried so many different combinations and just nothing. I always spiral up into mania, always end up in psychosis, and then it's a steep fall straight into depression."
“Where are you now on the scale?” He seemed calm enough. He wasn’t trying to jump from any balconies anyway, which was good, and he wasn’t talking so fast he didn’t make any sense.
"Baseline. I think. Probably." He put his brush down and scratched the back of his head. "I never know. That's what sucks. I feel fine whenever I'm not depressed. And then it suddenly tips over, and I'm too fine, but I don't notice it because I'm fine, there’s no difference for me. But everyone else notices eventually.”
“Because you do stupid shit.” Like that time he’d tried to jump from my balcony. I’d never forget that day.
“Yeah.” He sighed, picked up his brush again and went back to the painting. “Then it’s the endless cycle of meds to get the psychosis under control, trying to up my dosage of my old meds or start new ones to get the rapid cycling under control. And nothing ever works, so the cycle keeps repeating itself. Over and over and over. It’s exhausting.”
Well, he sure wasn't manic right now. He'd never talk like this if he was. When he was manic, he was happy. Everything was good and great and awesome, and he could do whatever he w
anted, and nothing could stop him. Sometimes I envied him his moments of mania because they made him so happy. Here I was, flat out depressed, and when I wasn't I wasn't particularly happy either. I was just… flat. I wished for some happiness.
I was happy around Kasey, but he’d been gone for two whole weeks now.
“So when’s he coming back?”
“Hmm?”
“Your boy toy.”
“Chad—” I warned.
“Alright, alright! Kasey. When’s he coming back?”
"Tomorrow." I was picking him up at the train station at noon. Or well, picking him up wasn't right, as I didn't own a car. More like, I was meeting up with him, and then we were walking home together. He lived with me, after all.
“So I better not be around tomorrow then?”
“That’s right.” Tomorrow I was going to spend the whole day with Kasey—preferably in bed, but I’d make a nice dinner for him too. Or maybe I should take him out to a good restaurant? Then again, going out meant people, and I wanted to be alone with him. I wasn't a people person, after all.
He sighed heavily. Too heavily. All for dramatic effect. “I suppose I can take a leaf out of your book and spend my day tomorrow in bed with my guys. If they’ll let me.”
“Let you? What, they’re getting so old they can’t get it up anymore?”
He burst out laughing. “They don’t have as high a sex drive as I do. Besides, they work, don’t they, so they’re tired and exhausted and blah blah blah." Another sigh, this one real. "Sometimes I feel useless. Here I am, in my mid-twenties, on benefits. But then I think about what happens if I do try to work, and I'm grateful. I can't be trusted around people."
I was done sitting on the sofa, so I got up and walked around him to peer at the painting. He’d used me as a model, all right. “You’re not useless. You’re a great artist. You can use those talents. Do freelance work. Sell your paintings. Take commissions. There’s a lot you can do with your time that doesn’t make your mental health worse.” I put my hands on his shoulders. They were stiff, so I dug in, kneading.
His head tilted forward on a groan. “Damn, that’s good. Please continue.”
I wasn’t all that fond of touching someone who wasn’t my boyfriend, but Chad… Chad was my best friend. He’d had a hard life—still had a hard life. He’d always have a hard life with his mental illness and all that it entailed. But that didn't mean he had to stay at home doing nothing for the rest of his life. He had a talent, and he should damn well use it.
“No one’s going to want to buy this shit anyway,” he grumbled then.
"It's not shit. And people will." Painting was something he'd started in the last few years. Back in school, he'd used to draw a lot, but he'd never been able to afford anything more than pencils and sketchpads back then. "People buy paintings all the time. Or commission them. Hell, you could… I don't know. You could design covers for books or CDs, or you could make your own damn comic. Whatever you want. There are so many possibilities out there now. And you can do everything online, so you don't even have to leave the flat."
“I’m not good enough for any of that.”
He was so damn stubborn. “You are. Just trust me, would you?”
“You’re such a nag.” He blew out an annoyed breath. “Are you like this to him too? You were like this back then too, I remember. Always nagging at me about something. Stop taking drugs, stop drinking, blah blah blah.”
Because I’m worried about you, you arsehole. But I wasn’t going to say that out loud. He knew it already. Saying it would probably only make me sound like more of a nag.
“I should head out soon.”
“Why?” He craned his head around to peer at me. “I thought you were bored? Why do you have to leave?”
"I’ve got to stop by the club while Graeme's there." Graeme was the one I paid to do all the work I couldn't be arsed with. Basically, he did everything that required dealing with other people, while I mostly just did paperwork and whatever. "He's setting up new schedules today, and I have to make sure Kasey gets time off."
“Time off for what?”
"To go on a trip with me." I dug my thumb in at a particularly hard spot, and he groaned. "It's his Christmas present. He doesn't know it yet though. It's a surprise."
“Damn, aren’t you a romantic. I’ve never had anyone give me a surprise trip.”
“Well, since I own my own business, I can pretty much spend my time as I please, so it’s easier for me to make time off for myself.”
“And your lover,” he shot in.
“And for Kasey, yeah.” I smiled slightly. “Kasey hates that job though.”
“Why’s he working there then?”
“Because where else can he get work? He didn’t get into school, so… He’s stuck.” I wanted to help him out, but he insisted he was fine. And he was doing a lot better than he had in the beginning. Without that arsehole ex-boyfriend in his life, he wasn’t as nervous and easily scared as before, and that helped with his clumsiness, but I could still tell he didn’t like working the bar.
"Well, I sure can't help. Being on benefits isn't exactly a walk in the park. Well, I mean, actually it is because I can spend my entire day walking in whatever park I want, but fuck. It's boring being home alone all day, every day."
“Then do something productive with all that time. Like this.” I nodded to the painting. “You’re a great artist. I’m not saying it because I’m your best friend. You should already know that.”
He muttered something unintelligible.
“Anyway, I’m off.” I squeezed his shoulders, then let my hands drop. “Your lads will be home soon anyway, won’t they?”
He looked around at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. "Yeah."
“Maybe you should let the two of them be your models next?” I suggested. “In the nude?”
He laughed. “Somehow I don’t think they’d be up for that.”
I grinned. "If I were your boyfriend, I'd let you draw me naked." I threw my hand up in a wave. "See you."
He waved the paintbrush at me. “I’ll make sure not to contact you at all tomorrow.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Tomorrow… Kasey would be home. That cheered me up extensively. I’d been in a funk ever since he left, but tomorrow it would lift. I knew it would just from seeing him again. From knowing that, yes, he was with me and he was real and we were together.
It was crazy how insecure one could become after two weeks apart.
It was pathetic. It wasn't like I hadn't spoken to him in that time, after all. It wasn't like he'd change his mind about me in that short time… or was it? Maybe his brother managed to talk him around. I knew I wasn't popular with his brother and his friends. They were Chad's friends, and though Chad had dragged me out with them several times through the years, I knew my strengths and weaknesses. Being sociable and making friends didn't belong in the first category. The fact I'd been to prison for drug dealing, and that my drug dealing had resulted in my boyfriend's death, probably didn't help matters.
I dragged a hand through my hair and sighed.
Everyone’s got a past though. I was trying my best to move past it. Hell, I wasn’t even thirty, and I owned my nightclub. How many could say that at my age? I was my own boss; I made a comfortable living, I had a new boyfriend I liked very much… Life wasn't bad.
Life was pretty great when I thought about it like that. Or it should be anyway. If it hadn't been for my damn depression always rearing its ugly head at the start of a new year. It was a little early. Usually, I didn't get all gloomy until March, but no year was the same.
Fuck.
Kasey better hurry back. He could get me out of this mood. If anyone could, it was him.
Chapter 2
Graeme was in my office, laptop open and fingers flying over the keys.
"Hey man," I greeted as I walked in, then stopped short upon spotting movement out of the corner of my eye. A girl—or woman, as she was legal, b
ut still young—sat on the floor, back resting against the wall. She had long, tangled, blonde hair and blue eyes. They seemed a little… dull, when she looked at me, but she quickly bowed her head again when we locked gazes.
“This is Noelle.” Graeme motioned to her without taking his eyes off the screen. “She’s my… stepsister.”
What the hell was that pause? "Nice to meet you." I nodded to her even though she didn't see it. She muttered something in return, but I didn't catch what.
“This is my boss,” Graeme said. “He owns this place.”
She glanced up at me again but didn't say anything else.
Frankly, they both seemed to be in a mood. Then again, I was, too , so who cared? “Had a good holiday?” I slumped into the chair in front of my desk.
“No,” came his honest answer. “Not a good Christmas either.”
“That makes two of us then.” Maybe we should get ourselves some booze. That would be nice.
He glanced at me from over the screen. “You? Shouldn’t you have had a great time with a new boyfriend and all?”
“Didn’t spend the holidays with him.” If only he could’ve stayed with me… but no, I would never have asked him to skip out on his family during holidays. He had a family to celebrate with, so he should be with them.
“That sucks.”
Yeah… “He’s been out of the city to visit his parents.”
“And you weren’t ready to meet the in-laws yet?” he teased lightly.
I grinned wryly. “Definitely not. Who’s ever ready for that?”
He chuckled but didn't say anything to that. It was just as well. Graeme and I weren't so close we knew much about each other's families. We'd been co-workers when I first started at the club, and then when I'd bought it, I'd become his boss.
