A Steel Heart

by Amie Knight

  I walked to my couch and sat down, laying the envelope on the cushion next to me, staring at it. I didn’t want to look inside. I’d already had a complete shit day. I couldn’t deal with this, too, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was a glutton for punishment, after all. I felt I deserved it, so I ripped the envelope open and read while guilt ate me up. So that I could remember why I didn’t deserve Mae. Why I didn’t deserve anything good.

  Dearest Holden,

  I hope this letter finds you well. I couldn’t help but write you to see how you are. I think of you often and wonder how you are managing at the loss of so much. I know you must be grieving horribly and my heart goes out to you. I almost called you, but I didn’t want to put you on the spot. I figured you would reach out when you are ready. After all, it’s only been eight months since we lost Andrew. In truth, it feels like only yesterday. I miss him as I am sure you do. Sometimes I lie in bed at night in that place between sleep and awake and I almost think he is there with me, just on the pillow right beside mine, snoring his head off. Ha. It’s awful losing the one you love, but when I wake and I’m once again all alone, I take solace in the fact that when he left this world, he was doing something he believed in. That he was protecting and serving the ones he loved. That he was serving alongside someone he valued like family. You were incredibly important to my Andrew, I hope you know that. I’d love to hear how you’re doing. I hope you’ll reach out to me when you are ready.

  All my best,

  Emily Davies

  One tear rolled down my cheek and I whipped it away. Angry. So fucking mad. Devastated. Crushed. The grief of everything I’d lost eight months ago tasted thick and acid-like in my mouth. My chest hurt, my stomach cramped, my skin burned in shame. I hadn’t contacted her. I hadn’t gone to her home and offered her my condolences. I hadn’t checked on her and her child. I hadn’t told her that Andrew had died saving my sorry son of a bitch ass. I didn’t fucking deserve it. It should have been me. Not him. I had nothing to live for. He had everything. I still didn’t understand it, and as another tear rolled down my face, I threw the letter on the table.

  I walked to my bedroom, looking for the pills that I promised Mae I wouldn’t take again like that. Only for pain had I taken them the last few weeks, but I wanted oblivion right now.

  But I promised her. I promised the woman next door who’d fought for me today. Who’d told her friends I would never hurt her. What a fucking joke. Her mother was right. Adrian was right. I was a fucked up one-legged ex-soldier. What the fuck was I going to do with my life now? How long would she put up with me before she realized she was too good, too perfect for me? I picked up the pill bottle and smashed it to the wall, the pills scattering all around the room.

  God, I had to leave. The temptation was too great. I wanted them so badly. I wanted anything but to be here in this moment with the guilt and shame and devastation sitting on my chest like a thousand fucking pounds. I wanted it to end. I was so fucking sick of feeling this way.

  I rushed out of the room and grabbed my keys from the coffee table and slammed the front door behind me. I didn’t know where I was going. What I was doing. I just knew I needed to get away. Away from the pills. The letter. Even Mae. I couldn’t deal with it all.

  Twenty minutes later and I was parked in front of a bar in West Columbia called the Ice House if I was going by the rundown sign out front. It was a dive, but I didn’t care, I just wanted a beer or four. I just wanted to forget for a few minutes what a fucked up mess everything was. I was.

  I walked in and actually felt better. It smelled like stale beer and cigarettes. Exactly how I fucking felt. I sat at the bar and ordered a beer, pulling my phone from my pocket. I noticed there were a quite a few missed texts from Mae.

  Mae: Where are you?

  Mae: I’m worried, please call me.

  Mae: You left your door unlocked. Please tell me you didn’t take any of those pills.

  Mae: I found the letter.

  Mae: Where the hell are you, Holden?

  I couldn’t do this with her. I didn’t want her to have to take care of me. I was a grown man who’d been on my own for years, and she felt she needed to count my pills. Take care of me. She was barely a woman. I felt nauseous at the thought of weighing her down. Holding her back.

  Too much had happened today. I needed time. I didn’t know what I wanted, but it wasn’t this. Her trying to rescue me again.

  I drank my beer and ordered another before I responded.

  Me: I’m fine. I’m at some shit hole named the Ice House.

  The longer I sat there thinking, the more I realized I couldn’t do this with Mae. I had a shit-ton of problems I couldn’t unload on her anymore. I needed to get my shit together. I wasn’t good enough for her. I wasn’t good enough for anybody, and Mae was special. She deserved someone special, too.

  Adrian’s words. The night at the club. Her terrified face afterward. Days of pills. The dinner with her friends and family. The letter. My thoughts raced through my head, my anxiety through the roof. How would I fix all of this? It seemed impossible.

  I paid my tab for my two beers and cut myself off. I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t a fucking liar. I would keep my promise to Mae, even if I did want to lose myself in the bottom of a bottle.

  I would sit there, nursing my second and last beer, feeling fucking miserable for myself. I wouldn’t go to her. I was done saddling Mae with my shit.

  Things That Scare Me

  The Dark

  Clowns

  Losing Holden

  Thank God, he’d finally answered my text. I’d thought he was going to follow me to my apartment when we’d gotten back from what I would forever call the dinner from hell. We’d been together for weeks now, barely ever apart. Of course, I’d assumed he was going to follow me into my apartment where we’d been for most of the past month. He hardly ever stayed at his place anymore.

  After twenty minutes of lying in my bed and wallowing, I’d finally gotten up and realized he wasn’t there. I’d walked around the apartment calling his name, thinking he was in the bathroom or kitchen or something.

  Finally, I’d walked next door and turned the knob. The door swung open and like always I flinched at the starkness of his place. The bare walls. The muted, neat, couch. It was always spotless, nothing out of place.

  Again, I called out to him figuring he was there, since the door was unlocked, but I didn’t get an answer. Every time I called out for him that he didn’t answer my alarm began to escalate. I thought of how selfish and hurt I’d been at the dinner from hell. I’d only thought of how Adrian had betrayed me. About how hurt I was that my momma didn’t trust my judgement. I’d been too enveloped in my own pain to realize how awful Holden must have felt.

  My momma had been so terrible calling him a cripple, accusing him of using me for money of all things. I scoffed. Like she could talk. She was the queen of using people. But Adrian. His disloyalty had hurt the worst. He was my very best friend in the world. I still didn’t understand how he could tell my mother anything. He knew how she used me. How she took from me and never gave anything in return. Not even love.

  But through all of that, I’d never thought of Holden and what he must be going through. I ran from room to room of the small apartment, but he wasn’t there. What I did find was a pill bottle thrown in the corner. I went to it, bile in my throat, fear coursing through my veins. It was empty. The top nowhere in sight. Had he taken them all?

  I texted him and looked, finding the top under the bed, the pills scattered around the room and felt a modicum relief. He hadn’t taken them all, but where was he? Why were the pills everywhere?

  I walked back to the too clean living room and noticed a paper on the couch, an envelope on the table. I picked up the envelope first, studying the return address. Emily Davies.

  I felt like I was intruding, but desperate times called for desperate measures and I was too worried about Holden to care about his privacy. I’d faile
d someone who needed me once before. I wouldn’t fail Holden. Ever.

  I read the note, my hands shaking, praying for an answer of where Holden may be. And then my heart broke. It seemed like my heart was always breaking for Holden. He’d told me he hadn’t talked to Davies’s wife. He’d told me how he regretted it. He’d had a terrible day and then to come home to this. I was feeling sick knowing he was somewhere gutted. Somewhere I didn’t know where he was. Somewhere all alone.

  I texted him again. I’d keep trying until he answered. I left his apartment, making sure to lock the door behind me. I’d find Harper’s number and call her. She’d maybe know how to get in touch with him.

  I was scrolling through my phone, Googling the heck out of Harper when I got a text. He was at the Ice House. I’d never heard of the place, but I grabbed my keys and my purse, leaving the apartment and heading to Lola in the parking garage over and across the street.

  I pulled into the busy parking lot of the Ice House. It was early evening and it seemed the place was hopping. I found a spot quickly, parking and then charging toward the bar door, angry at him, worried for him. Praying he wasn’t drinking himself silly in there.

  Relief washed over me the moment I saw him sitting at the bar, a single beer half drank in front of him. He looked miserable but relatively normal and I sighed. Everything was going to be okay. He was just having a bad day. We both were.

  I slid in the seat next to him and threw my purse on the bar. He didn’t even notice he was so lost in his mind.

  “Hold,” I said loud enough so he could hear me over the boisterous crowd drinking and eating.

  He turned tortured eyes to me and I leaned forward, placing my hand on his cheek. The hand he always leaned into when he needed me.

  Only this time, he flinched back like I’d stung him. His scowl was deep, his eyes dark like night. His jaw ticked in time with the thundering of my heart. My big guy, he was hurting. He was angry. He didn’t want me there.

  “Don’t,” he gritted out, pushing my hand away.

  I sat back on my stool, taking the hint, but still worried for him. “How many beers have you had?”

  At that, his face morphed into one of rage. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?” He shook his head and scoffed. “I promised you, Mae. Have I ever not kept my word? This is my second fucking beer. Lay off.”

  I leaned away from him, stunned by his vehemence. He hadn’t spoken to me this way since before I knew him. Since before we were an us. Since the day he’d stormed into the apartment and scared me to death.

  “What can I do?” I begged. “Let me help you.” I wanted to touch him, hug him, comfort him in the only small ways I knew how, but it was apparent he didn’t want my touches right now.

  He rubbed his hands over his eyes hard and lowered his head. “Jesus Christ, Mae. I don’t fucking need you to babysit me. Take care of me. Sometimes I just need to be alone. You can go home. That’s what you can do.”

  His voice was final, but there was no way in hell I was leaving him to drink in a bar after the day he’d had.

  So, I turned toward the bar and raised my hand, trying to get the bartender’s attention.

  “No,” Holden grunted out. “Go home, Mae.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “You fucking are. My head is not in the right space right now. I need for you to leave. I want to be alone.”

  “I can’t leave you alone like this.” I was panicked he’d send me away. That I’d worry about him all night. That something bad would happen if I did leave.

  His fist hit the bar hard with a loud thump, and I jumped in my stool. “Don’t you fucking get it? I’m in a bad place right now! I need space.”

  “If you’re in a bad space, let me be there with you. That’s what loving a person does; be there through the good and the bad.”

  “Then maybe, this, us, is a bad idea, baby. Because where I am, you got no place being. You feel me?”

  Was he ending us? “Holden, just let me—”

  His fist slammed again, this time knocking the beer bottle to the floor in a crash. The bar quieted and a few people looked our way, but it didn’t register with Holden in his anger.

  “Just fucking leave me alone. You can’t fix me. I’m not one of your fucking books you can edit and make all better. Leave!” he roared.

  I slid off the stool, embarrassed at the scene he was making but even more hurt. He was pushing me away. Like Lori had pushed me and Ainsley and Adrian away. We’d lost her. I didn’t want to lose Holden, too, but I knew I couldn’t stay there. I was only agitating him, making the situation worse. My heart was breaking. My soul was crushed, but I’d have to leave him.

  I grabbed my purse off the bar and turned back to Holden, wanting him to know, hoping he would understand. “I’d follow you anywhere, Hold. I’d follow you to hell because I’d rather be anywhere with you than here without you.”

  He only leaned closer to me and said through clenched teeth, “Leave.”

  And that word sliced through me like a knife. I rubbed my hand over the ache in my chest and turned toward the door I’d only walked in minutes before, my purse in my hand, my pain unimaginable.

  I paused at the door to the bar, my hand on the lever, ready to push. I wouldn’t turn around. I wouldn’t even though I wanted to. One lone tear fell down my cheek, but I didn’t wipe it away. I wouldn’t need to. He wouldn’t ever see that tear.

  This love thing. It was all new to me. I’d never loved anyone so fiercely, so completely as I did Holden. Yes, I was new, but I wasn’t naive. I was young, but I wasn’t dumb. You didn’t let the person you love walk away. Ever. How could I fight for him when he wouldn’t fight for me? For us?

  So I stood there praying for him to say something. To stop me. Say anything, I begged. Say something, I screamed in my head. Don’t let me give up on you. On us.

  All I needed was one word.

  Stop.

  Three words.

  I love you.

  Give me anything, Hold. Anything and I’ll stop and I’ll forgive you, I’ll always forgive you. Because you’re my world.

  Silence. Nothing. The bar too loud and too quiet all at once. He wasn’t coming for me. I pushed the lever, the click of it under my hand ominous and final. I tore into the parking lot, rain cloaking my gorgeous city, hiding its beauty, making it seem small and alone. Like me.

  I ran. My hands shook. My skin vibrated with anger. Hurt. But I only had to make it the few feet to my car. Then I could cry. Then I could scream. Then I could mourn what could have been.

  Holden was right. This wasn’t one of my silly books. I couldn’t save him. I wouldn’t get my Happily Ever After. My hero wasn’t coming for me.

  It took all of three minutes to realize what I had done. I shouldn’t have pushed her away. She was the only good thing I had. The only thing I looked forward to every day. The one thing in my life that kept me going. The moment she pushed that door open and didn’t look back, it had felt so incredibly wrong. I took off for the door, racing through the parking lot, looking for her orange death trap. The rain was coming down heavily and in two seconds flat, my clothing was soaked to the skin. I used my hands to shield my eyes from the pouring rain, scanning the lot for her. A flash of orange caught my attention at the exit and I ran, determined to stop her. I couldn’t let her leave like that. I couldn’t let her go without at least telling her I loved her and I was sorry.

  Fuck, I hadn’t even said the words yet. I’d put them on that damn love lock, but I hadn’t been brave enough to say the words. I needed to say them. I needed her to hear them.

  The rain whipped at my face and I jogged ahead. I was almost to her car when she pealed out of the lot quickly and the rest felt as though it happened in slow motion.

  A red Jeep came flying around the corner right toward Mae’s car. “Nooo!” I shouted, my breath stilled in my chest.

  Rain thundering against the pavement. Tires screeching. Metal crushing. Glass shatteri
ng.

  I cringed at the sound of metal on metal, blinking hard and long. I stared, stunned, glued in place at the sight before me. Mae. My Mae. Her orange car T-boned in the middle of the road. No, the desert. Sand. Heat. I blinked hard and long again.

  The street.

  Mae’s car.

  No. Fucking no.

  A Jeep pushed through the middle of it.

  Oh, God, I had to get to her. I tried running, but instead staggered to her on legs that felt as though they were swimming instead of walking, the air as thick as water. Just had to get to her. Screaming. I heard yelling. Was it me?

  I couldn’t get into her car from the smashed-in driver’s door, so I opened the passenger side and climbed through, the smell of blood thick in the air.

  Heat.

  Sand.

  Crunching metal. The metallic smell of blood.

  Blink.

  Fuck, what was happening? She was slouched against the driver’s window that had somehow managed to still be intact. Her body was slack, lifeless, and I wanted to fucking scream again. This was worse than any nightmare I’d ever had. I couldn’t catch my breath. All of my air seemed to be somewhere stuck in my chest and my ears rang with a high-pitched sound.

  I pressed my fingers to the pulse in her neck, praying I hadn’t lost her. A weak, slow thump eased my worries but ratcheted up my awareness of the trouble she was in. “Oh, God, Mae, baby, please,” I begged, my cries falling on deaf ears.

  She was pressed between the driver’s door and the gear shift and console of the car. How was I going to get her out? I didn’t know if I could. She was pinned, but I needed to try. Panic climbed up my throat. I knew I shouldn’t move her. Every bit of my medical training from the military came back to me full-fledged, but I was terrified that this small car in the road was going to get hit again or that it would catch fire.

  My hands trembled as I tried to place them around her torso, but my body was so big and her small one was stuck tight and the car far too small. I barely fit in the car, but I had to make it work. “Fuck, I got you, baby. I got you.”