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Arissa Alexston
arissaalexston.weebly.com
© Copyright Arissa Alexston 2018
Edited by Victoria Miller
Cover Photo © Copyright Arissa Alexston
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the author/publisher
For Penny,
Your struggle was real, but I'm glad you made it through.
Other Works by Arissa Alexston
The Running Duke Series
Bullet
Chapter One
Pounding on a door stirred me awake. I rubbed my beard and the back of my neck, wincing at the morning sun slicing through the window blinds. The golden glow felt like a flame against my retinas as I managed to crack them open further. The familiar hardness of my desk under my head caused sore spots. Fuck, I'd passed out in my office again. My body ached as I move to sit up. Petty cash stuck to my forehead like Velcro, and the cashbox sat wide open, showcasing my coke stash and the money I used to support my habit.
A tall bottle of vodka from the bar shelf sat half-empty, and I realized this will be the third one this week I had taken for myself. I couldn't continue writing these off anymore, it was becoming expensive. No matter how I tried to mentally chastise myself I couldn't bring myself to care. I scratched my beard and focused on the small remnants of white dust on my desk. I had a tendency to get sloppy as my lonely nights continued on. Using the credit card by my right hand, I made a perfect line of the powder and sniffed it up using the rolled bill on my desk.
There was that banging again, and I leaned back in my chair for a moment to let the cocaine dissolve and rush through my system. The neon beer clock mounted on the wall of my office read ten-fifteen, which meant my morning crew would get here shortly to open by noon. The banger might've one of them; probably forgot their keys and saw my car here. I stood up, straightened up my desk quickly, and walked out my office toward the front door. I ignored the mess on the bar I left out from the night before. I knew Carlos would fix it up when he came in. He'd cleaned up my messes as long as I tossed him a few extra bucks under the table. Unlocking the heavy wooden front door, paralysis encompassed my body when my older brother pushed his way through.
"What the fuck, Gable? I've been out here banging for fifteen minutes." Vashton unlatched his khaki backpack without focusing on me. I quickly recovered to shut and lock the door behind him. Vashton always made me forget how to breathe, stealing the surrounding air to make himself bigger, like a goddamn pufferfish.
"Uh, sorry, I was asleep," I managed to say even though my voice cracked. At his unexpected arrival, my pulse sped up, making my high kick up a notch. I ran a hand through my disheveled hair while his back was still to me. I didn't have time to think or to come up with an explanation for myself because he would know I was using again. Vashton reminded me of a damn bloodhound when it came to me being on dope.
Shit, I specifically made a promise to him to keep clean. My last stint of sobriety had lasted a year. Last time, I pulled Amy in rehab with me as a joint effort to straighten our toxic relationship out. We thought we were ready to clean up and start anew, but I threw a wrench in the whole thing. Our relationship became a fucking disaster, and she started back a few months ago when shit turned south in our relationship. I held out as long as I could, but we always knew how to coerce the other into relapsing.
I kept silent as Vashton turned to face me and waited for the blast of his reaction to seeing me. "Why are you here, Vash?"
"I was just stopping by before I head to New Orleans. I have some business—what the fuck—are you on that shit again?" I could only imagine how I must look. People mostly described me as haggard when I'm strung out. Pale and gaunt. As if some vampire of life comes at night and drains me dry by dawn. No use hiding it now; the only way I could come out of this without him fucking me up verbally or even physically was if I owned up to it.
I shrugged. "Yeah, I am."
His body trembled as his face reddened from rage. I know I let him down and the fact of me breaking a promise to my older brother hurt a little. The whole shit that happened in my childhood had been why he became such a stickler for overseeing me on how I coped with my past. He wasn't there when the drugs were, especially back in the day, and he would never understand how it was my crutch to deal with heavy shit in my life. He tried to be here for me now, when I didn't ask for it. I sure as shit didn't care for his unsolicited fatherly speeches he delivered in despondent times.
The veins in his neck bulged, and he glared, trying to intimidate me. "You've been clean for an entire year, what caused you to—never mind—I bet it's that fucking bitch." He looked around as if Amy would pop out from around a corner. She was long gone. The drugs had fucked everything up between us. My darker tendencies while using had caused her to see me in a way that could never be overlooked again. Even for the small time we were sober together, our relationship had been rocky at best. She never claimed to love me, but it had been a mutual partnership between us laced with angst, drugs, and dispassionate sex. I would've eventually married her because of the shit we'd been through together. But she had finally figured out she might deserve better out of life. Why couldn't I?
Vashton waited on me to reply, his patience running low as he shifted his feet.
"Actually, she moved back home to sober up." Technicalities didn't matter, she was still the reason I started back.
Vashton rubbed his chin as his sharp gray gaze bore into mine. "You're letting Ray continue to fuck up your life? I killed that perverted motherfucker years ago." Just him mentioning that he had killed our mother's old boyfriend after his release didn't cause any warm fuzzies inside my chest or make my past any less traumatic. I had felt nothing when I heard the grisly details, merely the same hollow bottomless pit that I could never fill. Ray was dead to me before he'd been officially pronounced dead. "I don't get what's causing you to keep fucking snorting that shit."
"It's not for you to get, Vash. It's my fucking life. If I want to spend it hunched over a pile of blow until I flatline, that's what I'll do. You don't see me nosing around your little fight club shit."
Vashton shook his head and blazed past me toward my office. I followed after him, knowing exactly what he planned to do. We'd done the same song and dance so many times before, and I wished he'd let me live my own damn life. He was so fucking huge that he blocked my attempts to stop him from grabbing my stash. I tried to rush toward my desk, but he pushed me away as if I had been a small fly he swatted. He walked to the cashbox on the desk, opened it, and removed my bag of coke.
"Damn it, Gabe." Vashton's shoulders sank as he gazed down at the bag in his grip. He seemed to think to himself for a moment, and I saw an opportune time to snatch my drugs back. Only, he was faster and moved first. He twisted away, keeping a firm hold on the dope and marched toward the bathroom with me grabbing all over his buff stature. No! He's going to flush it!
I leapt on his back as he cleared the bathroom's doorframe, and it threw him off balance. Vashton took an unsteady step back to stabilize himself. He tried to shake me off, but I held on with my arms around his thick neck. I tightened my grip, determined to make him pass out if it kept him from tossing an eight ball of coke I just bought. Like a ravenous beast, I felt panic overruling my actions. I know my nails scratched his skin and my knees dug in his sides as I tried to tackle him to the ground. I'd long ago lost my high school football skills, and they would do
little good against Vashton's polished fighting techniques. I probably looked like a scrawny alley cat latched on to a mastiff-sized junkyard dog. This would go on for so long before Vash would have enough.
I locked my arm around his neck by gripping my wrist with my other hand, but my attempt fell short and I slipped with each of his steps toward the handicap bathroom stall. I usually kept the mania consuming me in check. However, with the prospect of my stash being flushed away, the dark demon inside me reared its ugly head. Like a fucking idiot, I wanted to take on a male nearly twice my size. For the first time, my actions resembled the typical crackhead stories I'd heard about but never witnessed.
"Fuck! Gabe, stop!" He shook me off like a damn water bead from an animal's coat. I fell ungracefully onto the dirty, cold floor and tried to catch my breath as Vash didn't hesitate on turning the bag upside down in the toilet. The white dust flittered into the porcelain, and I felt that all too familiar lost feeling again. Equivalent to the time when Vash found me wandering the streets bloodied and sore after Ray finally took it too far. That moment had been the emptiest, most embarrassing time of my life. Covered in shit and shame and hunting the streets for him to save me. This moment felt no different, but I didn't need his fucking help anymore.
The damning flush had been the only sound heard over our heavy breathing. He turned and looked down at me in silence, challenging me to do something or speak first. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. I stood up, dusted off my pants and faced him, waiting for whatever bullshit he wanted to say.
"You don't remember our deadbeat father. He was a piece of shit because of drugs. Our mother joined him on that rollercoaster, and you're following right in their footsteps."
"Of course I don't remember our father, but I know the next man she brought home to molest me."
Vashton snarled, and I noticed he had healing wounds on his face from some fight in the last underground pit he traveled to. "Damn it, Gabe. You were better. I saw you living. You got help; you had two support groups. One for drugs and one for…what happened. Do you want to die?"
I sniffed and wished I could do a bump to help deal with the shitty emotions he stirred up. "Everyone has to have something to live for. At the moment, I don't."
The shock on his face was almost comical at my admission of not caring if I died from drug use. However, I wasn't really in a laughing mood. "Nothing is enough anymore: the bar, you, or Rysten. Amy should've been it. I wanted her to be, but she claimed we were enabling each other to relapse. Minus the drugs, I'm not sure we really cared for each other enough."
He followed me out into the small hallway and laid a hand on my shoulder, causing me to stop and face him again. He looked in my face, his full of worry and trepidation. "Maybe you should find a reason. Ever think of that? Maybe this bar is your way of keeping one foot in a world you don't belong in anymore." I shrugged off his touch because each word seemed heavier to drive in his point. He crossed his arms as he glared at me. "With Amy gone, take some time off and go to rehab again, then spend time at Aunt Celeste's. Recharge and try to stay clean while you're there. Do something other than sit here wallowing in your own pity."
"Go back to rehab? Fuck no, and I love Aunt Celeste, but Macon is too far from here."
We both turned when the sound of the front door shut. I knew it was Carlos because, immediately, sounds of glasses clanking together behind the bar could be heard. He was a good manager and an equally good friend for putting up with a drunk and dope-head boss. He disapproved since his brother died from drugs when they were younger, but he kept quiet about it. Shit, everyone cleaned up after me in some way or another. As much as I hated to admit it, maybe Vashton was right.
"You need to do something, Gable. Our brotherly trio wouldn't be the same without you."
"Don't say that to me!" My voice quivered, but I knew my outburst had been heard because the noise behind the bar quieted.
"Goddamn it, you're so damn emotional when you're high. I just want you to get past the broken state that asshole left you in."
I scoffed at his choice words. "What the fuck are you talking about? I'm not in a broken state." But even as I said it, I felt the agonizing truth of those words. I was damaged and resentful of my past help because I felt I didn't have a serious problem. I did need help again; I needed to strive to keep my life in check. I plunged face-first into a hellish dark spiral, worse than before, especially since I had to dwell in my shit alone. However, recovery was a solitary endeavor, and I had to trek that path alone in order to reach my destination to be drug-free. No matter how I balked, I wanted help like my next unguaranteed heartbeat. The drugs would kill me one day; that truth was the only assurance I knew staying on this course. At some point in my youth, death seemed like the promised freedom from the pain. I wanted to be free of my dark burdens and find a light to dwell under.
Vashton sighed. "Fucking take a look at yourself. No one ever stays like this because they choose to. That bastard left something rotten in you, and you won't let anyone heal it. Hell, it's hard for you to let anyone in."
He had a point, but it was simpler to use and stay fucked up all the time. I failed to straighten my life out many times before. Why should I even keep trying? Coke made my drab existence a walk in the park day by day. Staying high made caring about the useless points in my life minuscule.
As much as he could muster, Vashton tried to show me his feelings, which was a rarity, and I threw it back in his face with emotionless responses. I knew though, he would never leave me the fuck alone unless I went to rehab to try and get clean again, especially with Amy gone. Maybe we can do better on our own and try to rehash our relationship on a clean slate. If I didn't go, Vash would stay on my case and babysit me until he felt I wasn't using anymore. Soft-spoken doctors where better than his firm hand any day.
Vashton stepped closer, gripped my shoulder again, and squeezed harder to get my attention. His eyes were heavy with command, and I knew he'd been right about me having to go. But truthfully, I'd do anything to keep him and Rysten from staring at me like I was a family fuck-up like our goddamn mother. Where she never sought help, I tried to keep it straight for them when really I knew I needed to do it for myself. This time I would. Getting clean had been easy in the past, but staying that way was hard. I usually fell off the bandwagon shortly after release. My life needed to get straight, well, as straight as I could manage it.
A part of me wanted to take a break from the stressors of my life. Including the bar and all the endless pussy and blow being thrown my way. My dealer strolling in as if he owned the joint to offer me the next best thing on the market, and my drama that took place behind the scenes every night in the back. I was getting sick of it all. I wanted help, I did, but I needed a reason to stay clean, just one. "Fine, all right. I'll go to rehab, but like last time, don't fucking expect any miracles."
Vash stared at me for moment as if wondering if I lied to get him to shut up.
"You finding a miracle is going to be far-fetched. I wish for you to find a purpose."
Chapter Two
Five months later
I exited my luxury coupe and stared up at the old colonial house on Songbird Lane. So many good teenage memories happened here, a fresh start after the hell I had lived in as a kid. I knew why Vashton suggested this place after rehab. If anything could make me see sunlight after the storm, it would be Aunt Celeste and this house. I wasn't ready to go back to the bar on Tybee, and Carlos had the place running tight since I checked into rehab. I had thought about him running it permanently while I looked at other avenues for my life. That kind of trust was too much for me to consider at the moment. Too many things were up in the air, and I had no clue how to sort them yet.
Anytime I thought about my life, I would get a headache that soon turned into a constant pain in my ass. Therapy after therapy, day in and day out, with insistent talking had my throat sore and my eyes crossed for five months. I didn't want to fucking talk to anyone else about m
y shit. I had been stripped bare for a doctor and like-minded groups to analyze, prod, and assess my best treatment. For what I paid for that place, I better have some fucking results other than a pocket full of Xanax and sleep aids. I was on a course for a different type of mind alteration. I wanted to fucking wean myself off the dependents, but I knew pulling off too soon might send me back toward the cocaine to self-medicate.
I had to do this right, and stop telling myself sobriety wasn't a waste of time. I had to believe in myself and what the doctors did to help me. It is hard to put trust in strangers and believe they had my best interests at heart. I learned a long time ago that people are not who they seem and will hurt you badly if given the chance for their own selfish gain.
Aunt Celeste's neighborhood was old-fashioned southern hospitality one would come to expect in Macon, Georgia. Many of the southern colonial homes were overdone with colorful flowers to offset the stark white columns and maroon brick. Lawn flags representing colleges or campaigning politicians were proudly staked in front for every passerby to see. Like always, the Johnsons across the street were sitting on their front porch with steaming mugs in hand. The old man had gained a few more pounds in the gut from home cooked meals, and Mrs. Johnson still ran her mouth a mile a minute in the chair next to him as she knitted something.
When he noticed me, I gave him a friendly wave, which was half-heartedly returned. Either he didn't recognize me or he never fully forgave me for that time I left tire tracks in his yard. It had been my first time driving drunk after a victorious high school football game. I smiled at the recollection but immediately frowned when I remembered how upset Mrs. Johnson had been that I killed a number of her precious rose bushes and begonias. Damn… Feeling more upset at myself, I turned to welcome myself home.
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