Smother (5 page)

“Flipping it off and carrying on. You take your hand, like this.” Liz raised her hand and fisted it. “And you lift that middle finger way up and you shake the shit out of it, right at the sky.” She demonstrated, upper lip curled and fire in her eyes.

She dropped her hand, looking at Reese. “Then you smile and move on. Smiling’s a good thing.” With a grin, she spun on her heel, her short legs moving faster than what should be possible, and caught a coffee mug before it crashed to the floor. She gave the boy who’d bumped it a chastising look and disappeared into the kitchen area.

Reese took a sip of the frozen concoction, her taste buds lit up with a tropical, sweetly earthy flavor. She decided she liked it. When Liz returned to find out the verdict, she told her so.

“What’s the name of it?” Reese got a blank look for that. “Don’t you name your drinks?”

“Why would we do that?” Liz tilted her head, eyes narrowed on Reese.

She studied the purple drink. “It’s fun to name things. This could be called Tropical Blue, or Blue Lagoon, something catchy like that. You could even add a hint of coconut to it. It might be good.” She grinned, but when she looked up and saw Liz still staring at her, she shrugged and turned her gaze downward.

“That’s a good idea,” the owner of the coffee shop said slowly. “I might do that.” She shook herself, firm expression back in place. “I’ll get you a regular-sized one?”

Reese nodded. “Thanks.”

Her face heated up as she realized what she’d done. She looked around the place, feeling exposed, but no one was paying attention to her. It wasn’t like her to offer any of herself to anyone, not even her suggestions. When Liz returned with the smoothie, she said thank you and left, pulling the invisible shield back up that had somehow begun to fall while surrounded by the homey atmosphere.

The tattoo shop’s hours were noon to eight, Monday through Friday with Tuesdays off, and Saturdays they were open from ten to two. As a person who liked to stay up late and sleep in, they were perfect for Reese. Unfortunately, she spent Monday morning brooding over Leo. She wanted to dig into his brain to know his thoughts, and figure out all the many sides he hid. She heard his deep, musical voice in her head, and it said: Stop searching.

Reese did things around the apartment to keep busy. She washed what few dirty dishes there were, picked up her bedroom, and cleaned the bathroom, all of which took forty minutes. After that, she sprawled out on the couch, feeling anxious—idleness and Reese were combustible. She had a television, but she had a hard time sitting in one place long enough to focus on anything.

When she pushed Leo out of her mind, something had to fill it.

And it did.

After her sister Morgan was born and their dad split, their mom moved them from a nice, small town in Iowa to a dirty, fast-paced city in Illinois. Joan Ward struggled as a single mother for four years before meeting Brad Kratochwill. A flash of blue eyes hit Reese and she gasped reflexively. Those eyes could be warm or cold, depending on her reception of him.

She sat up on the couch and held her head. Reese still felt him on her skin, felt that dirtiness that she couldn’t get rid of. She’d tried to fight it, to somehow remove his memory from her, but he wouldn’t leave her, no matter how she tried to forget him.

He seemed like the perfect father replacement at first. Her body trembled and she bit her lip, not wanting to think about him and still not strong enough to keep him away. Lots of hugs, lots of smiles. Reese was eight at the time, and starved for affection. She wanted that hero father all the other kids seemed to have. She supposed she got some evil, twisted version of him.

“Think of something else, think of something else, think of something else,” she muttered, squeezing her head between her arms. When that didn’t help, she dropped her arms and shot to her feet to pace the floor of the living room.

Nausea swam inside her stomach and it was hard to swallow. Her eyes shifted around the apartment, searching for something to take it away. The area was blank—an empty place she existed in that would never be a real home. She couldn’t escape herself in a room of nothingness, but she could merge with it and become nothing as well. That seemed to be her ultimate goal, and she was forever in search of that perfect void.

Reese wanted to disappear.

There were people she could call that would help push her toward it. She’d been down that road of substance abuse and it would be so easy to get back on it. She hurried to the small kitchen area, grabbed the first bottle of liquor she found, and slammed it. It coated her throat with scorching heat. Her cupboards could have nothing edible in them, but they were never without liquor. Alcohol wasn’t better than her previous habits, but it was legal and readily available.

She leaned against the counter, hung her head, and began to laugh. She was pathetic—close to a drunk. Who knew? Maybe she’d already crossed that invisible mark. It seemed like she had. And if she hadn’t yet fallen into that disease of alcoholism, what was stopping her? Reese took a slower, deeper drink. It was numbness concealed within a clear liquid. She moved her elbows to the counter to hold her head and closed her eyes.

At times she wondered why she hadn’t given up years ago and stopped all this with a handful of pills. She wanted to keep hating her adoptive father, but even that took more effort than she had. Where was that rage that used to help her deal? She’d turned it on herself. Now here she was, self-destructive, hateful, and hated.

Even though she wasn’t hungry, Reese microwaved a bag of buttered popcorn. The scent of it filled the apartment. Instead of distracting her from the past, it brought more memories to haunt her. She and her sister used to love chowing down on buttered popcorn. They’d sit together on the floor and watch cartoons before bed, the two of them sharing a bowl of it.

But then he started to make the popcorn at night, wedging himself between them, smiling. He was the nice man that did things for them. He shoved himself into their world whether they wanted him there or not, and became a part of it. He became the embodiment of what Reese longed for so that it was harder to listen to herself when everything inside her cried out that what he was doing was wrong, even as his voice told her it was right.

The popcorn lost all flavor and turned to stone in her throat. Reese swallowed and dumped the rest out, hurriedly washing and drying the bowl as though to erase his image from her brain with quick, unending movement.

She put the bowl in the cupboard and straightened, staring at the half-empty bottle still resting on the counter. It waited for her. It always waited for her. Reese picked it up again and took it into the living room. She sprawled out on the couch and looked at the plain ceiling, methodically drinking until her ears buzzed, her mouth felt thick, and she didn’t give a damn about anything.

Reese was supposed to leave for work soon, but as she drank, the minutes slipped away. This hell she lived in seemed to be getting worse. A few months ago she would have at least waited until after work to start in on the booze. She wanted to blame it on Leo, but it was her. He didn’t want her and she was letting it mess with her head, but what was she going to do about that? Cut out her brain and replace it with a better functioning one?

Even if he did want her, she’d wreck him. That was what she did. It wasn’t his fault she was the way she was and it wasn’t even his fault she had a thing for him, though whatever that was, she couldn’t name.

Her cell phone buzzed and she felt along the floor, not moving anything but the arm already dangling off the edge of the couch. “Hello,” she slurred into it.

“Where’d you go the other night?” Amber demanded.

“What night?”

“The party. You were there and then you were gone.”

“Didn’t feel well. Left.” All she needed was some alcohol and she became a perfect Leo impersonator.

“Oh. What are you doing now?” Amber spoke fast, whatever she was on giving her energy she didn’t normally have.

“Drinking.”

Amber laughed. “Don’t you have to work soon?”

Reese shrugged, realized she couldn’t see that, and didn’t say anything anyway.

“Want to call in sick and go swimming?”

“It’s, like, forty degrees out.”

She laughed again. The sound of it hurt Reese’s head. “I
know,
but I met some guys at the store and they invited me over to their house.” She paused dramatically. “They have a hot tub.”

Reese met Amber at a party earlier in the year. They’d been standing near each other, drinking but not talking, when someone did a nosedive in front of them. Both intoxicated, it made them laugh, which progressed to small talk, more drinking, and the exchanging of phone numbers. Amber was like her, a loner with little to no friends, so they understood one another.

Even with their similar natures, there was a crevice between them—something unseen, but felt—that let them know they would never truly be friends, even though they played at it well.

They were too alike in some ways and too different in others.

“We just left the store. If you want to come, we’ll swing by and pick you up.”

Leo would be upset if she didn’t show up. Reese debated the smartness of calling in sick to not even calling in. It wasn’t like she would get much accomplished half-drunk like she was. Manners dictated that she at least call him to let him know she wouldn’t be in.

He doesn’t need you. He’ll be fine without you.

“I’ll be ready. Wait by the back entrance,” Reese told her and ended the phone call.

She lurched to her feet, tried to hold still until her head steadied, and then made a jagged trail to her bedroom. The room Reese slept in was as bare as the rest of the apartment, a bed and dresser taking up a small part of it while leaving the rest of the space unclaimed. She moved for the dresser, intent on finding her swimming suit. The bikini was hot pink, microscopic, and made her smile as she met her reflection in the mirror.

Reese purposely kept her eyes averted from the cell phone as she walked by it and out the door. She hurried down the stairs, gaze unconsciously going to the window that faced her workplace. Guilt and defiance marched with her down the hallway. She wanted to piss him off at the same time she wanted him to stop her. She banged into the wall when her feet decided not to cooperate and mumbled an apology when the door to the nearest apartment opened and the tenant stuck her head out. The girl looked at her before shutting the door.

“Sorry,” she mumbled again.

A black, sleek car was waiting alongside the curb. Amber furiously waved from the backseat with a wide grin on her face. When Reese got closer, she saw her dilated pupils, so large her eyes appeared all black instead of the wine shade they usually were. She noted the arrogant smile of the brown-haired driver and the quiet scrutiny of the blond-haired passenger. Both were good-looking, appeared to be around her age, and looked like trouble.

The driver slid out and gestured to the car. “After you, sweetheart.” His voice was smooth, but had a faint edge to it.

Reese muttered, “Don’t call me sweetheart.”

She climbed into the backseat as the guy chuckled. He got in the driver’s seat and shut the door, hitting the accelerator. Reese pitched to the side and landed partially on Amber, who laughed and hugged her. Reese jerked back from her touch and moved to her side of the seat. The scent of hard liquor and weed hit her senses and stung her eyes.

“What are you on?” she asked Amber in a low voice. Reese glanced up and met pale blue eyes in the rearview mirror. She thought the driver winked before returning his gaze to the road.

Amber shook her head of fiery red locks, a smile on her face. “Absolutely nothing!” She flung her arms out wide, clipping Reese in the nose.

The blond turned in his seat and looked her up and down in a way that made her skin crawl even as her heartbeat picked up. Satisfaction glinted in the brown eyes that met hers as he brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. “Amber wanted to try some of our mystery blend. How about you? You want to be adventurous too?”

She hadn’t touched anything stronger than alcohol in years. Because the last time, she almost didn’t come back. Whether this was a good idea or not seemed inconsequential at the moment—she couldn’t seem to care about the repercussions or possible danger.

There was a challenge in his eyes, and Reese didn’t look away from it. “Sure,” she said.

“Atta girl,” he said in approval. “Amber assured us you would be fun.”

Amber giggled and took a swig from a bottle of brown liquor before she passed it to Reese. She took it, chugging down murky-colored fire that burned her lungs and throat when she breathed. She handed the bottle back to Amber.

The car moved faster than the speed limit, the driver taking corners with the ease and confidence of an adrenaline junkie. Music thumped from the speakers and the brown-haired guy tapped the fingers of one hand on the steering wheel as he drove.

“I’m sure you know I’m Reese. And you boys are?” she asked, knowing she wouldn’t be getting much useful, if any, information from her friend. Amber was gone.