Social Neighbor (The Social Series Book 1) (35 page)

With my back pressed against the wall, I tossed my single crutch across my living room, slid to the floor and cried the tears that had been blockaded for so long. I missed Tommy. I hated that I hadn’t been able to save him from himself. I hated that I’d hurt those that loved me most. I hated that I lost the only woman I’d ever loved, that I had no clue how or even if I’d be able to win her back. I wasn’t even sure I was brave enough to try because a tiny, ugly voice deep inside me whispered in my ear and told me she wouldn’t want me anyway.

Flor

Story Time

I
f I thought I knew desolation before, I was mistaken. I knew how it felt to have my feet swept from beneath me. I knew what it felt like to be disappointed. I knew what it felt like to feel sincere sadness from deep within.

But…

I had never experienced anything quite like this. This was pure and absolute heartbreak, the likes of which I had never known.

It had been radio silence from Graham and though I was the one who took off on him, the fact that he hadn’t tried to come see me hurt. I had to wonder if he was as distraught as I felt.

Though I was angry, I decided to text him to let him know I was fine. I was anything but fine, but I didn’t really know what to say. I was swimming in emotions and didn’t know where to start or even if I should. What could I have said?
Hi, Graham. It’s me, Flor, the woman who has fallen madly in love with you. I am devastated that you lied to me because I love you so very much. Have a nice night.

Resigning myself to heartbreak, I did what all women do when they have been devastated by a man they love—I hid in my apartment, cried, ate junk food and watched movies I knew would only make me feel worse.

I wasn’t even sure what day it was, but Matt had left for work that morning and showed up before dinner, so it had to be a weekday.

“Hey, what’s today?” I asked Matt as he tossed his keys into the basket by our door.

“It’s Tuesday and you’re drunk,” he noted as he plucked the empty bottle of red wine up from the coffee table.

“Yeah.” I sighed and sat up to make room for him on the couch beside me. “Ironic, isn’t it?” I snorted. “The chick that hates her alcoholic dad and alcoholic boyfriend—ex boyfriend,” I amended, popping my index finger up above my head, “is d-drunk.” I hiccupped.

“What are you going to do, babe?” Matt asked a little impatiently as he straightened the mess I’d been making for three days.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, doing my absolute best to tamp down the emotion that threatened just beneath the surface of my drunken mind. “Doesn’t matter.” I stretched and leaned back against the couch cushions again.

“What do you want?” Matt snapped, pointing his finger at me. “Because I have given up trying to figure it out, and I’ve also given up playing cheerleader. You want something from this life? Go fucking get it! So, what do you want? Do you want him? Do you love him? Do you want to write? Do you want to work for your dad?”

“I don’t know,” I slurred.

“What the fuck do you want, Flor? Because right now it’s a goddamned mystery to everyone around you, so do us all a
big
favor and enlighten us!”

“I want to write books,” I whimpered, feeling more emotional than I liked thanks to my breakup with Graham and the wine coursing through my veins.

“Then write books!”

“It’s not that easy.” I shook my head, looking down at the floor.

“Yes it is! It’s only as hard as you make it on yourself. Here, write a fucking book!” He got to his feet and lunged at the console where junk mail and keys stacked up. Snagging a pen and pad in a small basket, he tossed it at me. “Write a book!”

My addled mind was entertained by his idea of writing a book on an actual piece of paper with an actual pen. “That’s not how to d-do it.” I hiccupped.

“And your way has been so much better?” Matt rebutted, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No.”

“So write the fucking book! For the love of God, write the fucking book,” he boomed in a voice I’d never heard him use.

“Fine! H-how about…um…Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a fifth of whiskey. Jack fell down ‘cause he’s too tipsy and Jill ditched him ‘cause she’s real bitchy. Any good?”

“You’re a joke right now!” He pointed his finger again and shook his head dismally, and even through the fog of alcohol, it hurt. One hand rested on his hip and the other rubbed the bridge of his nose. He had his eyes squeezed shut as though looking at me was more than he could stand at the moment.

“I can do a better one,” I stammered inarticulately. Matt dropped his arms to his sides and stared at me blankly. “How’s this one? Hickory dickory dock. Daddy drank a lot. The car backed up. Elle fell down. Hickory dickory dock.” Tears sprang up in my eyes. My voice cracked and years old anguish stirred in me. “Any good? No? I have another,” I croaked as the tears ran down my cheeks, uninhibited and unbidden.

Images of Elle’s lifeless body on a stretcher clouded my mind. She was so small on that big stretcher. I remember thinking it didn’t fit her. Not physically and not in terms of fairness. She was so little.

“Roses are red, Elle’s lips were blue, daddy was wasted, I was four, she was only two.” A tormented sob ripped from me. I doubled over, grabbing my knees and pulled them to my chest.

The entire scene played back in my mind and I thought it always would no matter what. The firemen pushing the car forward, it bumped against the wall of tools hanging from a pegboard. They clattered loudly and fell on the hood of dad’s car. Wrenches and ratchets clanged against the concrete floor of the garage and skittered to a stop.

The firemen and paramedics spoke quietly to each other. They weren’t moving in a hurry. I didn’t think that was good. Even to a four year old, it was obvious when something was a lost cause. One paramedic held his radio to his mouth. His bright blue eyes met mine and said, “Child, age two, female, DOA.”

I knew I’d never forget it. I also knew I’d never forget the funny feeling that had filled my stomach. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I later discovered what I was feeling. It was guilt—raw, unrelenting, anguished, pervading, guilt. Elle died that day, and the little girl that I had been died too. I just didn’t know it yet.

“Goddamnit,” Matt whispered. “I’m here. It’s okay now. Shush. It’s okay. It’s okay now,” Matt repeated over and over with his lips pressed against the side of my head, his nose buried in my hair. “It’s okay.” If there were ever a time when I wanted to believe him, it was right then.

He held onto me, rocking us back and forth until the worst of my meltdown had passed, and then he laid me down on the sofa with a blanket. He stayed by my side until alcohol and exhaustion won out, forcing my puffy eyes to slip shut.

My eyes felt like sandpaper and I was reluctant to open them. Not only because they hurt and so did my head, but because I could tell my head was in Matt’s lap. The TV was on. I chanced peeking up at him, hoping that maybe he’d fallen asleep too.

No such luck. The moment I cracked my eyes open and slightly tilted my pounding head up at Matt, he looked down at me wearily.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice raspy from disuse, crying and a proper hangover. I was feeling so very inept and undeserving of his love and loyalty. “I’m an asshole,” I added.

“No you’re not, babe.” His long fingers brushed wayward strands of hair from my forehead and I relaxed under his kind touch. “You’re a mess. Not an asshole.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, feeling like no matter my choice of words, they’d fall woefully short of what I wanted to say, what I
needed
to say.

“Sit up,” he ordered as he helped me right myself on the couch. He disappeared into the kitchen, reappearing a moment later with two aspirin and a bottle of water. “Take these.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me quite yet,” he said with a wince on his handsome face.

I swallowed down the aspirin and looked at him expectantly.

“I called Liza. She told me she’s worried. So is your dad. So is Graham.”

“I don’t care if they are worried, and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t talk about me to everyone else, Matt.”

“I think you should call Graham, hear him out, Flor,” Matt said shaking his head defiantly, and if anyone should know when Matt was going to stand his ground, it was me.

“I have nothing to say to Graham. He’s a drunk and a liar. Neither are the type of people I want in my life.” Fresh tears filled my eyes, blurring my vision.

“He’s been sober for nine years, Flor.”

“He lied to me!” My chin quivered and my head pounded as tears ran down my cheeks. I didn’t know what to do with that information about his sobriety. Did I care?

“I think there’s more to it than that. You need to talk to him.”

“I don’t have anything to say to him,” I repeated with as much finality as I could muster. My heart wasn’t in it, though.

I knew it. Deep inside in the place where my heart dwelled—a heart that had grown to love that damned man—there was a tiny seed of hope planted in the unkind soils of regret, watered with the tears of my very own broken heart.

I had no way of knowing what, if anything, would take root there but I supposed I would find out whether I wanted to or not.

“Babe, what exactly happened that day? With Elle?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because you’ve never told me everything and I have this sinking suspicion that you’ve never told anyone the whole story.”

My mouth felt dry and dusty. I reached for my water and gulped it down.

“Dad—he’d drink to the point of lying in a pool of his own vomit. The smell, I remember that the most. Sometimes, I swear I can still smell him. It was early summer. My mom was at the grocery store and she had a few errands to run. My dad was drunk by lunchtime. It was easy enough to tell when he was hammered. He got loud. Even his talking voice came out as a yell. Elle had fallen asleep watching cartoons, and I got bored so I went out to the garage.” Recounting the most horrific day of my life wasn’t easy. Recounting it in front of my best friend made me feel safe enough to reveal the details of my past but no less difficult.

“I used to think my parents were like superheroes or something because they could drive a car. They did all this stuff, turned the key and pressed buttons, steered and used the blinker. I pretended to drive all the time. Don’t you remember thinking your parents were cool because they could operate the can opener or drive a car, or make macaroni and cheese?”

Matt nodded with a slight grin tilting the corners of his lips.

“The smell of the garage was a lot better than the smell of booze. I didn’t even have to sneak passed my dad. He was snoring on the couch.” I knotted my fingers in my lap and tried to swallow emotion down. “I bumped the shifter and it slipped into neutral. The car began rolling back and I panicked. I was scared that I’d crash into the garage door because our driveway sloped quite a bit. I squeezed my eyes shut and held onto the steering wheel. Then there was this—this
bump
.” My voice quavered. “I didn’t hit the garage door but I was scared. I remember shaking like a leaf. I ran back into the house and hid in the coat closet. I was a kid playing in a two-ton weapon.” I shook my head, still finding it insane that my father drank enough to manage to get so blotto that he never noticed his two small children playing in a car, alone, in the garage.

“My mom came home to find Elle pinned beneath the back tire of my dad’s car. That’s where I had left her when I ran back in the house. I didn’t know she was there. My brother wasn’t home and my dad was so drunk that he didn’t even wakeup when the sirens were parked right in front of our house. I killed my baby sister. Her little body just… She was gone,” I sobbed.

“Oh, babe.” Matt wrapped me up in his arms and I clung to him, letting him share my painful past with me for a moment and in that moment I felt less alone. I felt stronger for sharing my truth with him, and I realized then that I was less fragile when I reached out to the people in my life with the things that hurt me most.

I dried my eyes and genuinely felt better for opening up to Matt. When he left me alone to hop in the shower, I picked up my phone debating on what to do.