Chapter 1
The worst part of life as a human is that I’m stuck inside my own head all day. And here’s the thing: my mind doesn’t shut up. I’m always on. In the mornings, at night. When I’m shopping for groceries or taking a shower. Even when I sleep, I dream. It’s like spending an eternity locked up in a basement, handcuffed to the world’s most annoying person and duct tape is over your mouth but they’re talking. And they’re reading your personal journal and they’re bringing up every embarrassing memory of your past and there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re in handcuffs and they just keep talking.
For once, I would just like to shut off my brain. Even just for a minute. I’d give all my worldly possessions for the ability to spend an entire sixty seconds in a private, no thinking moment. Because then I wouldn’t have to listen to my heart whine about being forced to show love and affection to a man I’ve grown to have less actual feelings for than my neighbor’s obnoxious Pomeranian. I wouldn’t have to think about how all my life’s accomplishments aren’t even worthy of a kindergarten field day participation sticker.
I punch at the worn button on my car’s radio, drowning my eardrums in alternative rock music. I know I’m just being overly stupid and allowing the painful grip of self-loathing to close too tightly around my neck. My life isn’t bad. It’s perfectly acceptable. Good, even. I’m just not happy. And I can’t help that, or make excuses for it. I am not happy. It is what it is.
Grandma’s voice pushes itself into my already overcrowded mind. I focus on the highway in front of me as I remember how her voice sounded, all raspy and worn from a life of hard work. If she could hear me now, see me now, in this state of apathetic numbness, she’d smile, but it would look like a frown from all the wrinkles on her mouth from decades of smoking. She’d wrap an arm around my shoulders and pull me close and say what she always liked to say. “The things you take for granted are what someone else is praying for.”
My index fingers drum on the steering wheel of my seven-year-old Ford Mustang. Music blasts my eardrums and my teeth dig into the inside of my lip. It’s been nine years since my seventeenth birthday when my brother Tyler died. I was supposed to have it all figured out by now. I was supposed to be an adult, with a real education and not some two-year community college thing. My brother was supposed to be a lawyer. Hell, he was supposed to be alive. My future was all shiny and bright, with a real career and a husband and kids. I was going to marry my high school sweetheart. A painful lump rises in my throat at the thought of him, and I swallow it down. Then I turn the radio up even louder. I will not think of Kris Payne.
I’m daydreaming about what could be an amazing breakthrough in medical technology when I pull into the parking lot of Carson’s Gym. If only some skilled doctor could figure out a way to install a toggle switch on the back of my neck, where half the time I could have it in the normal position, and then when I feel like escaping my thoughts—bam! Instant lobotomy. I laugh, in spite of myself and grab my workout clothes from the passenger seat.
Susan presses a manicured hand to my chest as I walk inside the gym. In her other hand is a glass of red wine, custom painted for her with a pink and zebra print S monogram on the glass. “Oh no you did not get here two hours early again,” she says, taking a long gulp of her favorite liquid. “Your shift starts at seven, and it always has.”
“I’m going to work out,” I say, pushing past her and sliding behind the employee’s-only sliding door at the front desk. I drop my purse in my cubbyhole and head to the locker rooms to change clothes, ignoring her rant about how I need to live my life and not spend all my time at the gym.
I am living my life. It’s just, you know, at the gym. Guilt prickles me as I change clothes. Normally, I tell Susan everything because I’ve known her forever and she’s old enough to be a mother figure to me, but young enough to be the big sister I never had. She gives me the advice that my peers can’t give, because all my girlfriends are fairly stupid. But I haven’t told her why I’ve been getting to work two hours early every day for the last week.
Because she’ll want to talk about it, and I don’t want to talk about it. About how I’ve been dating the nicest, most educated and successful man I’ve ever dated for over a year now and yet I’m tired of being around him. He wants to spend every waking moment together, and even the non-waking moments, like when I’m sleeping during the day after my night shift and he uses the house key I should have never given him to come in my house and crawl into bed next to me.
He doesn’t do anything wrong. He’s sweet and he’s caring and I’m just an asshole. I need time to myself without him, so I may have lied a few times lately, saying I have to teach an aerobics dance class at the gym before my shift. It’s not my fault he doesn’t use his gym membership so he wouldn’t know I’m lying because there is no aerobics dance class at this time of day. It’s yoga.
My phone buzzes at three forty-five in the morning while I’m half-asleep in my chair. Knowing it’s probably my kid sister Cat, drunkenly texting me how much she fucking loves me and other sentiments after her night of barhopping, I take my time reading the message. When I sit up in my chair—a cushiony fake leather monstrosity that should be behind an attorney’s desk instead of at the gym, someone laughs at me.
“Good morning, Sunshine.”
Covering my yawn with a fist, I stretch my arms back and wave at Austin, a meathead who lifts weights here every morning before heading to work at the oil refinery down the road. He’s the only one here at this hour, but soon all the night shift nurses will arrive for their after work spin class. Those women are rock stars.
“I wasn’t snoring, was I?”
He drags a towel across his silky shaved head. “Nah, Sunshine, you sleep like a little angel.”
My phone buzzes again and then again a second later. The incoming texts aren’t misspelled lines of adoration from Cat. It’s a text from Nathan.
Hey Beautiful
Hope work is going well. I can’t sleep because I can’t stop thinking about you.
Love you!
My thumb types I love you too, and sends the reply. A knot forms in the center of my chest and I let out a sigh that turns into a yawn. A year ago I would have fal
len to pieces had he texted me something so sweet at such a random time when he should be sleeping. Now…it just feels like nothing. I used to pray that Nathan would ask me out when we met through mutual friends. And then he did, and life was awesome. What happened?
“What’s wrong, Sunshine?” Austin coos from across the gym. He racks his weights and heads over to the weight bench. “You look all sad and shit.”
“You don’t have to call me Sunshine all the time, you know.” I head to the coffee machine and shove my mug under the spout. “My name is Delaney.”
Austin leans back on the bench and begins shoulder presses. “I can’t help it, Sunshine. Maybe it’s that charming personality of yours.”
I flip him the middle finger while I sip from my coffee. “Hey now,” he says between bench presses. “Don’t go suggesting things you can’t fulfill.”
I roll my eyes and head back to the front desk to hide the red that rushes into my cheeks. Yeah okay. My life isn’t perfect. But I have a boyfriend who loves me, a round ass from doing squats during slow work hours, and my job may not be very glamorous, but it pays well for tiny Texas town of Mixon. I glance back at Austin and he gives me a wink, the veins in his biceps bulging with every press. Watching hot guys pump iron and talk smack to me all night isn’t exactly terrible working conditions. Maybe my life isn’t so bad after all.