Falling for You

I exhale, feeling my whole body shake. News about Amanda and Bryson is going to spread like wildfire. I’m surprised it hasn’t gotten out yet. If there's any chance for Layla and me to make this work, she needs to hear what’s going on from me. That is, if I can get her to answer the phone. I lean the seat of my truck back, too beat to go into the house. Today’s been a nightmare, and I have a feeling things are only going to get worse.

“I don’t know.”

The paternity test came back. Bryson is my kid.

Bryson is still in the hospital.

The nurses say he’s going to be here for a while, but I had hoped to have him home for Christmas. Every day he’s there the bills grow. I don’t have insurance. Amanda had Medicaid, but I’m not sure how it all works since she passed. The woman from Child Protective Services said not to worry, that everything will work out, but I know better.

Doctors have co-pays.

Hospitals have stupid expensive co-pays.

I’m looking at thousands of dollars I don’t have, all to support a baby I wasn’t prepared for. I can’t even work over time because the way the ranch makes money is by selling cows and I only had one calf born this year.

On top of it all, Layla is still ignoring me. Her apartment has been cleaned out and rented to someone new and no one will give me the forwarding address. Not even her aunt, who made it more than clear she didn’t appreciate me showing up at the office unannounced.

I sag onto my worn leather couch and attempt to watch something on TV, but nothing holds my attention. I’m dog tired from working the ranch and then going to check on Bryson, but my mind won’t give me a minute’s peace.

Every time I close my eyes, I see her face. Her heart breaking over and over again. I don’t know if my memories are becoming clearer as time goes on or if my mind has started filling in the blanks with new micro-details about how that day went down, but it sucks. My nightmares, those are so intense I can’t sleep unless I black out.

Every breath hurts, every movement, even something as simple as getting out of bed in the morning, is a struggle. The guilt of how I treated Amanda before she died eats me alive, worrying about Bryson chips away at my soul, and any part of me that’s still kicking drowns, wondering about Layla and what could have been had I not been such a jerk. The only thing that helps numb the suckiness that has become my life is whiskey.

I grab the bottle of Jack on the end table. I have them everywhere. Not on purpose, they just seem to show up. Beside the toilet. In my bed. Under the table. It’s like I have a whiskey fairy, leaving me gifts until I finally give into temptation at the end of the night.

I take a swallow of the amber liquid, then chase it down with another and another until the pain in my chest doesn’t hurt quite as much. Eventually my eyes feel heavy. I close them, hoping I drift off into a dark hole of nothingness and not another nightmare about Layla moving on, but my sleep is interrupted by a banging.

I groan and open my eyes. There’s only one person I want to see and she doesn’t knock, let alone bang. No. She’d waltz in and make herself at home because that’s what this place was supposed to be. Her home.

Until I fucked it up.

“Dude.” Landon gives me a once over and frowns. I take a sip of the bottle the whiskey fairy placed in my hand, and his lips turn down further. “You look like shit.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” I turn, leaving the door behind me open, and fall back onto the couch. I close my eyes, knowing Landon is silently judging me for the overflowing trash, leftover takeout containers, and dirty dishes.

“Where the fuck have you been, man?” He slides a basket of laundry out of the recliner and takes its place.

He waits for me to respond. I wait for him to leave. One of us is going to lose. Chances are it’ll be me because I can only sit with my eyes closed for so long before Layla crosses my mind. I don’t want to think about her, so I open them and take another sip. “Busy.”

He grabs a sock from the basket and balls it up, then throws it at me. “Too busy for your friends?”

Too busy. Too tired. Too everything. I don’t have the energy to laugh and pretend like the world is all sunshine and rainbows. I’ve got a kid who’s bilirubin won’t level out and has been under blue lights for weeks, so I can’t touch him. A farm hand that’s getting pissed because my head isn’t in the game any more. An overbearing mother who says she’s worried about me. And a girlfriend who won’t call me back.

Ex-girlfriend.

“Josh!”

“What?” I yell, losing all control for the millionth time today. I don’t have highs anymore, just lows and reds. Reds that make me yell and lose my shit for no apparent reason. Sorry, old friends. “What do you want from me, Landon?”

Landon takes my attitude in stride. He doesn’t raise his voice, or even a hand at me. He crosses his arms, eyes narrowing into slits. “I want to know what is happening. This…” He gestures to the disaster that is me and my home. “This isn’t you, man.”

“I don’t know where to start.” I lift the bottle to my lips again, but it’s empty. Fucking Whiskey Fairy. “How about, Amanda is dead. She bled out or something. It’s all fuzzy to me, but she’s dead.”

“Sure that sucks, but I thought you didn’t like the woman.”

“That’s besides the point.” My hands shake. I haven’t told anyone besides Mom what’s going on. Maybe that’s why I’m so strung out. I need someone in my corner to remind me that I’ve got his and everything will be okay. Mom is great, but that’s her job. To tell me what I want to hear. “I found out the kid was mine the night I lost Layla. She kept pressuring me into a conversation I wasn’t ready to have and I snapped. I said shit I can’t take back and now she’s gone.”

Landon is quiet for a beat. He leans forward onto his elbows and sighs. “Tell me how I can help.”