I’m in love with Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey. Who knew that a bottle of this cinnamon tasting elixir could fix everything? Luckily, I found my uncle’s stash in the shed. This boy has now run more Fireball through his veins than blood and I’m loving it. My vision is a bit blurry, but the world has been a bit bleak lately anyway.
I blink, staring into the fire as I sit on the boating deck, my neck bobbing slowly from side to side since it seems to be a bit hard to keep my head up.
I better not fall in because I’m pretty sure I’m in no condition to swim right now. Though, that might be a cheaper solution than ordering a crate of Fireball to last me.
“Okay, that’s enough.” The bottle sitting in my hand gets yanked roughly out of my hand.
“Hey!” I whine, doing my best to bring my head up.
“Look at you. You look like a fucking idiot.” Jensen gives me a look of contempt, and I snort at his funny scowl.
“Oh, yay! We can be twins!” I blink, wondering why more Jensens seem to appear in my line of sight. “Wait, you are already twins. Boehoe, Jensen!”
“Shut up, you moron. When are you going to get your shit together?”
“I don’t know what that means,” I titter. I haven’t felt like I had my shit together in weeks, but I feel perfectly fine right now.
“It means you should stop feeling sorry for yourself and call Kayla.”
“What? Nooooo,” I drag out the word, doing something like waving my hand in the air to brush away whatever he’s saying. By the mention of her name, her face flies through my mind and my heart fills with something good.
“Oh, Kayla, Kayla, Kayla.” I smile. “I miss her smile.” Like a dodo, I look up at the sky, my lips lifting like they are held up with rope. “And her eyes. She has such pretty eyes. When I look at her, it’s like diving into a clear water lake.”
“Yeah, such a shame you don’t love her.”
“Oh, I do,” I confess, unable to detect his sarcasm in the state I’m in right now. “I just can’t tell her. Sssh.”
His eyes widen.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I whisper.
“And here I thought you were the smart one. You’re the one calling me out on my shit. Not the other way around.”
“I am the smart one!” I say with big gestures, waggling in my chair. “That’s why we can’t tell her!” My head starts to spin, and I let it fall forward.
“Are you okay?” Jensen’s voice is laced with worry, and I feel his hand on my back.
“Fine,” I huff, snapping my head back up. “Oh, no. I’m not.” Before the last letter leaves my throat, my dinner lands between my feet. My stomach cramps in agony as I keep hurling like I just drank acid. I keep hunched forward, my throat gagging until there is no more bile left in my stomach, and I sit up with my eyes closed.
Oh, no. Don’t close your eyes, Bodi.The world spins around like one of those damn carnival rides I hate. And Kayla loves.
“Fuck!” I roar, keeping my eyes focused on the stars above me to keep me from falling from my chair. “Fuck!”
“Okay, come on. Let’s get you away from the water because you’re freaking me out with your swinging and swaying.”
“I’m not going to fall.” I slap his arm away.
“You better not because you’re a grown ass man and I won’t be able to pull you out.”
“You suck,” I blurt, even though I don’t know why.
“I’m going to let that one slide for now. Get your drunk ass off.”
He pulls me to my feet. I growl at him, but he ignores me, guiding me back to the porch, away from the water. He pushes me to the porch steps and I rest my head against the post.
“Stay here. I’m going to get you some coffee to sober you up. Stay quiet before you wake up your uncle.”
I barely acknowledge him, but when I hear him walk back into the house, Kayla still runs through my mind. Now that I threw up all of the contents in my body, the man with the hammer seems to hit me in the face and the pain rushes back in. But this time, I can’t push it back, literally being too drunk to control anything. Impulsive as this Fireball shit makes me, I pull out my phone, dialing the one number I’ve been dying to dial for weeks now.
I close my eyes with my phone pressed against my ear, the dial tone acting like a lullaby as I think about my girl. I miss her. I miss her so fucking much, it’s unbearable. It’s hell to get up in the morning. My eyes water, but this time my hand feels too heavy to brush away the tears. For weeks, I’d rather be sleeping than be awake, because at least living in my dreams is still tolerable. At least in my dreams she’s still there.
“Bodi?” If I was sober, I’d probably hear how her voice is all sleepy and gruff, but right now I just hear her voice and it’s enough to jolt my heart alive with excitement.
“Hey, baby.”
”Is everything okay? It’s the middle of the night.”
“I miss you.” I stumble over the words and I hear her sigh. “You’re mad at me.”
“Of course, I’m mad at you, Bodi.”
“I know. I screwed up. But I miss you.” My sudden bravery scares me, wanting to shut myself up, but I can’t. “I’m dying.” I start to sob, holding my forehead in my hand.
“What are you doing?” Before I can turn my head around, Jensen rips my phone out of my hand.
“Jensen! I need to talk to her, dammit! Give me the phone!” I try to get up, but I fall over my own feet before I land on the grass face first.
“Fucking hell, Bodi.”
I roll over, crying at the sky while I keep chanting her name like I’m possessed. Because that’s how it feels and it’s tearing me apart. Eating me up from the inside like a parasite I can’t get rid of. I’m merely a shell without her.
“I’m sorry, Keeks,” I hear Jensen mumble through the phone. “Yeah, he’s alright.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Or at least, he will be,” he continues. “I’ll take care of him. I don’t know. I’ll ask him to call you tomorrow. Yeah. Sorry.”
I close my eyes, sucking in a deep breath of the brisk air of the night before doing it again. The cold gives me chills, but in a good way. Maybe it will give me some clarity, because my mind is all over the place. I rest my hands on top of my stomach, the tears still tainting my cheeks. Slowly, my consciousness simmers away, drifting me off in a dreamless sleep under the star filled sky. It’s deep and heavy, sucking me in like a vacuum, but it feels better than the uncontrollable state I was in when I was awake.
I lie there for I don’t know how long, but it can’t be more than a few minutes because the sky looks exactly the same when Jensen’s foot jerks me awake.
I squint my eyes open and he’s peering down at me, his hands on his sides and a scowl in place.
“You really lost your mind, haven’t you?”
“Pfft, I wish.”
“Get up, Bodi.”
“I can’t.” I roll to my side, placing my palms between my neck and my cheek before I close my eyes again. “Just leave me alone.”
I hear him mutter some words, but luckily for me, the vacuum is strong, sucking me right back to the oblivious state he pulled me out of.