Stone Cold - Ashby Crime Family

It was like the universe conspired to make sure that each and every single time I saw Calvin, I’d be at my absolute worst. That was why I perched myself on a closed toilet and locked the bathroom stall at the club. I was hiding out. Like a coward.

Which I was.

I pulled out my cheap phone and checked in with social media. All of my friends, former friends I should say, were living the lives of college graduates. New lives, new cities, new jobs and new experiences.

“Yeah, well I have a whole new life too.”

Slurring pathetically at my cell phone wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of those words, but they were true all the same.

I had a new life. New and unexpected. No family to lean on and only a piece of paper to show that I’d actually accomplished anything in my short life. Yep, it was new all right.

Speaking of new, a voice mail icon appeared and I grinned, hopeful one of the interviews this week would reach out with a job offer.

“Really Bonnie? You applied to work at the Bishop’s Museum? After what you’ve caused?” My father’s voice was brusque and filled with anger and disappointment. “Your mother and I are so disappointed in you. Have you no shame? Do you know how embarrassing it is to have to ask them for a way to reach our own daughter?”

The drunken version of me wanted to point out that he was the one who’d cut off my phone service. Instead, I clenched my jaws. And listened.

“And now with the murder of another priest, it’s just reminding everyone of your…predicament. Just lay low. Please. And stay safe.”

Those last words, spoken so softly and with so much emotion forced a tear out the corner of my eye. And those words told me two important things I hoped would help me going forward.

First, kicking me out had been my mother’s idea not my father’s. Second, they had a way to reach out to me if they wanted to.

If. They. Wanted. To.

They hadn’t. I’d been arrested and accused of murder but still they hadn’t seen fit to come home. To come to my aid. Now I was ruined, no longer useful in their climb to the top of the Catholic society ladder. So no longer useful, period.

The pain started deep in my chest and ground into the pit of my stomach. I slammed my eyes shut against the force of the pain, the way it knocked the breath out of me. Not now, I told myself with a finality I didn’t yet feel. “Whatever. What. Ever.”

I found a pill in the bottom of my handbag. I’d gotten it from a new source and swallowed it dry before swiping away the tears caused by the reminder of my parents’ abandonment.

I couldn’t focus on them, not while trying to piece my life back together. I had to forget about my parents and my old life. I had a new life to create, a new future to craft, and I had no clue what that would look like. I cleaned myself up at the sink as best I could and returned to the club, pushing up to the bar for another drink.

If I drank enough, the pill would push the pain away and the alcohol would make me completely forget.

Through the mirror behind the bar, I could watch Calvin as he talked with his mysterious contact, a guy who looked a lot like a fellow computer geek. Only where Cal wore checkered shirts and jeans to complete his trendy but super nerdy lumberjack look, the other guy wore a Star Wars t-shirt and jeans. Expensive but casual. They looked like two colleagues meeting for Happy Hour cocktails, until you looked closer at their serious expressions and the way they both looked up occasionally and scanned the room as though danger might be afoot.

Eventually my thoughts moved past Calvin and my parents, past what was going on around me inside the club. Past all the crap weighing me down and I let a blissful numbness settle into my veins. My bones. That heavy, crushing weight disappeared, and I felt my lips smile on their own for the first time in weeks. My body was light as a feather. I felt I might float away at any moment, and I welcomed the sensation.

Even through the fog of inebriation, Squeaker’s thinly veiled threat lingered in my mind. I owed him money, enough that he wouldn’t just forget about it anytime soon. Enough that things would get ugly if I didn’t pay up. I would. I just had to figure out how to pay him without sacrificing my whole savings.

After one more drink, not even the wrath of a cranky dealer seemed like a big deal.

“Want a ride home?” Cal’s deep voice broke through my jumbled thoughts, and I gave myself a moment before looking up at him.