“Yeah, I stole it. I can be badass. I’m not the sweet, innocent girl you think I am.”
I stared at her until she turned her head.
“Okay, I left the money on the cash register downstairs.”
I laughed. A man can only be so strong and, with her eager face turned to me, that glow in her eyes healing my hurts, I couldn’t turn her away. And she was right, I did owe her an explanation.
“Come on then,” I said.
We walked to the riverfront and found a quiet spot. Boats of partygoers floated by, lit up in bright colors with music drifting across the water. Really awful music. The kind of ugly pop that gets stuck in your head. Across the river, the Ferris wheel glowed in the night.
“So, what do you want to know?”
“You can start with the injury,” she said. She twisted the top off the bottle and took a swig. Wiping her mouth, she handed it to me.
“The nerves in my arm were cut,” I said. I rolled back my shirt sleeve and showed her the ugly white scar. “I have nerve damage and I’ll never play guitar again. I’ll never do much with this hand. I can’t hold a glass, I can’t tie my shoes and I’ll never be able to fully make love to a woman. Not with all the extras.”
She nodded. The basics of the story were common knowledge. How that happened was a story I didn’t want to tell her, and I hoped she didn’t ask.
“There’s nothing that can be done about it?”
I stared at the boats. “Not really.”
“Not really? So, there is something?”
She picked up on that far too easy. I’d have to be careful. I took another swig of the whiskey before handing her the bottle.
“There’s an operation but the odds of it being successful are slim. It’d be months and months of recovery, probably for nothing.”
She picked at the label on the bottle, trying to pry away an edge. The tinny music faded in and out of our hearing.
“And what about me, Jackson?”
“You deserve better. You deserve someone who is fully functional. It’s not just the arm, it’s my whole life. I drink too much, I don’t give a damn about anything and I’m not much of a man.”
“Do you have depression?” she asked.
I snorted. Depression? Hardly. That was something spoilt kids got. I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t mopey. Why would she even think that?
Then I made the connection. The scars.
“I didn’t try to kill myself, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I’d thought about it a few times since but I wasn’t divulging that much about myself. I’d had a few people look at the scars on my arm and give me that look. I tried to keep them covered most of the time.
She turned to me. “What if I said I didn’t care? I don’t wa
nt anyone else.”
“It’s not that I don’t like you. I do, Gina, trust me, I do”
“No, you just don’t like yourself.”
That was true facts. I really didn’t like myself. I was a weak man. I’d squandered what I’d been given in this life. I ruined the things I had. I’d ruin her too. That light that shone in her eyes would dim and go out. She’d waste the best part of her life with nothing to show for it. In time, in two years, maybe five at the best, she’d realize that I’d been right and she should just run.
We sat for a while in silence, watching the lights on the water. I had no idea what to say to her, how to tell her that my heart beat faster when she was near and her smile lifted my day.
“Why did you leave when they played that song? It was your song, wasn’t it? But you hate it now.”
“I hate it now — and that’s a story that would take more than a bottle of whiskey.” Just a song but enough to swill up all the bitterness that lay on the bottom of my stomach.