Losing Track (Living Heartwood 2)

“This is bullshit,” he shouts. “Fine. Go off and fuck him. Just another douchebag I have to wait out until you’re through with, huh?”

I feel Melody tense in my arms. I keep us moving.

“Maybe I should’ve fucked Darla that night!” Jesse says.

And Mel hurls around, breaking free of my arms. Her face is pinched and red, and I just grasp her around the waist, stopping her attack. But her words try to assault anyway. She’s seething threats and insults, but they’re muffled below her fight.

I groan, and before she says or does something she’ll regret, I step in for her and take the lead.

Her last recognizable words: “Oh, shit,” before I’m on top of Jesse. Dropping fists.

Melody

Shiny metallic, tangy and wet

“OH, SHIT.”

My knees are wobbly, my legs liquid. I try to reach for Boone as he quickly deposits me on the pavement, my butt hitting the ground hard on my own account, but he’s taking off toward Jesse before I can get a firm grasp.

The streetlamps streak across my vision, multicolored tracers leaving a blur of trails. I swat at the air, trying to move them out of my line of sight. I can’t let this happen; Boone and Jesse fighting. It’s my fight, not Boone’s.

But I’m suspended, unable to move. My stomach bottoms out as I hear the sick crunch of fist meeting face.

I shake my head. More tracers. Crawling on my hands and knees, I focus on Boone’s black boots stomping the ground, follow his lead. Slowly. I can tell the gravel is grinding into my knees, my palms, but it’s such a distant sensation, like it’s happening to someone else. I’m feeling their residual pain.

Two bodies connect. A thud, a smack. The figures are two dark objects colliding. I squint. Boone has Jesse by the vest collar. He’s backing him up against the brick building. Shouting.

Jesse asked Tank to “let him handle it”—but Tank could change his mind any second. The MC tearing into Boone to protect their own. My anxiety ramps.

We need to leave.

Working my voice up through my chest, I hear a low buzz in my vocal chords. Then, “Stop!” I think it’s loud enough. And suddenly the nausea pulls me under.

I roll onto my side, tears sliding down my cheeks. I haven’t done crank in ages. Like a year or more. I can’t remember ever feeling this horrible. But I wasn’t ever this drunk when I did, and I was always happy…before. You can’t do this shit when you’re already off. When you’re thinking too much about bad shit. It fucks with you.

Jesse offered the hit; one small line. And I put my head to the bathroom counter and snorted. Like old times—just to try to find that connection with him; that blissful moment when Dar was still alive, and we were all together. But it went wrong. Jesse groping me, wanting to be with me, trying to move past that one second when everything changed. Make me forget. It won’t work, though. Ever. Him losing himself in me won’t erase her.

“Mel.”

The voice is a distorted echoing of sounds. But it’s my name. I blink my eyes open. Center my doubling vision on Boone’s concern-etched face.

“I’m ready,” I mumble, hoping he understands. I want to leave. Get him away from here. Just get out of here and into my bed. Funny, that I have a bed I call mine. My head starts to drift, other thoughts clouding and fuzzy, as Boone picks me up. His arms cradle me to his chest.

Inching my chin upward, I lay it on his shoulder and peek back at Jesse. He’s sitting on the sidewalk, his hands fisted in his hair, head aimed down between his parted knees. The ache takes over my whole body, stemming from my chest and radiating out to every limb. A blind ache, disorienting.

I know, I know. Damn, do I know, that what happened to Dar that night—it wasn’t his fault. But this fucking pain has to have an outlet. Jesse triggered all the rage when he touched me, like nothing had changed between us. But everything has changed.

It won’t ever be the same.

By the time Boone’s bobber rumbles into my apartment parking lot, the crank has dropped. It’s no longer the early sketchy phase, where I want to tear at my hair, scratch at my skin. Usually, that part doesn’t last long, because I know the deal, it passes quickly. The anticipation for the ultimate high makes it just the build-up to the next phase.

But I know in my muddled brain that the sheer amount of alcohol I consumed first did not mix well, and that first half hour was like something out of a bad trip. Now, alcohol burning out of my system, the line of crank traveling through my bloodstream, the euphoria is finally taking effect.

There’s a tiny niggle of guilt, some worry, that I’m going to pop on my next drug test. That I could be sent back to Stoney, or worse. But I push that thought so far back in my mind, it’s only a tiny, annoying whisper. I don’t want to think about it now—to waste this fleeting moment of happiness.

Boone lowers the kickstand and sets his bike on its side, then runs his hands along my arms. He made me sit in front of him, like a freaking kid. Because he didn’t think I could manage on my own. Like really, I’ve never ridden on a bike fucked up before. This is not my first rodeo. But whatever. If it got me to my apartment where I could relax, so be it.

“You feel okay?” he asks.