I take a painful, burning breath, trying to inflate my lungs, that taste like fire.
Fuck it, 81, just grow a pair and push through it.
Pain is a mask for pleasure and your body knows this.
Fear sits heavy in my mind. My veins are pumping in my ears, as I try to clench my tight skin together.
Breathe in and out, in and out, in and out, that’s it. Now take a deep breath and open.
White walls smack me in the face. A white plastic bubble covers me and pain rips through my body. I am so stiff as my voice fights to be heard over the blood tasting rasp ripping up my throat.
My mind panics as images flash and flick over me attacking my quiet mind. The mind I have trained to forget. The mind that lives on routine and control, but it can’t hold back the haunted. Nor can it control the flames, crackling wood, the screams burning flesh and sorry eyes before the world went black.
Fuck me, the same fucking nightmare and feeling of hopeless as numbness slices at me night after night as my eyes close. Only to wake in the grip of silent panic. Pulling my body from the wet sheets, I stumble through the dark room to the bathroom flicking the light on. My eyes are wild as they snap to my reflection in the mirror. My pupils are dilated, my heart racing like I’ve had twenty lines of speed in one sitting. My brain’s on fire as the screams from my past grips at my subconsciousness.
Curling my fingers over the pristine white basin in my bathroom, my grip is tight like the nightmare that won't let go of my soul. No matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, the drugs I did, the drinking, all of what I shove inside my body and up my nose, the women I break it’s never enough. The moment my eyes close and my breathing hums to a constant rhythm, my senses ease andI no longer have control of my actions or the dark inside my brain,it comes out swooping like a hawk into the midst of a flock of doves. And I am left with this a fucking sweat-covered body and the images of a past bashing on the insides of my iris's to be saved.
Help me... Save me... Please…I hear it repeatedly. I see her each time I look in the mirror. Each mother fucking time that I shut my eyes, she sits behind them haunting me. That was one crazy ass kind of love that killed her and just about scraped me from this world. On nights like this I fucking wish it did. At least then my mind would be quiet and my cold heart still, not needing to seek out the devil to kiss a demon.
Walking from my bathroom I know just where I need to go. To the only place that keeps the itch at bay and the women in my iris calm. I slip quietly out of my room. The club has finally shut the fuck up after a night of insane partying. The main room of the club house is a fucking mess, there’s naked chicks scattered everywhere. I walk into the kitchen and grab a cup I need some coffee to help process what the fuck is going on in my head. She’s louder, more intense and its fucking with me.
“Where the hell did you disappear to yesterday?” Timberly spits out from behind me causing me to spill my coffee.
“What? Nowhere? Why?” I ask on edge and fucking irritated.
“Oh, I dunno. You ran from helping that beautiful lady scaring her half to death. I also might add pissing me off in the process and then…” Her hands snap to her hips and the beautiful angel is about to flip on my ass.
“Then, Ghost goes after your ass to only come back hours later stinking of liquor and weed. Thinking he’s King Kong and ok enough to come back here and party like its 1999!” Her eyes burn into mine.
“And then I have to come in here and drag his drunken ass home.”
Running my hand over the base of my neck I try to relieve some of the tension that is building up.
“Fuck, little lady, I didn’t even know he came back here. I got back late myself and I just grabbed a bottle or three and went straight to my room.”
“81, what the fuck is going on with you and Ghost? You aren’t ready for the club life just yet.”
Her lips press together in a stern line. Her cherry-red lip gloss shines in the moonlight that’s fading into a beautiful sunrise hitting her face through the window.
“Little lady, look, I feel like shit. I got some stuff going on and he, well that dick brought the Jager and weed so take that up with his ass.” Gulping the last mouthful or so from my cup, I place it in the sink.
“I don’t really give a shit about that, 81, it’s you I’m worried about and now him coming back here tasting like what this place has on tap 24\7.” Her tone is full of love for us both, concern dripping from each syllable. It annoys me that she’s so perfect, so beautiful. Too fucking good for the world, we live in.
“I’m all good, little lady. I’ll see you later. Tell boss man I’ll be in after.” Kissing her forehead breathing her in, I walk from the kitchen over the drunken passed out bitches and prospects to my bike. The sun is burning into my red, raw eyes. Squinting, I pull my sunglasses from my cut and straddle my bike. Me and the dead need to have a chat.
Chapter Four
81
Pulling into the cemetery the low rumble of my bike under me lulls the devil who sits on my shoulder. My breathing hitches in my chest as sweat beads over my skin. This place is for the good, the holy, not the devil dressed in sheep's clothing. That’s what I am, a mother fucking sheep hiding behind the fucking reaper who sits on my back and is tattooed over the scar from her in my heart.
“I’m feeling fucking unsteady, baby.” I breathe out into the early morning air. The birds are waking, and the fucking sun is kissing the moon good morning, her favorite time of day.
Now it haunts me, reminds me of all the fucking ifs and the maybes. She took so much in one callous act. Herself, our baby and me.
I died that day.
The day I woke up in a hospital bed and realized that she loved me too much and she let go.
