I loved Bradley, and I knew he loved me, too. But I couldn’t deny that things were different these days. When was the last time I’d gotten giddy when he talked to me? When was the last time his laugh made my toes curl and my body heat? When was the last time he chose me over work, friends, alcohol, or his personal time?
Desperate to prove my spiraling mind wrong, I called Bradley. It was already past one in the morning—shit, I couldn’t believe Dante and I had talked so long—but I needed to call him. I needed to remind myself that Bradley was the one for me.
“Hello?”
My eyes widened in shock. I couldn’t believe he’d answered. Plastering on a smile he couldn’t see, I replied, “Hey. What are you doing?”
“Playing my video game. Why?”
The sound of some shooter game filled the background. I held my phone in one hand and toyed with Gilbert’s little ear in the other. “I just missed you. I thought we could, you know, talk.”
He fell silent for a moment so that all I could hear was the rapid sound of gunshots and the clicking of his gaming controller. When he spoke, there was no missing the sound of his confusion. “I’m playing my game, Dollface. This is me time before I go to bed.”
The tightness in my chest cracked with fresh hurt. My feet continued their mindless tapping against the bed as I swallowed down my feelings to sound normal. “We never talk on the phone, though. I thought we could talk and—”
“Fuck!” he roared, the sound of his controller slamming onto the coffee table filling the phone speaker. I could just picture him scrubbing his hands angrily through his red hair andtugging at the roots. “There goes my fucking win streak. Thanks a lot, Serenity.”
My mouth dried, and I snapped my lips closed. My heart pounded, but it wasn’t for the same reason as when I’d spoken to Dante. Dread gripped me instead, knowing the unwarranted anger that was headed in my direction.
“Oh, what?” Bradley griped. “Now that I’m able to talk, you don’t want to? You just want to run your mouth when I’m literally in the middle of a fucking game?”
My throat closed up, and tears pricked my eyes. I couldn’t swallow past the lump that strangled me, too afraid of making him angrier. Though, in the back of my mind, I knew this wasn’t Bradley talking. Sure, he could get pissy, but this level of anger was something else—something that only became a problem in recent years.
“Are you drinking?” I barely managed to ask.
“What are you? My fucking mother? I’m allowed to drink on Saturdays in my own fucking apartment, Serenity.”
Tapping my foot was no longer enough. I began picking at my thumb to the same tempo of my frantic foottapping. “Please stop drinking. You know I don’t like how you get when you’re drunk.”
“And you knowIdon’t like you telling me what to fucking do like some clingy, controlling bitch. You’re so lucky I put up with your shit. No one else would even give you the time of day with your batshit crazy personality.”
The insults speared me with their icy barbs, and with each one, numbness began to spread. My face went blank, and I stared across the room, unseeing and unblinking. The crevice of pain opened wide in my chest, and the darkness lurking within funnelled out to grip me tightly and pull me into its deep, endless void.
“Goodnight, Bradley,” I said flatly.
I hung up before he could spit more drunken poison at me. Not that it would matter if he did. The darkness had already claimed me. The numbness had already settled over me like a heavy blanket. I stared at my ceiling, letting the cold clutches wrap their icy claws around my mind. My foot tapping stopped, and my fingers went still. Everything inside of me froze over until all I felt was the burn of an old wound, calling to me, trying to lure me with the temptation of its warmth. It could clear away the fog. It would only cost a moment of pain before it set me free from all the loneliness and hopelessness consuming me.
I finally closed my eyes and gripped my wrist before holding it close to my chest. A single tear slid down my cheek. If only that drop could take the pain with it.
Chapter 8
Serenity
I STARED OUT THE WINDOW as Bradley and I drove to the property of our newest client. The sun hid behind gray clouds, which held the promise of snow, and I couldn’t help but acknowledge I felt the same way—heavy, dark, cold. Mondays were never easy.
Mondays were a reminder that I still wasn’t a full-time author.
Mondays meant a new, long week of a job I hated.
Mondays meant another small piece of myself died from the inability to do what I loved.
I wondered what would happen when that last piece finally broke off.
But this Monday was even harder than normal. Bradley and I hadn’t spoken since Saturday night when he’d been drunk. Tension simmered between us like thick smoke. He was too proud to apologize—if he even remembered everything he’d said—and I was too much of a coward to poke the beast.
So in bitter silence we sat.
I’m sure this afternoon’s client is going tolovebeing around us.
