I haven’t.
Not really. I lie on my bed and every creak and rattle in the walls, every breath of wind, keeps me awake until the morning, when I run and run and run. From Jack, from Sol. FromVinniewho won’t shut the fuck up when I have nothing to do but miss him. I run until I taste metal in my mouth or my heart feels like it might explode. Sometimes both. And only then do I find myself a catnap on the couch.
It’s fucked-up, and I know it. And I knowwhy. I’ve been a soldier a long time and this shit is textbook. And so’s my reaction to it. But knowledge isn’t always power and I can’t stop it happening. I don’t even try.
I roll through the flat and into a room that already feels like a prison cell. Folk Whitlock doesn’t look much like the bikers I remember from back in the day, but I already envy the freedom of him roaring off on that Harley, the wind in his face, the open road in front of him, even if it leads nowhere but a town as shit as this one.
It’s a stupid fucking analogy. I stretch out on my bed, trying not to imagine my heart pounding louder in the dark. The wind I crave whistles through the open window, but it’s not enough. My skin tingles and my eyes sting. My limbs, though they ache with exhaustion, they itch to move, toburn, like my blood when I’m around Skylar.
The wall between us seems to taunt me. It’s a battle to remember a whole bathroom separates us too. That I can’t reach out and touch him, as if it’s a normal thing to imagine he’s lying on this big bed beside me. Thatanyoneis, when before I came here, I hadn’t slept in a real bed in an actual home in…
Fuck, I don’t know how long, and I start to get up. Stop myself and lie back down.
Think about something else.
Not war.
Not Vinnie.
Not the organ in my chest that obliterated my life and his.
“Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
I bring my fist to my heart, pushing my knuckles against it. Like Jack does to his eye. Understanding sweeps through me, and I find myself wishing he was here to knock my hand as I inflict bruising pain on myself, all the while thankful he’s not.
A door opens.
Skylar’s.
I hear the bathroom door creak and a tap turn on. It seems to run forever, then I realise it’s stopped and I haven’t noticed. That I don’t know if he’s still there and stopping myself getting up and finding out is the struggle of my fucking life.
This week, at least.
Still. I’m not punching a hole through my chest anymore. I close my eyes, not asleep, but eventually, not truly awake either. It’s dawn when I open them again.
I emerge from my room in the early morning light and rescue my shoes from the bathroom. Lace them up on the roof, the sun warm on the back of my neck, and then Igo.My feet hit the ground and I run, chasing the noise out of my head, looping the town twice before following the sea wall to the beach and hitting the empty sand, ditching my shoes for bare feet.
It feels so fucking good—the air in my lungs, the quiet that only comes from true peace, not circumstance. My body feels like my own, like there isn’t a ticking time bomb buried inside me, life and death so entwined I don’t know how to separate them. Like my fucked-up heart works and I won’t have to slow down—tostop—when the exertion leaves me dizzier than I was on the roof.
Doesn’t have to be that way.
Vinnie returns with a vengeance. But for whatever reason, this morning, I’m in the mood to listen.
I run out of beach, and instead of driving on to the pavement that runs out of town, I ease to a walk, and then stop, hands on my thighs, breathing deep and even, forcing calm on myself, despite the fear it’ll scare him away. I hate that I only hear him when I’m fucking shit up.
Where are you on my good days, bro?
Have some and you’ll find out.
Nice.
But it makes me smile, even as I contemplate the sandy walk back to the Joker. The sandy walkhome.
I stop.
Force myself into motion again and before I know it, I’m there and too tempted by a flash of blond hair to dodge the open back door.
I slip inside at the same moment Skylar steps into the narrow corridor, setting us on a collision course I lack the willpower to avoid. He’s come up from the cellar, a t-shirt tossed over his shoulder, as much sweat licking his skin as coats mine.
