This is going to be my nightmare.
2
Greer
NOW
“I’ll work on the discard list tonight. Are you all set in the children’s section for enrichment night?” My eyes watch as Melody turns her chair toward me.
Her curt look tells me I’ve asked her if she’s ready too many times, but I hate leaving her alone if she needs my help. She’s been my assistant for six months and hasn’t dropped the ball once, but there’s still time.
“I’m ready, and it’ll be fine. Go on the date. You’re not using me as an excuse.” Her blue eyes narrow at me over the rim of her thick-framed reading glasses before she returns to her computer screen.
“I wasn’t using you as an excuse…”
“You’re right because I wasn’t allowing it. Now, shoo. Go home and get ready.”
Snatching my bag a bit aggressively, I turn and grab my water bottle. “Fine. But please call me if you need me.”
“I won’t. I’ll call Bill.”
“Bill doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground,” I argue.
“You hired him.”
“You’re a snarky little shit, you know that?!”
“You also hired me. You’re zero for two.” She turns, and her shit-eating grin lights up her pudgy, twenty-year-old face. “Goodnight. Have fun! Drink one for me!”
The comment hits me dead center, and I freeze. “I don’t drink.”
It comes out rather cold, and Melody’s brows knit together.
“Okayyyy.”
“Sorry. I just…” I sigh. “I’m leaving now.”
The winding Georgia roads lead me back to my place through the woods. I go slow, and my grip on the wheel is intense. Ever since that night, I have remained alert. The radio is off, and my phone is silent. It doesn’t make up for what I did, but ensures it won’t happen again.
I haven’t drank outside of my house since the accident.
For months after, I fought with myself in an inner war that nearly ate me alive. I wanted to tell someone, but couldn’t take Allison down with me. Her livelihood was on the line, too.
I lost weight, nearly lost my job, and I almost dropped out of school altogether, thinking myself unworthy of the opportunity.
I don’t remember exactly what happened, but one day I woke up and decided not to squander the life I still had. So I chose to live in the man’s honor, no matter how dark that sounded, being that I killed him.
I swallow as I pull up to my modest home. The only neighbors are a field of cows off to the left and the ranch house opposite the field. I’m thirty minutes outside of Columbus, and there’s nothing but solitude and Georgia clay to keep me company.
Going through the motions, I get inside, shower, and get ready quickly before heading back to my car.
Allison set me up on yet another blind date, and even though I had high hopes the first time she did this, I no longer do.
I go so that she’s appeased, but I’m still too plagued by self-loathing to get out of my own way.
I enter the address to a small bar and grill on Broadway, The Loft, and buckle my seatbelt.
Before I know it, the silent drive through the pines and oaks bleeds into the bustle of the city, and I find myself calming down a bit. The town, I can do.
