31
JASON
Two months later
“Get these fucking glasses of the counter. God damn it, Patrick, how can you work with all this shit around?”
“You better calm down, alright?”
“Just get to work!”
“You are too agitated. If you don’t calm down, I’m going to send you flying.”
I give him the finger and head to the back room of the pub. I am so worked up that I could start punching walls. I sit on a stool and watch my hands shaking mercilessly as my anxiety continues to surge in my stomach, putting it to the test.
I can’t go on like this. I’m not going to last very long.
“Hey, Jay, you’re here,” Rain says, popping her head around the door. “Could you come here for a second? We need you.”
“What the fuck is wrong now? Can’t I take a break?”
Rain steps backwards with frightened eyes. I breathe in slowly, trying to calm myself down. I can’t attack her like that. I can’t be this way with anyone.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry. I’ll be there in a minute.”
“O-okay,” she says, not convinced.
I take a few more yoga breaths and go back there for this stupid night that seems like it’s been going on for ten years.
Work. That’s what I need. Keep myself busy, find something to make sense of it because even opening my eyes seems like an incredible effort right now.
I go to the other side of the counter and start putting away the mess Patrick has made, swearing at him for breaking my balls like this.
One day I’m going to break his head for real.
I stop myself for a second to breathe and get some control back before returning to work when two cold hands cover my eyes.
I’m dead and I’m in paradise or whatever the fuck you want to say.
Her scent hits me full on and the anxiety I had a second ago melts away like a broken spell, together with my heart, that starts beating furiously. God, I pray, don’t let it be another one of my dreams that have been plaguing me for these last two months.
I turn slowly without touching her hands, which slide away the second I find myself in front of her.
There she is, back as large as life to slap me around some more, telling me that nothing is over, then she shakes me by the shoulders and gives me another chance.
With her.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“So that’s how you’re going to greet me?”
I put my hands on her waist because I’m scared to touch her. I’m terrified by her presence. Now that I’ve discovered what it means to love her, I shake every time at the thought that death could tear her away from me.
“Hello, love.”
Her color is better. She isn’t well. Listening to her doctors, she never will be. But she is alive, here, in front of me.
That’s all that matters.
