The Love Sucks Club
Chapter One
A storm is rocking my windows as I claw my way out of sleep. An invisible hand wraps around me, squeezing all of the air out of my body. Clutching the side of the bed, I pull as much air into my lungs as I can. It’s not enough. Heart pounding, I drag myself to a sitting position, arching my back to make more room in my chest. With one hand pressed against my heart, I force another deep breath. The pain in my jaw moves down the left side of my neck and into my left arm. Concentrating, I focus on making myself breathe steadily. The shadow voice from the dark place in my mind is convinced that I’m having a heart attack. My rational voice diagnoses a panic attack. It’s been years since I’ve had one. Even when I was trying to extricate myself from my last shitty relationship, I was able to keep the anxiety at bay for the most part. Now suddenly, out of nowhere, I’m either having a panic attack or a heart attack and I’m torn about whether to call 911 or just try to breathe through it.
Several minutes of deep breathing dulls the panic enough to let me stand up. Stumbling into the kitchen, I stick my head under the faucet and let the cold water run over my head. The coolness brings me back to the real world and my heart slows down. Afternoon naps always seem like a good idea when I think of them, but sleeping in the heat always seems to give me nightmares. It isn’t even storming. The sun is shining, as usual, and the day looks balmy. It seemed so real, but a glance out the window assures me that the ground is completely dry. It must have been part of my dreams.
Staring at the wall, I cast my mind back, searching for the memory of the nightmare. I’m not sure what I was dreaming, but I think Annabelle might have been part of it. I think I’ve survived as long as I have by avoiding thoughts of Annabelle. I lean back against the counter, opening a bottle of water. A few sips brings my head back to normal. I glance at my computer, debating whether to try to get some work done. Fuck it. I can’t stay here all afternoon; I’ll go crazy. Dropping a quick text to my buddy, Sam, I head down the hill to mingle with the general population at The Grill.
We have a small population and after a while, everyone starts to look and act exactly the same. There are really only three kinds of ex-patriots on this island. There are the drinkers; the ones who consider themselves on permanent vacation. My ex-lover falls into that category. I met her right after I moved to the island. Despite having come here to be alone, I was miserable and lonely. I had bought and moved into my awesome house, but I felt so alone there. My ex was a bright light. She seemed fun and full of life, but without the deeply imbedded craziness that came from Fran. For a time, our relationship was actually kind of blissful. I was new to the island and living it up. After all, the weather is amazing and the Caribbean water is clear and warm. My ex was fun while we were dating, but she moved in with me way too quickly. Once we were living together, the partying got to be too much. I mean, she fell into drinking her first beer at breakfast and doing shots at lunch, and I found myself in the ridiculous role of the harpy. I mean, I was constantly counting how many shots she drank and anticipating when she would either fall into alcohol-induced hypoglycemic tremors or pass out. My best friend Sam and I would sit together, watching her get drunk. Eventually, she would launch into a slurred argument with someone at the bar about how much more she knew about whatever the subject was than the other person did and it was time to herd her out to the car and get her home.
The drinkers on this island are a pretty tight group, as long as they are drinking together. My ex has plenty of people she calls friends. That is, she has a lot of people who will sit at the bar and get drunk with her or come over to her apartment and get drunk with her, but no one who will just pick her up and take her to K-mart or go for a picnic on the beach. The drinkers are on permanent vacation. They work as many hours as they have to in order to keep themselves in booze, which is, fortunately for them, extremely cheap on this island. They meet up in the various bars along the beach and they spent long hours drinking and laughing and clinking glasses together and buying shots and talking shit about whoever passes out first.
The other group on this island is the water people. They’re generally athletic. They came for the diving and the snorkeling and the beach time. They tend to be younger than I am and extremely fit. They may also overlap into the drinker’s group from time to time, but they spend the bulk of the time on the water, so drinking is a secondary activity for them.
The third group is the outcasts. They may all be here for different reasons, but the basic feeling is the same. They lost someone, or they’re hiding from something, or they somehow fucked up their real lives so badly that moving to a barely populated island in the middle of the Caribbean somehow seemed like the only option left. Some of them have money and some of them are flat broke. They can be young or old. Most of them are white and male. Really the only common denominator is a pervading sense of gloom underlying the forced hilarity that comes when an unhappy person moves to an extremely beautiful place.