Whiskey Lullaby(2)

The bartender placed my second drink in front of me. I grabbed it and gulped it down. Has it really been over a year since she forced us from lovers to strangers?

I had a third drink—drown your sorrows, right? – then I headed to the crowded terminal to wait for my flight, ignoring the stares, the whispers, the flashes from cameras. I stared at that damn picture still pulled up on my phone. I thought about her at least once a day. Maybe that was pathetic, but some things you just can’t help. And I couldn’t forget her, even if her memory only reminded me of the person I once believed I was.

The person she taught me I wasn’t.

I really wasn’t…







After a two-hour flight filled with turbulence and a screaming kid, I stepped into my house.

There were no greetings. No warm smiles, because no one was there. When I was on tour, I was surrounded by people and noise. But not there. There I was nobody.

I tossed my keys onto the entrance table and rummaged through the stack of mail the housekeeper left by the lamp. Bill. Junk mail. Junk mail. A heavy manila envelope laid at the bottom of the stack, and when I turned it over, my heart kicked up a notch. H. Blake. No return address. Just her name.

An uneasy heat spread over my body. Fate was really trying to do a mindfuck on me that day. Jesus, I needed a beer. I made my way through the foyer and the formal living room that had never been used, through the dining room with the table that seated fourteen people—again never used—and I walked into the kitchen. I threw the letter down on the counter and grabbed a beer from the wine cooler, then popped the top and took a sip, my eyes locked on that damn envelope the entire time. Why now? It was all I could think when I picked it back up. I’m not sure why, but I ran my fingers over her name. Maybe because that was the closest I had come to touching her in so long, and as much as I wanted to pretend I didn’t give a shit about what happened, it bothered me.

I hated how things ended between us.

I always would.

My palms were slicked with sweat when I tore the envelope open. I thumbed through the handwritten pages, and the faint scent of amber and jasmine lifted into the air. Come on, Hannah. Did you really spray the pages with your perfume? Amber and Jasmine—Alien…Hannah’s the only person I’ve ever known to wear that. I used to stop in the mall and spray a sample of it on one of those little cards just to remember. I brought them to my nose and inhaled, and my eyes slammed shut. It was such a subtle way of forcing me to remember her. A brutal way, and it cut me to the bone, because I lost her. My chest grew tighter with each breath, like a boa constrictor wrapping around my heart. I didn’t know whether to scream or cry or just… I closed my eyes and breathed her scent in again. My stomach knotted.

I lost all of this.

I lost everything I knew I never deserved but almost had. And I couldn’t take that reminder. I walked to the garbage can and held the bundle of letters over the top. Hannah was in the past, and that’s where those emotions, those memories—the person I was with her –needed to stay. Before I tossed them, I caught one line that caused my heart to bang ceremoniously in my chest: I was only weak because I loved you. A dizzy heat all but drowned me.

Damn!

And just like that —like the proverbial damn bursting— everything rushed to the surface. As much as I knew it would hurt, I just needed to know. I wanted to believe I meant something to her, that there was something salvageable there. A love like that, it was something you either die from or ignore.

And how could I ignore it now? I couldn’t, so I glanced down at her letter:



Noah,

We were friends. Lovers. Soulmates… and very horrible people together.

I wonder, have you forgotten me by now? Have you forgotten the promises we made to each other?

Do you remember the person I became, how I fell for you even though I knew it would kill me to love someone like you? I knew better, Noah. I did. And this letter isn’t to admonish you or tear you down. No, it’s to make you see what you do to the people you say you care so deeply for.

When I was with you, you made me feel safe and loved and wonderful, but in the end, I felt stupid and so vulnerable. I want to believe you never meant to hurt me; that you never meant to make me hate you. I want to believe all the things you said were true, but it’s hard for me. With everything I’ve found out since we didn’t say goodbye, you must understand why I wish I could forget you.

I will forever hate that I was so weak for you, but I was only weak because I loved you. Despite it all.

I’ll always love you.

Hannah

Guilt tugged at my conscience. Taking a seat, I placed her letters face down on the table. I scrubbed my hand over my jaw, remembering… what sucked was the memory of our last kiss. How her eyes filled with tears, and she looked at me like I was everything she ever wanted and hated all at the same time.

I promised her I’d never hurt her, but I did.

Didn’t say goodbye. We didn’t say goodbye.





3





Hannah





Summer 2015





The ER in that little hospital was crazy that night. A chainsaw accident. A stab wound. Two wrecks and more cardiac arrests than I wanted to count. Influxes like that were the norm in Fort Lauderdale where I’d done my preceptorship—big city, lots of patients. Rockford’s population barely tipped over four hundred, so it was unexpected, to say the least. Rockford, Alabama. I’m back in Rockford… I never expected to come back home. At least not to live, but sometimes, well, life throws you curveballs. I’ll admit, there was a certain comfort in being home. I just wished I’d come home under different circumstances—any other circumstances.

I finished up Ms. Thompson’s discharge sheet and stepped into the hall just as a gurney with a man covered in blood and gasping for breath whizzed toward the OR. Although I didn’t know him, my stomach knotted because that man was someone’s world, and I doubted he’d make it. Losing your world couldn’t be easy.

At the time, I’d only been a nurse for a little over a month, but I thought the emotions of it all would wane over time. They hadn’t. Not in the slightest.

“Hannah.” Meg grabbed my elbow and yanked me around the corner. She swatted her platinum blonde hair away from her eyes but didn’t say anything. Just attempted to drag me down the hall.

“What are you doing?” I asked. The doors from the ambulance bay swung open. Medics pushed another gurney through the doorway, and she tugged on my arm again, but it was too late. I had already seen Max’s bloodied face. Max Summers, my ex, the boy that taught me how pretty lies could be, was laid out on the stretcher. His eyes swollen, and he clutched at his side, groaning with each breath. He didn’t notice me, and that was probably best.

“Shit,” Meg huffed, dragging me to the side of the corridor. “I was trying to keep you away from that shitshow.”

Shrugging, I pretended to pull at an imaginary string on my scrubs. “It’s fine.”

“You never get over your first love, no matter how much of a dick he was.”

“I didn’t love him.” How could you love a guy that texted you saying you were his world while he literally had his dick in another girl?

One of Meg’s perfectly sculpted brows arched. Her lips kicked up on one side. “Mmhmm.”

“What did he do this time? Get in a fight?” I asked, already fully aware that was the only logical answer.

“Of course, but this time, he got his ass kicked.” There was an upbeat vibrato to her voice, like she wanted to pat the back of whoever tore into Max. “I’m sure he deserved it.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

We walked down the hall, past Miss Smith sitting in a wheelchair by the nurses’ station. Miss Smith grinned. “Good to see you home, Hannah.”

“It’s good to be home.” I lied. It wasn’t good.

“See, it’s not so bad being back home, right?” Meg nudged me. “I mean, I’m sure you’ve spent half the night catching up with people that have come in.”

“I’ve known every patient I’ve treated, that has to be a HIPPA violation or something.”

“Nah, now, going out and blabbing that Britney Swinson shuffled in with a case of the clap for the third time this year— that’s a HIPPA violation.”

I swiped a hand down my face. “Meg…”

“I’m joking.” She laughed. “Maybe…” She flashed that Miss America smile that has gotten her out of more tickets than I can count. And let me just say, that smile was deceiving. Meg McKinney was anything but a pageant queen. Momma always called her rough around the edges. She was the girl in high school that hiked her skirt up and bent at the waist when she dropped her pencil so the boys could get a nice view of her Victoria Secret panties. She considered boys a pastime while I considered them a nuisance, which is why people never understood why she and the preacher’s daughter were friends. But there’s a lot more to people than the things they disagree on…

One of the residents walked by with his shoulders back and head held high in that “I got a chip on my shoulder” way. Meg jerked her chin in his direction. “Look at his ass, Hannah.”

I took a fleeting glance before grabbing my badge and walking to one of the time clocks by the restrooms. “Not that impressive.”