trigger warning! mentions of alcohol and drug abuse ahead please read this chapter with care
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CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR nothing a little peach liqueur can't fix
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I COLLAPSED ONTO the nearest wooden bench I could find, the tightening feeling in my chest increasing with each step I took. Walking away from Rafe left me with no exact direction to take, my guess being that I had since been on my feet for hours on end.
My brain wasn't able to focus on anything but him. I wasn't sure where I was going or where I was planning on staying during my 'break' from Tannyhill, but that didn't seem to matter as long as the thought of him was stained in my mind.
Everything he had said lingered like the bruises littered on my neck, his tattooed touch being an addition to his haunting words. The last thing I wanted to do was continue thinking of him. Yet, after spending almost every day with him over the course of the past month, I certainly was used to things not going my way around him.
He was always there with the cruelest intent, ready to rope me back to him no matter how much I should've objected.
That was the problem, after all. I should've not gotten myself into this mess in the first place, because it was my fault in the end. I should've just told him to leave me alone, or found another job opportunity. There was a countless list of things I should've done; should've, but didn't.
And, if given the chance to start this summer all over again, I still wouldn't.
There was something so intoxicating about him, a feeling I wouldn't trade even if it made me the richest person alive. Nothing could possibly compare to how he made me feel- both in sadness and in joy.
I had lived both the happiest of lives around him and the saddest, which was the price that came with secrecy.
Misery was never an emotion that I was particularly good at dealing with. Being a destructive person in day-to-day life, the person I turned into when upset was far from a pleasant sight. However, with familiarity to the miserable feeling I felt nearly every hour of my waking days came equally destructive coping mechanisms.
Hence why I was now at the foot of Dave's Liquors, a place that was arguably a second home of mine.
I picked myself up off the bench, dusting off my denim shorts as I headed towards the entry door. The bell made it's signature sound once I entered, the same scent of beer and dust hitting me in an instant. I caught a glimpse of Dave in my peripheral vision, noticing him sitting at the register with the same blank stare on his face.
In all the time I had spent on Figure 8, I had almost forgotten all the small details I loved about The Cut. The thing that hurt most was that I was no longer the person I was when I last walked these very streets, and that was something I wouldn't be able to get back.
