If No One Else

ᶜʰᵃᵖᵗᵉʳ ³

3. j o k e s   o n   y o u
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A slight shiver rattles through the bones of my body as a breeze sweeps through the wind and crashes against my body.

My hands dig deeper into the pocket of my hoodie, seeking out warmth, but find little solace in the thin fabric.

The jacket had felt a lot more warming alongside a bottle of vodka, but now the effects were wearing off, and so was the burning warmth of the alcohol I had been chugging in hopes of drowning out my desire for revenge.

The cold wind calls for me to go back home with every harsh breeze that blows pass me. It sends threats through striking crisp whips against my reddening cheeks, and swooshing my shoulder-length strands in all directions before tickling my scalp with its frozen embrace.

I should go home, but I can't. I don't want to.

Not until I find a way to quiet the anger that was steadily bubbling inside me.

Not until I find a way to settle the score as much as I could as a mindless drunken person.

As I round the corner- stepping from the pitch black streets onto the brightly illuminated diner walkway- I know I can't turn back. Not now.

The heady taste of revenge on my tongue strums too perfectly against my dormant tastebuds. The adrenaline coursing through my veins, sending a hot flash through my shivering body, feels too arousing for me to turn around and leave.

A smile begins to rise onto my lips as I walk closer to Captain Garvin's. I peek through the dirty small glass windows on the side of the building, watching as a horde of men drink, laugh, and ogle at the cleavage and ass of their servers like they did almost every night after work as a sort of reward- a reward I'm sure none of their significant others would appreciate.

I let my eyes sift through the crowd of men, glancing at all their faces until I land on the only one that matters; Officer Gael Herrera.

It takes a second before I notice his dark figure sitting in the very back of the bar. He sits around a group of men I presume to be his coworkers, merely from their uniforms and the fact that they were even around him. People in town didn't usually venture out to new acquaintances unless they had to, but work was a viable reason to be friendly and accept someone new into their "exclusive" groups.

I let my eyes linger on Gael for a second, noticing the time I stand glaring at him, he hadn't spoken a word to any of the men around him as they all banter back and forth.

He silently sits around the crowd of people and chugs down the chilled bottle of corona as if he were a statue. He has that tired look in his eyes again, and I wonder what exactly he's thinking in this moment.

Maybe he was thinking about how he was too good for all the county cops sitting around him.

Or maybe he was thinking about his hometown and what the people he used to know were doing.

Or perhaps he was simply thinking about how the beer he was chugging wasn't a strong enough substance to get him through the rest of the night.

Or maybe his mind was just blank, filling up with a deafening silence that was slowly eating away at his mind, until he could barely even sense the difference between reality and his unconsciousness.

I close my eyes as a breath of air blows past my lips. I shake his image from my head, push away from the glass, and turn in the direction of the parking lot where a sea of cars remained parked.