Promise Me | Noah Sebastian

Chapter One

Trigger Warning:

Mentions/Depictions of attempted suicide via prescription overdose.

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My Spotify was blaring Bad Omens as I grabbed my stuff and threw it into my car. Once again, I'd dated someone who had the gall to cheat and then proceed to tell me it was my own fault it happened. Well fuck him and fuck the whore he was with when I came in. Thankfully I wasn't so dumb as to live with him, but I at least thought we were doing pretty well together. Apparently, I was fucking wrong.

Slamming my car door, I smacked my steering wheel a few times out of anger and thought about the dickhead's words.

"You're never emotionally there, Jess. Do you even like me? Have you ever fucking liked me? You did this, Jessica. She's here because you weren't."

Emotionally there, huh? I thought I was. I mean, I was happy to be with him even if I wasn't exactly forthcoming with certain things from my past. But yea, I'm pretty sure I was emotionally attached to the fucker. At least, I think I was. Fuck, emotions were hard when you didn't necessarily care. Hell, maybe the asshole was right and I wasn't emotionally there, as he put it. What did that even mean, 'emotionally there'? We'd been going out for a solid three months, not a lifetime.

Though the fact he blamed me for another person being in bed with him hit me like a truck. The feeling of being utterly useless and a waste of space emerged as I tried to trample it back down. The last thing I needed to do was to be held accountable for actions that my mind only partially wanted.

My apartment was slightly cooler when I walked in, the Tennessee weather being warm if not a little humid. The humidity wasn't anything like it could be in Virginia, but it could still pack a punch. I could count on one hand on how bad it had gotten in the last five years of living here, and that spoke volumes considering it still wasn't all that bad after it stormed during the summers. I threw what little stuff I had grabbed from my ex's apartment next to the couch, and sat down with my head in my hands. His words were still swimming in my mind like the plague. Sadly, he wasn't the first to tell me that I was emotionally stunted. It was a sad fact of life, but after being told a few times, it sticks with a person.

There was still time before my shift at Whiskey Row which gave me more time with my thoughts. Lovely, I thought callously. Just what I needed, more time to persuade myself not to off myself. Life was only as hard as I made it, but it was feeling pretty fucking hard right now. Still, I got up to get a shower all while singing the next song that came on. I will not be defeated so easily from a few measly words.

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Work sucked, but being a bartender at a very high-traffic bar in the middle of Nash-Vegas usually wound-up sucking. Especially in the middle of summer. Party buses took up the streets and loud groups came in from all over wanting to bar hop like their lives depended on it. Granted, this was the street to do it on. If you wanted an extra thrill, you could go to Tootsie's and hope you weren't drugged by the end of the night. Bonus points if you weren't taken during your time there. There were plenty of stories, namely from women who had found themselves at the hospital with traces of Molly in their systems after being at Tootsie's for any amount of time. It usually varied between half an hour to two hours depending on the group size and if you were alone at any point.

However, that's all beside the point. The point is, being a bartender sucks sometimes even if the tips can be so damn rewarding. Honestly, hazard pay should be given to those of us who are knee-deep in shit when it hits the fan. Long story short, there was a relatively small group of people who looked to be bar hopping, but there was one dude in particular that I purposely didn't serve. He was drunker than anyone else I'd seen that night and couldn't really hold a full sentence among probably not knowing where exactly he was. Law clearly stated I had the right to refuse service. If he had gotten himself into serious trouble after I served him, I'd be the one to blame and my license would be taken among a slew of other possibilities I didn't want to deal with. So, in not serving him, he got angry and took it out on me after the third time I said the word 'no'.