And that kiss?  The kiss in that little trailer of hers…  Still burned my lips.  Since that kiss, there was this unloosened feeling in my limbs, as if I could float away, as if gravity had just given up on me and I could hurtle into space at anytime.

I grabbed both manuscripts and stormed onto my back deck.  It was freezing outside, matching the mess of my insides, frozen, alone, and empty.  Ice had lined the stones beneath my feet, causing me to slip and fall right on my ass.  The pain as I hit the ground was welcomed, and I laughed into the cold dark night, emitting a thick cloud of mist from my lips.  My bottle of whiskey was unhurt, and truly, that was all that mattered.

Lying there on the wet ice for a moment, looking up at the stars, I wished I had cracked my head right open and died on the spot.  By the time the maid would find me, a year would probably have passed and I’d be nothing more than a skeleton with an expensive pair of designer slacks on.  I’d finally be free of the hold that Lainey had on my mind.

I crawled to the fire pit I kept on my patio and threw both my manuscripts in, and from the stone shelves under it, I pulled out the igniter and set them on fire.

I watched my books go up in flames and drank the rest of my whiskey, wishing my fucked up feelings would burn along with my words.

Lainey. 

Lainey. 

Lainey.

I could barely see straight as I staggered into my office.  I had to shake this need, this desire to know her.  I felt cursed.  Possessed.  Her face haunted me.  Her laughter echoed in my brain.  Her smile plagued my thoughts.  But mostly it was her calmness that affected me.  Soothed me.  Mollified the rage.

Who was she really? 

Where did she come from?

What happened that she ended up bloody beaten at my brother’s bar?

My obsession continued; I was spinning out of control.  I googled her.  I read everything I could find on Lainey Nevaeh, which was about a gram of information. Facebook, blogs, MySpace, that ancestry site, and various forums stated she was either a twelve-year-old girl from Bessemer, Alabama, or a stay-at-home mom from somewhere in Colorado.  I gorged myself on information, anything I could find. I tried to put together the pieces of her life from the tiny bits I found, the rush of it made me high.  However, after hours of searching, I was more intrigued with the fact that no trace of any Lainey Nevaeh that matched the mysterious waitress from the bar could be found.  It was as if she wasn’t real.  I mean, really, you could find almost anyone on Google nowadays.  Try it. Google yourself and see what happens.  You’ll probably find some sorry ass picture of that one time you fell asleep drunk at a friend’s party in college and they drew a mustache on your face, and then snapped a photo of you.  That’s your legacy.  Google is the largest database of people and pictures that can pinpoint your exact fucking location on earth, especially when everybody in the fucking world had turned on their geo coding on their phones and tablets. Don’t people know how dangerous it is for the world to see exactly where you are at the exact moments you’re there?  It’s a great resource for criminals.  With Lainey though, it was as if she had no past.  Like Lainey Nevaeh never existed.  She didn’t even have a social security number.

A thick unsettling feeling washed over me; like some sort of darker shadow over my soul than the one that was already there.  I hadn’t had one flashback since the night I met Lainey.  Somehow, without me knowing, my uncontrollable compulsive thoughts of her brought a splash of color into my dark world. Like the colors of the rainbow, bleeding and seeping out of the darkened night sky. My obsessive behavior towards her filled that gaping hole that contained all my deep rage.  She was like a medicine to me.  She was like the fire I had just set on my books; her flames engulfed me and brought me to ashes.  Charred.

Was it as simple as the way she looked, or, as simple as just wanting to unravel the mystery of Lainey?  And what would I want to do with her after all my needs were fulfilled and my questions answered?  What would I do to her when my darkness wanted a piece of her too?

I awoke almost a whole day later, on the floor of my kitchen with dried blood all over my hands and chest.  Brilliant sunlight was filtering in through my French doors, harshly lighting my cold skin.  I was shirtless.  Across the palm of my hand was a deep gash that looked red, angry, and still slick with slowly clotting fluids.  Thick shards of bloodied crimson stained glass lay across the floor, under me, across from me, inside of me.  The strong urge to rub the blood between my fingers was maddening.  To touch the life flowing out of my skin, the thick red liquid that once surged through my heart; this is how I cope now.  Reliving my nightmares.  Reliving my past.   Touching my thumb to the rest of my fingers, I swirled the congealing mess around, pain hit me instantly as the sharp bit of glass still embedded under the skin of my palm dug itself deeper.  It throbbed a fiery burn up my wrist and arm, making me clench my teeth in anger.  My throat was parched, blood pounded in my ears and my body felt coiled tight; ready to spring.

I looked down enraged, wondering what the hell was happening to me.  Did somebody steal my cock to sell on the black market?  Leaving me a pussy.  What the hell was I letting my own mind conjure up for me?  I needed to get over this insanity.  I pulled the piece of glass out of my palm and smeared my bloody hand against my pants, ignoring the bite of pain.

Throwing a shirt on, I stumbled blindly out of the house.  Bright sunlight hit my eyes like a prizefighter and almost, almost knocked me on my ass.  Lumbering to my truck, I climbed in vaguely, wondering if I might have still been drunk from the previous binge I accomplished undertaking the night before.  I highly doubted it.

I had one thought in my mind.

Bagels.

Fresh bagels from a bakery, with butter and coffee.  Maybe a few pots full.  My stomach lurched and rumbled as I drove a good twenty-five minutes from my house to the nearest place to eat.

Like a grade-A jackoff, I parked in two spaces, not wanting anyone near my truck, and stormed into the diner, fists clenched.  Sitting in the booth nearest the exit, always nearest the exit, with…3 waitresses, 11 faceless customers and 2 exits, I nodded at the waitress who in turn gave me bulging eyes and a downturned mouth.  Getting a fucking bagel should be easy, but not here, not with me.  These people knew of me, heard of me, and they were terrified of me.  The dangerous recluse that never comes out in the daytime, isn’t he crazy?  Didn’t he kill people?  Didn’t he die?  Didn’t he go insane? Isn’t he horribly disfigured like that Mel Gibson character in that movie?  Didn’t he spend years in jail or an asylum, blah-blah-blah, just give me a fucking bagel and coffee, and no one will get hurt.

The waitress actually snorted loudly, walked over to my table, and crossed her arms.

Before she could form a simple thought in her most likely one-celled simple mind I growled out, “Coffee.  Toasted Bagel.  Butter.”

The twit clucked her teeth like a monkey and walked away.

My head started pounding.  People walked in and out of the front door letting a cold draft breeze against my arms.  My eyes attacked each and every person who walked in.

This was a fucking bad idea.

The rattle and clink of a coffee cup against its saucer brought my attention to the presence of the waitress spreading my order out on the table in front of me.  “Can I get you anything else, sir?” she said with a sneer.

“Solitude,” I snapped back.

The waitress narrowed her eyes at me and snapped a piece of gum in my face.  Then she walked away, leaving me to my solitude.  Grabbing my knife and opening the little pat of wrapped butter, I began buttering my bagel.

“So, I’m not the only waitress you snap at, good to know,” a whispered voice said.  The strong smell of apples, cinnamon, spices, and sexy hit me right in the chest.  The butter knife slipped from my fingers, and clanged and clunked against the plate as Lainey slid into the seat across from me.

I had to take a deep breath before I could look at her.  When I lifted my eyes to meet hers, she almost blinded me with her beauty.  Ah, shit.

“Are you okay?” she asked.  The brilliant green of her eyes and the kindness of her question overwhelmed me.  It knotted itself in my chest and throbbed.

It took me a moment of staring at her to answer.  “Yes.”  She had a serene calmness about her, like the lapping waters off a tranquil Caribbean beach.  I fucking wanted to dive in.  “Why do you ask?”

Her smile was soft and gracious, but her brows wrinkled as she looked down at my hand.  I followed the trail of her eyes, and then realized I hadn’t bandaged up my cut, or cleaned the blood off my hands and arms.  At that particular moment, my throat lost the ability to remember how to swallow correctly and I ended up choking and hacking on my own saliva.  Very becoming.  Normally, at this point in a conversation with someone where I see blood, this would have caused me to crumple into a heap of trembling anxiety, rage and self-hatred, lashing out with whomever I was speaking.  But for a few moments, I had been staring into those calm green eyes and the panic and rage didn’t come.  It was as if Lainey had some sort of superhuman secret ability to help me hold the door to my skeleton-bloody-carcass filled closet closed.