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Chapter Three
Tyler
These last couple of nights have been rough, and tonight’s no exception. I wake up drenched in cold sweat and sit by the open window in a daze, rubbing my hands up and down my bare arms. Snatches of nightmares fill my head—darkness, pain and blood—and after a while, I just can’t take it anymore.
I take a quick shower, dress and stalk out of the building. It’s still quite dark; it’s barely six AM. Perfect. The cold bites to the bone, and the street is deserted. Just as well. I don’t wanna see anyone right now. Or later.
Maybe not ever.
It’s been two days since I walked into the tattoo shop and came face to face with Erin. I can’t stop thinking about her, about the meeting, about the way she ran from me. About the shock and anger in her eyes.
About the fact she doesn’t want to see me again. She told me so loud and clear before I left. I don’t know why I still hang on to this slim ray of hope that maybe she didn’t mean those things she said. Why I can’t give up.
I tap the saddle of my bike—one, two three times—and unlock the front and back wheels. The locks take a moment to turn, and I warm them with my hands and fiddle with the combination key. Then I throw the locks into the tail case and pull out my gloves. I leave the helmet inside. Not gonna use it. I need the rush I’ll get without it.
My skin is itchy all over, stretched too tight over my bones. It’s driving me crazy. I want to scratch and tear it, and I jam my hands into the pockets of my jacket and pace up and down the side of the building to get myself under control.
Once the urge passes, I climb onto my bike and rev it up. I don’t know which direction I should take, and I don’t give a flying fuck. All the matters is the speed, the rush of adrenaline.
I shoot off into the dark streets with the occasional lit shop window, turning into brighter avenues, seeing a hint of dawn in the sky. I head out of town, taking the turns close and narrow, the cold wind stinging my face. Numbing my skin. The houses space out, and I turn onto the 51.
I accelerate. The engine roars, vibrations traveling from the bike up my arms and legs. The wind whips my face, lashes at my chest, and I bend forward, bracing. My heart pounds, but it’s a good feeling. My lips pull into a dark grin.
Air gathers in my lungs. I expel it, feeling lighter than I have for days. The heavy feeling lifts off my chest—just like when I saw her in Damage Control—but I force the memory of her wide eyes and stricken face out of my head.
I don’t want to think. I want to be empty and let the surge of exhilaration run through me, cleanse me. A truck is coming from the opposite direction, the headlights blinding, and I drive close to the dividing line, fear tickling my senses.
It brings on another rush of heart-pounding emotion, another wave of teeth-clenching bliss that chases the heaviness away. It’s like an orgasm, ripping through me, making me light-headed with relief.
The day turns brighter by the time I stop the bike, nudge the kickstand into place and finally put on my helmet to avoid frostbite. It doesn’t take long for it in this cold. I set off again.
Water glitters sometimes at the edge of my vision, distracting me. Lakes—Waubesa, Mud Lake, Kegonsa. I cross Stoughton and continue, the road slicing through light farmland and forest, with barns and small detached houses. The fields are white, covered in the remnants of a snowfall from days ago. I pass a couple of B&Bs and finally slow down. I shift on the saddle and suck in a deep breath of frigid air as I stop the bike on the side of the road.
I need to see Erin.
The thought strikes me out of the blue, sharp as a blade, so urgent it steals my breath. Now I’ve seen her again, her photo won’t do the trick anymore. I need her like I need air, more than that. I have to touch her, and kiss her, and feel her. Wrap myself around her, taste her, mark her...
Fuck. What’s wrong with me today? I managed to live with her memory alone all this time. The memory of her before the fight, before she sent me way—before I fucked up by letting her down too many times, not showing her how much she meant to me. I cherished her image, kept it deep inside of me like a bright light, and now...
Now it’s not enough, and it’s killing me, because she doesn’t want to see me, and I know it. I fucking know it, and still I can’t let go.
I pull off my helmet and the leather gloves, prop my elbows on the handlebars of my Ducati and shove my fingers into my wind-stiffened hair. What’s happening to me? I thought stopping the drugs, having finally a purpose in my life—to mend things with Ash—would clear my fuzzy mind. Always distracted, stomping blindly through life, fucking girl after girl, women without distinct faces or names. Blundering through my life and hanging on to drugs to keep me sane.
Not anymore. That’s over—and yet I still don’t feel any better. If anything, I feel worse. I rub my chest and abdomen over the scars, then my arm, over the one name that can save me.
My whole body hurts. My heart aches. I’m always so cold. Even indoors, perched over the heater. Even when I exercise in the gym and sweat pours off me. Even when I run and I have a stitch in my side. I’m frozen inside, and she’s like the sun, bright and hot.
Looking up after a while, I realize I have no clue where I am. Hell. Kind of a twisted metaphor for my life. I guess I must be somewhere midway between Stoughton and the ass of the world. With a sigh, I turn my bike around and head back to the place where my nightmares began.
***
As I approach Madison, I remember that this morning I’m supposed to swing by the lawyer’s office and sign some papers to do with Dad’s house. It’s being put on the market by the lenders to whom Dad owed huge sums of money.
The old bastard drank Asher out of house and home. The house is Ash’s inheritance. I probably am entitled to it as well, unless good old Dad went and changed the birth certificate after I left. I wouldn’t put it past him. He’d gone off the fucking rails just before...
Before I left.
The image hits me like a fist, blinding me for a second. My hands tighten on the bike handles as I tumble down the rabbit hole. I’m suddenly back in the dank basement, lying on the cold floor, bleeding and burning with pain.
