Page 11 of Cuervo's Carnival
Taking a shaky breath in, I whisper to myself,“It won’t be here today. Your grief is just playing tricks on you. It’s just a dream, Lola.”
Beneath my closed lids, I roll my eyes at the stupidity of my own words. Bad dreams don’t exist. Dreams that are classified as bad are just nightmares that we, for whatever reason, can’t accept or bring ourselves to admit.
The mantras and reassurances I tell myself each day before I leave bed are just hollow words. No amount of reciting or praying—if I even believed in such a thing—is going to change that.
I already know that heaven doesn’t exist, but hell, well, that’s what I am living in right now. And it’s not the scandalous good time I thought it would be.
Oh no, it is daunting, unending, and impulsive at best. The only thing that takes the edge off that reality is I can now finally live free of the restraints my father placed on my life. Now, I can live free to be what I have always desired to be: theirs.
And even though I have wanted nothing more than to be with them, I still need to get used to this life we lead now—one that is on the run and off the radar. That, as well as the gaping hole that has lodged itself in my heart.
Every day sinceAbuelapassed, I find myself caught between these strong feelings of resilience and guilt. Because, somehow, my life is everything I ever wanted while also being nothing I could have ever wished upon myself.
Happiness and sadness, numbness and fear interject themselves into my psyche every single day. And the guilt, oh the fucking endless guilt I feel for smiling when I want to cry or for living when death has stolen so much from me, feels like a cruel joke, and I am the punchline.
But I have to remember that this is all temporary. Not the grief—unfortunately, that is as permanent as the tattoos that cover most of my body—but this feeling of being unsettled and without a home base.
We wasted no time after graduation to leave town. Literally seconds after I was handed my bachelor’s degree, Pax, Cil, and I grabbed whatever fit in our backpacks and hit the road.
Thankfully for me, my father never cared to see his only daughter—and only child to ever attend college—receive their diploma. For once, his lack of interest in my well-being could be perceived as a gift, because it made fleeing town a hell of a lot easier without him attending the ceremony.
At least today will be the last day we have to spend in this musty motel.
Or, I should say, thatIhave to spend here.
The guys reluctantly went ahead of me yesterday to do some last-minute projects on whatever their big surprise is for me. I don’t know anything about it other than both of them saying, “It’s so you.”
I debated going with them, but I miss my brother, and I know once I head to wherever the guys have planned for us to stay, I’m not going to see him much. Since Zeke is still Pax and Cillian’s friend and only person—aside from me—they truly trust, they agreed one night apart, just this once, would be okay.
Usually, Pax and Cillian wouldn’t care if I opt out of a night together to hang with Zeke, but caution has become a way of life now that we have my father’s wrath to contend with.
Another rumble of thunder unleashes, making the pill bottles I keep near the bed rattle against the worn wood of the nightstand. Rain crashes against the roof and windows, which feels like it’s trying to lure me back to sleep and ignore the day ahead. The harder the rain pours, the more it makes me feel like I am sinking beyond the mattress, as if submerged beneath a cold blanket of a dark, relentless ocean. The longer I lay here, the more I feel like I’m drowning.
Even with my eyes still closed, the bright bolt of lightning that creeps into the darkened room stings against my lids. Following the bright flash of light comes a boisterous crackle of thunder that rattles the room.
And then, I hear it. The voice buried deep inside the recesses of my being. It’s the voice that follows me everywhere I go. It inserts itself in the mundane, the grand, and the nothingness. A voice that has burrowed itself inside of me, yet it is a voice that I do not recognize as my own.
“They need you,” the voice tells me. I can hear it speak directly into my soul, but the sound never makes it to my ears. It started the dayAbuelapassed, and it’s not even something I hear. It’s something I feel, like another being has been implanted into my body. Guiding me, protecting me, warning me.
It’s like an electrical current working its way through me, signaling my heart and taking over my hearing. Reminding me that things may look bleak, but there is more. I have them—the two pieces that make my heart whole, my kryptonite. Paxton and Cillian.
I grip the scratchy flat sheet that I lay on top of, bracing myself as I begin to release the stronghold I have kept on my irises. My vision adjusts to the dim room before focusing on the dreadful popcorn ceiling that swallows the dingy motel room whole. Although the outdated plaster above me is a sight for sore eyes, I can deal with it. It’s a welcomed sight, a beautiful one even, compared to what usually plagues my vision these days.
I shift to my side, taking in more of the musty room, with its dated furnishing and hideous drapes that fall well past the small windows they adorn. Relief begins to ease my nerves as I scan the room from my lying down position. No onyx glare or feathers in sight…yet.
Another flash of electricity spills into the room, except this time, it causes me to squint from the light it casts. The moment the light leaves the room, I open my eyes to find my temples beginning to throb. I bring my hands to my head, trying to massage the sides of it for relief, and I notice that my entire body suddenly feels like I have been run over by a truck.
The more I try to shift to a sitting position, the more my head throbs and the achier I feel.
Trying to rack my brain as to what has me feeling this sore, I can’t think of anything; my memory feels hazy. In fact, the more I think about it, the less I remember. I don’t know how long I have been asleep. I don’t even remember when the hell I came to bed in the first place. Everything feels fuzzy after I met Zeke for a couple of drinks last night.
I reach for the glass of water on the nightstand and lift my body up slowly to a sitting position. Taking a long swig of much-needed hydration, I feel a warm breeze hit my bare thigh. Slowly, I turn my head and see that the window closest to where I now sit is half-open.
That’s strange.I don’t remember ever opening the window. Actually, come to think of it, I didn’t even know that window opened. We tried to let some fresh air in after the three of us christened the bed the first night we got here, but even with Pax’s and Cillian’s combined strength, it was like the window was sealed shut.
My brows furrow as I try to recall the moments leading up to me laying here in this creaky bed in nothing but my lace thong and my oversized Led Zeppelin tee. Maybe I had too much to drink, and Zeke was able to get the window open for me when he laid me in bed?
My eyes linger on the open window as if it can speak to me and tell me when it was opened and by who. I shake my head.I’m fucking losing it.
