Mended (Connections, #3)(94)

With her words ringing in my head, I know what my first step toward a new life has to be—securing a job. So I reluctantly decide to call my old editor from the LA Times. She liked me and I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear from me. I dial the paper and enter her extension. I get her voice mail and leave a message.

The sun is starting to set as I click my blinker, then take the Adams Street exit. I figure the next thing to check off my list is finding a place to stay. It might as well be near the paper since I don’t have a car. When I stop at the light, my mind flips to the last time I drove down this street and stopped at this very same place—the day I “died.”

? ? ?

The glow of the headlights shone through the rain. I hated listening to top 40 music, but I turned the radio station to 102.7 for her because I knew she’d like it and it would make her smile. We were listening to Gavin DeGraw’s “I’m in Love with a Girl,” and I was singing along to the lyrics. She was surprised that I knew the words. Of course I did—I always listened to what she was listening to, after all.

She was watching me—I could feel it—so I turned to look at her. I stopped singing and I told her, “If I ever wrote a song, this is the one I’d have written about you.” Then I got off the 110 and headed toward the Millennium Biltmore. I noticed she was still looking at me. So I asked her, “What?”

She grinned at me and reached over the console. She placed her hand on my thigh before running it up my leg and saying, “We’re going to be late to your first award party, and it’s all your fault.”

I grinned and said, “So f*cking worth it,” because it was. I needed that one last time with her—I had to show her how much I loved her.

Then we stopped at a traffic light and she took her hand off my leg to turn the radio station back. I knew the setup was on. It was time, but f*ck, I wasn’t ready. I wanted her hand back on me. I wanted to feel her touch forever. But it was too late. Tires squealed. The SUV with heavily tinted windows jackknifed in front of us just as planned. The passenger door opened, and the paid-off shooter in a ski mask jumped out, holding a gun with blanks for bullets.

She screamed, “Oh my God, he has a gun!” but I already knew he would.

She was afraid, and it killed me. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. I sat there trying to decide if I should just tell her. I couldn’t take it—but once I looked at her, I knew I had to go through with it. She was too perfect, so beautiful, and all too fragile to take with me. So I said, “Just keep calm, Dahl.”

When I didn’t get out on cue, the gunman tapped his piece against the window a couple of times and then pointed it to her head, reminding me she’d be dead if I didn’t go through with it. So I pretended like I would have tried to flee if I could. I pounded the steering wheel with my fists and said, “We’re f*cking blocked in.”

Her cries only grew louder and she started to shake.

I grabbed her hand tightly one last time while I opened my car door and told her, “Call nine-one-one!”

She sat there in shock and I wanted to cry. But I pulled it together and told her, “Whatever happens, don’t get out of this car. Do you hear me?”

She screamed, “Ben, don’t!” as I stepped onto the pavement. Then her last words killed me. I didn’t have to be shot to feel the pain because I felt it when she yelled, “You don’t have to be the hero! Come back!”

Fuck, I wasn’t a hero. I wasn’t anything of the sort. But I did what I was taught to do when I heard the shot and fell to the ground. She screamed, “No! No! Noooo!” and that was all I heard from her.

I hop back on the freeway, wanting to avoid that street. Clearing my head of the memory, I can’t wait to get a f*cking drink. I take the next exit I see and pull into the first cheap extended-stay motel I can find. It’s some kind of Econolodge in West Hollywood. The perks, the checkin clerk tells me, are I’m close to Melrose and Sunset and they have Internet. The only perk I see is that I’m close to Dodger Stadium and it’s baseball season.

I climb the flight of stairs and try to read the sign directing me to room 220. The glow of the moonlight is too dim and the grime that covers the plaque makes it unreadable. With my key in hand, I take a guess and turn right. I pass door after door of peeling green paint and rust. The door to room 216 swings open, and a chick wearing only her panties stands there. She covers her tits with her hands and then turns to slam the door. I think the squeaking of my sneakers against the stick of the concrete made her think I was someone else. I finally reach my destination and open the door, only to be greeted by the pungent smell of stale cigarettes, alcohol, and, if I sniffed hard enough, I’d say sex. The room is a shithole. The carpet is ragged and torn. The walls are dingy. And the TV looks like it’s from 1980. I decide it’s safer to leave what I have in my bag and drop it on top of the dresser. So with the unpacking done, I hit the street in search of a liquor store to buy some liquid relief.

The sidewalk is crowded—people push and shove one another to move from one place to the next as if that might get them there any quicker. I duck into what has to be a supercenter for booze and peruse the aisle of whiskeys. So many to choose from—tall bottles, shorter ones, blue labels, white labels, darker amber liquids, lighter amber liquids, and then I spot it. Jack Daniel’s. I grab a bottle off the shelf by its neck and purchase it with my credit card and a smile. My one friend I can always count on. The one who I already know will f*ck me up the ass before I even sign my name on the yellow slip.