A Love Letter to Whiskey (44 page)

I chewed my bottom lip, answers to her question swirling in my head. “It’s just, look at the path of destruction we’ve laid. He cheated, I cheated… twice.” I cringed with the admission. “We’ve hurt others around us, and we’ve never
really
been together. It’s always been about not being able to have each other. What if it’s just about wanting what we can’t have? What if that’s all part of the allure? It just feels wrong, and in the eyes of most sane people, it is. We’re built on lust and bad decisions.”

“But are you?” Jenna challenged, sitting up again. She turned to face me, tucking her feet inside the tub. “No, you and Jamie never had it easy. And yes, you hurt a lot of people along the way. But at the end of the day, it’s your life, B. You have to live with it, no one else. So you can’t think about the people around you, how you’ve hurt them or what they think of you. It’s up to
you
to be happy because no one else is going to do it for you.” She smiled then, blue eyes bright in my dim bathroom. “Whatever you choose, make sure it makes you happy.”

“That sounds a little selfish.”

Jenna shrugged. “Yeah well, sometimes selfish and smart are synonymous.”

It was like surviving an explosion. For over a year, my ears had been ringing, eyes adjusting to the smoke, and now, all of a sudden, everything had cleared. I’d let myself be ruled by fear and anger, pain and sadness, but I’d never once thought of the possibility that with Jamie, I would find happiness. It might not have been an easy road, and there were likely many more bumps ahead, but in the end, I couldn’t imagine my life with anyone else but him. He was it for me. He always had been.

“Why have I always seen him as an addiction? As a bad thing?”

Jenna leaned into me, stealing the bottle I had yet to drink from since the last time she passed it. “Sometimes we’re more terrified of the good things in life than we are of the bad. We feel we don’t deserve them, or that they aren’t real, that they’ll disappear quickly and easily and we’ll be left in the ruins.”

She was right, and I smiled at the clarity of it all. Jamie had always been a natural urge for me, but I’d labeled him as the bad kind — as something I should be ashamed of or something that had the power to ruin me. But the truth couldn’t be further from that.

“He’s not an addiction,” I whispered. “He’s an inclination.”

Jenna smiled, tilting the bottle of whiskey back toward me. “So, what now?”

THE NEXT MORNING,
while Jenna was still fast asleep in my bed, I sat down at my laptop, and I started writing.

I started writing my love letter to Whiskey.

I started writing the book you’re reading now.

The honest, hard to read and even harder to write account of my eleven-year addiction to Whiskey.

I know I’ve put you, as a reader, through a lot. Maybe through too much. I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me right now, because the truth is there are more than a few times in my life where I made the wrong decision. I am flawed, and though I know it was hard to read, I’m not sorry for telling the truth. I’m not ashamed of my path. In a way, I think it’s about figuring out who we are through the mistakes we make.

I know who I am. And I know who I need.

So, Whiskey, if you’re reading this, I hope now you understand. We’ve always blamed timing, but the timing has always been right — we just never listened.

Up until this point, I’ve never fought hard enough. But if you give me the chance, I’ll fight every single day of our lives together. I’ll go to battle for you, and I’ll win the war in the end.

You asked me for one day, but one day never came. You asked me to choose you, and I never did. You asked me to be with you, and I never was.

But now, it’s our time.

One day is here, and I choose you. I’ve never been anyone else’s but yours, and I never want that to change.

Now, you just have to choose me, too.

I’m sorry that up until now, I saw you as something I should quit instead of something I should fight for.

My heart is, always has been, and always will be yours.

By the time I finish this, by the time you maybe,
hopefully
read it, you’ll be on the cusp of your thirtieth birthday. I don’t know where you are, I don’t know who you’re with, but I hope you remember. I hope you remember our drives. I hope you remember our days on the water, our nights in the sand, our wasted time and the minutes we cherished. More than anything, I hope you remember the pact you made to a wide-eyed girl eleven years ago.

I’ve hurt you. You’ve hurt me. I don’t deserve you, and you’ve always deserved me. You don’t have to forgive me, you don’t have to leave the past behind, but I’m asking you to, anyway.

This is my love letter to you… everything I have is in these pages. Now the pen is in your hand.

Come find me, Whiskey.

I’ll be waiting.

The End.

THE SURF IS GOING
to be perfect today.

It’s just barely past eight in the morning, and I’m sitting in my favorite spot in the entire world — Jamie’s passenger seat. Our boards are strapped in on top of the Jeep, two half-empty iced-coffees sitting between us, and the wind whips our hair around as we cruise down to the beach.

It always burns a little, sitting in this seat, thinking of what could have been. I’ve tried to let those thoughts go over the years, but it’s not as easy as it seems.

It’s not easy not to think about the years that passed that I could have been his, or about the nights we both spent alone that we could have spent together. It hurts to think about, and yet I can’t
not
think about it all. I think sometimes life is about embracing what hurts, because pain is one of the most vivid emotions we can feel. Pain reminds us that we
are
alive, and I’ll always appreciate that stinging reminder.

Jamie’s hair is longer, just the way I like it, and he wears an easy grin as we drive. Barrel-aged Whiskey looks even better in the bright morning light, the amber notes in his eyes shining. He’s talking about the surf report and where to eat lunch, but a ray of sun hits the wedding band on his left hand as he shifts positions on the steering wheel, and suddenly my mind is far away.

He did finally get married, just a few months after his thirtieth birthday.

I swallow, chest aching a bit as I think about the lucky woman who will get to live out the rest of her life as his wife. She and I don’t really get along, but I’m sure that’s no surprise to you.

She doesn’t deserve Jamie, though I guess no one ever will in my eyes. Honestly, I think his wife is selfish. I think she’s a little lost, a little broken, and a little too fond of making mistakes. Sometimes it hurts when I see them together, but I don’t let myself focus on the bad, because the truth is she makes him happy. It may not make sense to me, but it doesn’t have to — because he loves her.

And that’s enough for me.

I kick my sandals off, propping my feet on the warm dashboard in Jamie’s Jeep just as a familiar melody comes over the speakers.
The Piano Guys
always take me back to the first time I sat beside Jamie, and it must do the same for him because he stops talking, hand reaching for my thigh. He gives it a gentle squeeze and every cell in my body buzzes to life at the touch.

I lay my head back against the seat and tilt my head to look up at him — my Jamie, my Whiskey. He’s looking at me in the way he always has, the way I hope he always will, and I wonder if he’ll ever be able to touch me without me feeling that same familiar, aching burn.

But that’s the thing about whiskey, isn’t it?

It’s strong, to the very last drop.

I face the windshield again just as we park, the waves rolling in ahead of us, sunshine blazing hot on our shoulders. I inhale the salty breeze, letting go of the breath slowly, breathing in the moment. Sometimes I feel like we have to rush, but then I remember that time isn’t our enemy the way I always thought. Turns out, time is our friend — the friend we never listened to, but we’re learning how to more and more every day. The friend who might have always known a little more about us than we did.

You see, I may not always like his wife, and she may be far from perfect…

But I’m so happy she’s me.

I am so happy to be releasing this book on the same day as one of my best friends – Staci Hart. We’re celebrating a #SteinHarts release and TRUST ME, you want to read her book next! It’s called Tonic and it’s a romantic comedy with a hot bearded alpha, tattoos, reality television, and some of the steamiest scenes you’ll ever read. Grab it NEXT on Amazon – free with Kindle Unlimited!

KEEP READING FOR THE ENTIRE FIRST CHAPTER OF TONIC!

A book is never truly written by just one person, and I had the A-team on this project. I have so many people to thank, but first (mostly to save you from having to read this novella), I want to address you — the reader. Man… that was a rough one, wasn’t it? I know I put you through a lot of emotions with A Love Letter to Whiskey — some that you probably loved, and some that you probably wanted to kill me for. I just want you to know that I love you, and I am so thankful that you let me take you on this journey — even if it wasn’t the easiest. Please, don’t ever stop reading. And don’t ever stop taking a chance on Indie. OH, and come find me on the internet, because I love to hang out with my readers. You can start by joining the
Kandiland
group on Facebook.