Let Your Heart Drive
Read Let Your Heart Drive Online
Authors: Karli Rush
By
Karli Rush
Copyright © 2015 RushBoundPress
Cover design by Karli Rush
Interior images from Shutterstock
ASIN: B00W2I5Z6M
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, or any events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created by the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
Disclaimer - This book is intended for mature audiences only.
To the fighters, the survivors, and the ones we will never forget.
I was told to write this, they said it would help
To see the person from the past
And how gone astray they’d become in the mass.
The simple things that were loved the most
Died the day we became a ghost.
Twisted memories, nightmares surface
And whimsical dreams struggle to stay afloat.
But then some would say never give up hope.
–Sinead
You know
it’s the end of your relationship when your soon-to-be ex just slams the door in your face…
your
door of
your
apartment.
I knock on the pale painted door with the crooked number. I’ve stared at this door—this number for two and a half years and I’ve never noticed it was so off-center, maybe all this time it was an omen, a sign of things to come, a caveat.
“Hello? Jake?
Open the door
!”
I raise my voice a notch trying not to disturb the meddlesome neighbors like Ms. Nelson. I know he’s on the other side because I can hear the creak of the floorboard every time he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. I bang the side of my fist against the door again, practically touching my lips along the paint coated exterior and grind out, “Open. The. Door.”
“Why? You’re the one that said you wanted out, that you were through with us, or did I hear you wrong, Sinead?”
I drop his suitcase from my clenched white-knuckled hand and scowl up toward the ceiling. Praying inwardly that this isn’t how it’s going to end with us. Warring with words between a slab of wood, airing out all our dirty laundry to everyone on this apartment floor.
“I know I said that. But I think you’re misinterpreting something here.” I drop my glare back toward the door picturing him on the other side wearing that sideways smirk of his, gloating arrogantly and possibly even shaking his head at me as if I’m some kind of fruitcake.
I straighten my shoulders and remind him, calmly. “The lease is in my name, Jake. Remember? I was just helping you move from point A to B.”
He laughs. “Half of the junk in this apartment is mine, Sinead. Remember? I honestly don’t think you had the time or the talent to pack all my stuff in one suitcase.”
“So this is it then, huh? I leave with whatever’s inside this suitcase?” I kick it with animosity and add, “And your car.” I jingle his keys loud and proud in my hand knowing he’d have a coronary. No one and I mean
no one
ever dares to mess around with his precious classic car. During our relationship there came a time when I was actually jealous over how much time and adoration he would give
his car
. Now, it’s one of the many reasons why our relationship will end.
The door swings open and he stands aside. “Truce?”
I pass by him meeting his devastating hazel-eyed glare. I’ve known him, dated him, fell in love with him and sadly fallen out of love with him. I met Jake my first year in college here, and I’ll be the first to admit that I was attracted to his bad-boy appeal, the long auburn hair that hangs roguishly over his seductive bedroom eyes. His Californian style that would have most girls daydreaming about him, plus his ever clever little quirk he has when he’s wearing that dictating, charming smile of his. The one that I had originally fell in love with, yeah, that one, the one he’s using on me right now. I can feel myself sinking and it’s not at all how it used to be. The smile, it’s no longer charming, it’s just dictating, telling me how irrational and childish he thinks I’m acting.
He wants to drown me, to sink me into his underwater seclusion. A place where he thinks he can fix me, a place where I will suffocate to death. And I can’t do this anymore, I can’t drown, not this way, not by his control. The never-ending paranoid surveillance, the agony of wanting to scream inside and eventually let it pour outward until I can hear it resonating from every wall. I have to set my own self free from this purgatory, to let myself be who I really need to be. Or I will suffocate if I can’t feel my own feelings or even think for myself.
From the outside I tried to keep everything together, tried to make everyone believe I had a secure and loving boyfriend to the dutiful family but yet, on the inside, I had nothing. Nothing but fear, and it ate a hole inside my soul every single day, beating me down until I could see it warping everyone’s face that surrounded me. The looks, the long narrow gazes, the bitter-sweet expressions that hung in their eyes and crept slowly into my heart. And that’s when it started permeating the change in me. I hand him the keys back and tell him, “I don’t need these and you know what?”
He sits himself on the armrest of our couch watching me with bored interest. “What, Sinead?”
“I think I’m done with all the materialistic-ness and make-believe crap that surrounds us,” I explain motioning around us. From the blown-glass lamps, fabricated handmade bookshelf, to the deceiving framed photographs of us.
He chuckles more to himself than for my entertainment and starts to rub the side of his temple like he has a headache from all the stress he’s suffered. “I hate to break it to you, but there are some things you can’t live without.”
I hold up a hand attempting to halt his twenty-minute narration of why my thoughts are obviously wrong. He follows me as I make a beeline to our bedroom, ignoring his rant I direct my path to the nearest closet and he aims his toward the lit bathroom. Finally, I think I can feel the slightest break in the chains, the chance to finally breathe as I cram my clothes inside a laundry bag. I’m to the point right now that I don’t even care if I’m lumping the clean in with the dirty. I’m leaving on my terms, not his. He can keep this place for all I care, he can pawn my stuff or toss it in the trash. Our relationship had been built on nothing but manipulation, control, and my own dependency. My fear of not letting anyone else close to me. Afraid they would tear me down until I was nothing but hollowed out bones, just like Jake.
I catch the sight of him out of my peripheral, he’s carrying prescription bottles and one by one, he pours the tiny encapsulated pills out onto the comforter of our four-poster bed.
“When the pain gets too bad, Sinead are you still going to handle it on your own?” He drags a hand along the pills dotting the bed and mixes the capsules together. Blending and meshing them until they’re nothing but a rainbow monstrosity. I hastily stuff the last shirt in my bag and I hide the shock well enough away that he can’t see my true disappointment in him. He used to be a boy with charm and now he’s just a sadistic man with no trace of remorse.
I grab my purse, noting his cell phone illuminating with a bright white glow. His cell must be on silent, but her name doesn’t hush or silence my determination. My fingers possess his phone before his does and our eyes meet. A hesitant pause sweeps across his open mouth as if he wants me to burst into a fit of tears. But instead, I offer the phone to him.
“I’ve known about your
extracurricular activity
for a while now, Jake. Maybe you should go live with her and find out if she has some debilitating problem so you can ride in on your white horse and save her.”
His jaws work overtime grinding down his anger, I’ve hit a sore spot and I can feel the heat boiling inside him, the desperate urge to do something before I walk out. I nearly give myself whiplash as I bolt for the bedroom doorway. My things wadded and safely stashed inside a blue mesh laundry bag and my oversized purse in tow, I give him one last glance before I start to slam the front door closed.
“You know I loved you, Sinead?” he yells from the living room, striding toward the door.
How can he say that? What part of his brain clicks on and fires some neuron that would force those words out of his mouth? I know it doesn’t matter, but I still ask anyway, “And when did you decide you stopped loving me?”
He takes a cautious step closer, wary of touching me and nods. “The moment you close that door.” He tips his head swaying his hair over his eyes as he indicates the door I’m about to shut. This is how our fight had started, he refused to leave, I packed up his suitcase and I ended up on the other side afraid I couldn’t get back in.
Now, I know there’s nothing to be afraid of and I close the door.