My Baby Girl…

“She loved X, too.” Alys sniffled. “And not once have any of us asked her how she’s handling it.” Her face crumpled, and she sobbed into her hands. “She’s never let me down! And how do I repay her? I fucking get wasted and pass out on top of her fiancé!”

“Alys—” I whispered, my heart ceasing to beat.

“She looked so lost and so mad and so…there’s something wrong with her! Can’t you feel it?”

Yeah. Yeah, I could.

Now that I was sober and thinking again, I could feel that shit wasn’t right with my Baby Girl. She was hurting beyond any of us.

“We have to tell her we never meant to—”

“She knows!” Alys wailed. “She knows that nothing happened, Phil! It was just the last straw for her!”

Fuck, my heart stopped again. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…Kenna left. She packed her shit, and she left. From the way we’ve been treating her, I wouldn’t blame her if she never came back.”

Alys was right. Kenna gave and gave and gave of herself. I’d fought her every step of the way, making her life a living hell, not giving a shit about anyone else but myself and my own hurt. Not once had I stopped to consider the fact that she had lost someone else she loved.

I hadn’t stopped and considered her at all.

The silence between Alys and me thickened. The sound of her phone ringing pierced through it, painful to my ears.

She answered it, and I watched her face drain of all color. I heard the distinct viciousness that only Pygmy’s voice could contain but not the words.

“Okay,” whispered Alys. “I’ll be right there.”

As she hung up the phone, I asked her, “Is it Kenna? Did she go to her place?”

Alys shook her head. Even if Kenna had, Alys wouldn’t tell me.

“Alys—”

“I have to go,” she said, cutting me off.

“Just tell me if you see her. Tell her I love her and that I’m sorry—”

“You’ll be able to tell her yourself, Phil. If not today, then soon enough. She’s not able to stay away from you, any more than you’re able to stay away from her. If you need me for anything, just call.”

“All right.”

She left without a backward glance.

My heart felt like lead. Without the life force of Kenna, it could hardly stand to beat. Empty, hollowed out, I was left to sit and think about all that had happened. I wanted this shit to end. I needed it to end. But this black hole of misery just kept getting wider and deeper, sucking me farther down into it.

Jason showed up with a bottle of Blue Label. I was gonna refuse, but somehow, I ended up drinking again. The warmth hit my chest, made me mellow, blotted out the darkness, and took away my thoughts. I didn’t want to think. I didn’t want to feel. I was so sick of feeling.

“She’ll be back, you know,” Jason said.

“I pushed her away,” I stated. “After everythin’, I pushed her away, man.”

“You just gotta pull her back in then.”

Kenna, my Baby Girl, my other half, my whole reason for existing…she had lost her faith in me, in us, and I only had myself to blame.

It was true. I hadn’t held Kenna in a long time. Once again, I’d been thinking with my dick, and I hadn’t wanted to be tortured with having to abstain. I’d never stopped to consider that she needed my comfort because I had been more concerned with my own.

Shit, when am I gonna learn, man?

I’d made the same mistake when Kenna was caught in the explosion. I’d avoided intimacy with her because I was a brat. I’d told her there was more between us than fuckin’ sex, but I sure hadn’t acted like it. It was as though, if I couldn’t have it on my terms, I took it away from her, too. She’d needed the strength and comfort she had selflessly given me returned to her. Instead, I’d taken hers and left her with nothing.

Another drink.

I could drown this for now.

My guilt, my pain, my loss…selfish, selfish, selfish.

“I’ve never deserved her,” I said.

“None of us deserve our women,” said Jason.

“I’ve never earned her trust, her love. She just gave it to me. I demanded it, and she blindin’ly handed it over. She gave me somethin’ more precious, more pure than I ever, ever deserved…”

“Yeah, but you handed her your trust and love, too.”

“Did you know that she actually waited for my ass? For nearly six years,” I confessed. “While I went around fuckin’ anythin’ and everythin’ that dangled itself in front of me, Kenna waited, lettin’ no man touch her.”

Pain squeezed around my heart, and Her Tattoo itched and prickled.

Oh God, Kenna Baby, what’s happenin’ to you? I can feel you. You’re hurtin’ somethin’ awful…

“Seriously?” asked Jason, refilling my glass.

Nodding, I replied, “Yeah, man. It wasn’t until she was finished with school and gave up all hope that I even remembered her that she finally got laid. That Brian guy—”

“The dreamy paramedic?”

My face twisted into a scowl. “Yeah.”

“She dumped him for your ugly ass?”

“Yep.”

“Huh. Well, it must be love because he’s prettier than most chicks.”

“I know.”

“I bet X would’ve banged his ass.”

“Yeah, probably.”

What would Kenna’s life be like if I hadn’t come back into it? Would she have been happy and in a relationship with a way too good-looking dude, a guy who is just as smart and driven to help others as she is? Would Brian have given her what she needs, where I’ve failed her so miserably?

Another drink.

And another.

And another.

Gavin came in and woke me up, but I was too far gone for that sort of shit. I saw the pity in his eyes, and I rolled over and dismissed his ass.

What does he know about what I’m going through?

I had lost X, but worse, I had driven away my Baby Girl, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to find her again. My chest itched, feeling hot and shattered.

Jason was back. He was fuckin’ wasted, working on getting more wasted, and I was right there with him. Sheri came in and yelled at us, screaming about what a waste of space we were, that we should be ashamed, that X wouldn’t want us to drink ourselves into the afterlife, chasing his ass.

“Have you seen Kenna?” I asked her. “I can’t find her.”

Sheri burst into tears and stormed off.

Out of whiskey for the moment, I took my numb ass to the fridge for some beer. For the first time, I was glad for the walker. Even without a broken pelvis and leg, I probably wouldn’t have made it. Grabbing a frosty one, I shut the door and looked right into X’s face.

“What are you doin’, man?” he asked me.

“The fuck are you doin’ here?” I wasn’t really surprised, which was weird.

“You’re fuckin’ everythin’ up. I didn’t leave all this behind for you to throw it away.”

“It’s because of you leavin’ that we’re in this fuckin’ mess!” I shouted.

“Phil?”

I looked over at Jason, who was staring at me through glassy bloodshot eyes. “Yeah?”

“Who are you talkin’ to?”

“X.”

I looked back at X, who looked so fuckin’ sad that I wanted to cry.

I was crying.

“When was the last time you heard the music in you?” X asked me.

Trying real hard, the answer I came up with was, “I can’t remember.”

“If you don’t stop this, Phil, you ain’t ever gonna hear it again. Is that what you want?”

“No.”

“Your mama drank to stop the music because she didn’t know what it meant.”

Shocked, I blinked, and X was gone. Dumbfounded, I stared at the bottle in my hands.

Kenna

Someone smoothed fingertips over my brow, softly weeping. “What’s the point of all this? What did she ever do to deserve this?”