A Lost Woman by Ann Brooks

Author:Ann Brooks [Brooks, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

27 |

Present Day

Where is the damn coffee ... Each cabinet, once filled with food from my initial grocery excursion, was now empty. Since the call from Michael, everything had gone downhill all too quickly, including my appearance. Drinking had become a daily pastime, along with screaming at my mother. Always in response to her initial outburst of course. No matter how much I did not want to show my swollen, clammy face in town, I had to go grocery shopping. I also needed coffee ... and vodka.

The liquor store was the obvious first choice at nine o’clock in the morning on Tuesday. Pulling the cap over my unwashed, identifiable hair, and placing some dark glasses on my sunken eyes, I attempted to disguise myself as much as physically possible. It didn’t work.

Pushing on the glass door repeatedly, unwilling to accept that the liquor store was closed at this totally acceptable time to be buying alcohol in the morning, I failed to notice him walking down the street.

“Norah?” My head hit the glass door, falling to the side, a deep groan escaped from my lungs as I realized the situation I had found myself in. Brett was the last person I wanted to see after being hit by a Mack truck named Michael.

“Are you okay?”

“Yep.” If I could have one superpower, it would be invisibility right now, but no such luck. “Just out for some light grocery shopping.”

“At the liquor store?”

“You’ve met my mother, right?” I turned, glaring up at him as the sun radiated around his silhouette, making him appear godly. Those feelings I had initially had been buried, alive at first but now, after all this time, dead. Drinking to forget had burned any last soft edges I might have possessed towards Brett. The match lit by Michael. I couldn’t look at him without seeing and feeling the painful stab of my opened wounds from Michael.

“Yes, I believe I have.” His smile was disarming, which I loathed.

“They should open up in about an hour. Do you want to go get a coffee while you wait?” Yes ... no.

“I should probably head on to the grocery store. My mother can really get into a mess if left alone too long.”

He nodded in agreement. “Just one cup?”

I was not going to have coffee with Brett. I was going to go to the grocery store, ignore everything about my life, go home, and continue to drink away any real sense of understanding over my dire life situation. But for some reason, I followed Brett across the street to the coffee shop. Maybe I was trying to resurrect the dead, because that always ends well.

“Two black cups,” he ordered as we took a small table in the back. Reluctantly, I removed my glasses, but not the cap. “How are things going with your mother?”

“Fine.” Glad to see he’d decided to just jump right into it. The moment I took the seat, saw the look on his face when I removed the glasses, I knew this was a bad decision.

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