Let It Be by Cheryl McIntyre

Author:Cheryl McIntyre [McIntyre, Cheryl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cheryl McIntyre
Published: 2014-08-18T04:00:00+00:00

~*~

I step out of the shower, wrap a towel around my waist, and wipe the condensation from the mirror.

I don’t recognize the stranger reflected there. Dark circles around his normally light eyes, red-rimmed and bloodshot. But it’s the look on his face that won’t let me look away. This man looks broken. Like he’s beaten down and giving up. That’s not who I am. I’m the happy one. The easy-going, playful one. The one who’s always smiling. Joking. Laughing.

My eyes close and I know the man’s in the mirror do too. I turn away, dressing quickly. I need to get back to the hospital. I know I can’t stay in his room, but I need to be close by for when he wakes up.

I leave a message on my boss’s voicemail, letting him know I won’t be in for a few days. I don’t give him details, but he knows me. He knows I wouldn’t take time off without a good reason.

After four years in college, you’d think I’d be basking in my dream job—which I would be if I knew what that was. For now I’m stuck with a liberal arts degree and a full-time bartending gig at a club I would never go into if I wasn’t getting paid to do so.

But I have to pay the bills somehow and I’d rather do what I do than ever have to ask for a handout.

Ian works from home, writing for a small news website. I know he’s not working in his ideal career, either, but it’s convenient for him. He can do it all from home and never have to leave the apartment, which he prefers.

I drop onto the couch, resting my feet on the arm. I just need a minute. Just sixty seconds where I can pretend everything is normal. I get about twenty before there’s a very distinctive knock on the door.

I push myself off the couch and hurry to answer it.

“Open up, I need to pee,” Chase yells from the hallway.

I huff out a light laugh as I open the door. He pushes past me, booking ass toward the bathroom. “I got up and came straight here before I went,” he utters. “And Park had to stop for coffee on the way.” He keeps talking, but his voice is muffled behind the confines of the door. I can only make out the words “creamer” and “ass” and decide I probably don’t want to know what he’s saying anyway.

Park, one of my closest friends for as long as I can remember, shakes his head as he steps inside. “My daughter isn’t even that bad. I swear he has a bladder the size of a peanut.”

“Only if his bladder is the same size as his balls,” I reply automatically.

He chuckles, running a hand through his dark hair before setting his Styrofoam cup on the table. He opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by Chase as he pops his head out of the door.

“That’s offensive,” he calls.

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