He waited until he was safely inside his penthouse with the door closed, and looked behind him just to make sure he was all alone, before daring to give even one more thought to Mary- he didn't want to embarrass himself in front of the driver, for word spread rather quickly in his circles.
Dean wasted no time in pouring himself whiskey in a 16 oz tumbler he reserved for . . . special occasions, and gulped it down like it was water; greedy for the alcohol to take all the thoughts away. To take all the pain away.
But an hour and enough liquor to knock out a horse later, Dean found the thoughts coming roaring back, only now he was too weak to stop them.
What had he been thinking? Falling in love with a dame could have only turned out badly! All his life he'd been humoring people who wanted to give up everything for him, and the one time he was willing to do that for someone else, he was shot down. Like a dog.
He had been so damn stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .
###
Everything hurt before he even cracked open his eyes, and when he did, he regretted it as the morning light worsened his already splitting headache. He waited a minute and then slowly opened his eyes again, and realized sluggishly that he was lying face down on the floor by the front door.
He was wise enough to not try to get up, and noticed dumbly two thickly bound books touching his outstretched hand. They weren't his, that was for sure. They must have been pushed through the mail slot in his door sometime last night. He turned them on the floor so he could read their titles on the spines. Atlas Shrugged and The Holy Bible. Who the hell had slipped him those books out of all the other books he could have been given? It must have been some mistake- anyone who gave him a Bible was mistaken. But, as he noticed the white slip of paper peeking out of The Bible, he saw that it was no mistake. It was a typewritten note that read:
Mr. Russo,
You'll find what you're looking for in these. Read them if you want to live. Read them if you want to know why to live.
-Your friend,
Alexander Soter
YOU ARE READING
Alexander's Gift
Historical FictionFive people in 1955, seemingly with no connection to each other, find themselves at a mysterious mansion for a secret rendezvous that they have all been invited to. Who are they? What links their lives? And who invited them? A playboy, an actress...
