𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙂𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙚 [E.Diaz]

Whiskey Lullaby

Whiskey Lullaby

SHE STARED OUT, the cold air of the air conditioner hitting her bare legs. When she tries to forget it all starts coming to her, like she is fifteen all over again.  The flashes of emotion coming in waves again, and again, so much so that her eyes may not be able to produce more tears. 

"You're still up?" Alex asks, her voice sleepy. Josie nodded, she had taken a nap taking the day off from work. The blonde fell asleep almost instantly, not her though she couldn't even close her eyes for a second. 

"it's only nine," Josie says, raspy. Her throat was raw from how much she had been crying. Alex looks down at her friend's hands, her silver camcorder with the gator's sticker. 

"Why do you have that out?" She wondered taking the seat next to her, she shrugged her shoulder. "I don't know," Josie answers. 

"Just today I....it made me think of her," Josie admits, thumbing the sticker with her fingernail. "I haven't looked at the footage in a while." She tells her. 

"You know you never talk about her," Alex says, Josie looks up at her, she smiles softly. "You would have liked her..she knew how to have a good time." She licked her lips. 

"She pretended she hated Pearl Jam, and she always said that once she became a doctor she would buy a mansion on the beach where we could drink Margaritas all day." Josie smiled as she recalled the memory. 

"It wasn't till after she left that I understood why she never wanted to go home, why she was always at my house," Josie tells her, Alex furrowed her brows. "Why is that?" She wonders. 

"Her house was really sad, her mom ran off and it was just her dad and her brothers, her dad usually was too busy between a woman's legs to care about what Maria did, so she stayed with me." She explained she wiped the corner of her eye. 

She clicked open the camera, clicking the power button. She clicked through the gallery, stopping on a video. The audio plays through, cutting to two fourteen-year-old girls sitting on bleachers watching a baseball game. 

Maria stuck her tongue out at the lens, a burst of laughter on the other side sounded along with some cheering.  "Oh and look at that!" Maria shouts, clapping. 

The camera panned to the field, a group of boys with green baseball uniforms, they looked to be in high school. It zoomed in on the back of a boy, the number sixteen in gold and green font. 

"Come on sixteen! get your ass in the game!" Maria shouted a voice cackling loudly at her. "Unlucky sixteen! " Young Josie comments. 

Alex shook her head at her friend's, a ringtone makes the two stop the video, pausing on a zoomed-in shot of unlucky sixteen. Josie looked at the phone number, unknown caller, she furrowed her brow clicking the green button. 

"Hello?" Josie says into the phone. "Hello? Is this Josie Castillo?" A woman's voice with a Latin twang to it asks. 

"Yes, this is she? Who is this?" Josie asks, the voice on the other line panted. "I am Josefina um Pepa, you know my nephew Eddie." She tells her, she furrowed her brows. 

"Eddie? We work together is something wrong?" She asks her, she can hear a mumble in Spanish from the older woman. "He left awhile ago, and I haven't heard from him in three hours, I'm worried." She says.