Broken Horse

Chapter 9 - Sergei

"How is your class going? You still glad you took on that job?" Tommy Malone's eyes shifted over to the blonde who was pressing her chest up against a guy for another drink. I knew that type all too well, and that was the type that Jacki wasn't, but Susie was. And the type Tommy always liked to watch. The blonde, who my best friend was eyeing, was one of those college girls I've seen around campus. And for being Friday night, I have seen a lot of the college campus girls around the bar. "So, what has gotten you all uptight this week? You have been kind of off in another world."

"Nothing." Sliding the beer over to the young male bartender, I shook my head. I had to go. I needed to go before I had the urge to fill that void again, to numb that pain with the drink that has been in front of me for the past hour. I wanted to drink it, but I just didn't have the heart to. Not after what Jacki said to me when she found me drunk at school, and what my father said to me before he died of a heart attack. I hadn't touched a drink since, but I wanted to. I really needed to. The jitters alone were getting to me. The night sweats and the panic attacks were one thing, but the actual shaking, the need for alcohol, was visible to everyone. And something I couldn't risk anyone to see.

After Monday night, I knew I screwed up when I called Jacki telling her I really enjoyed spending time with her on Friday night. I really did enjoy being at my place with her, talking and laughing, and snacking on the dinner she made. It was perfect. For once, I was sitting with a woman who actually cared, and cared about others more than herself.

And it was wrong, very wrong, but I didn't care anymore. I could be friends with Jacki. After all, she was making me be a better person.

Tuesday morning, Susie had to message me again confessing she was still in love with me. As much as I loved Susie, that woman never cared one bit for me. I walked through fire for her and she had used the dullest butter knife to cut out my heart and stomped her high heel right onto it. When I received that message, everything crashed inside of me again. I would have given anything to be with Susie even at the beginning of this school year... That was until Jacki slammed into me.

Sliding off the stool, I walked out feeling Tommy watching, wondering why I had just left the one place where I let everything go, not caring about anything except for drinking. Tonight, I just wasn't into it. The past two classes, Jacki hadn't even looked at me. Not once. Today, I swore she had been sleeping, too, and it was all because of me. She was the one who had reached out to me, risked her schooling on offering me someone to talk to, knowing we both would be in serious trouble.

I drove past her house and her truck wasn't there, yet again, just like the past few days. My heart sank hard and all that entered my mind was the damn bottle. How could someone affect me just like that, in just a short time like she had? I needed to stop. I needed to get my head back in the zone and keep her completely off limits. Thinking about her every second of the day had to stop. These little drives past her place had to come to an end. She was a college student and seven years younger than me.

Going home was where I should head, but being home was too much of a temptation again with the constant turmoil that was hitting me now. There was booze in the cabinet that I bought Monday night when I lost it, and Susie's phone number was still sitting on my nightstand. Talk about pouring salt into the open wound. After Wednesday's class and seeing all the pain in Jacki's eyes that I put there, I sat on the edge of my bed, phone in one hand and the number in the other. Susie wronged me in the worst possible way and she was the one who ended things. Now, she wanted to come back after three years of nothing?

Turning on the road behind the school, the bricks of the defenses were beginning to break down. Just go home. call Susie, and forget about Jacki. Jacki would never want you anyway after the way you treated her, my inner broken man screamed. Fill up in the bottles and just drown everything away again. I needed to just let Jacki go, finish out the semester with her as my student, and nothing more. Besides, I could just divulge back in the cloud of hazy alcoholic fuzz and numb everything Susie put me through. Maybe calling Susie was the best idea ever. I could simply go back to her and have a constant reason to drown myself in the booze to get rid of anything and everything.