Nepenthe (Bracing for Love #2) Read online

  Nepenthe

  A Bracing for Love Novel

  Copyright © 2014 by Lindsay Paige

  Edited by Shannon Page

  Cover design by Wicked by Design

  Formatting and interior design by JT Formatting

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Nepenthe Definition

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  To Kristalyn Thornock.

  I’M BARELY ALIVE.

  Smiling, laughing, happiness, joy, bliss, and any other positive emotion has been out of my life for what seems like a lifetime. It’s hard to remember what they feel like. I do feel something of the sorts when I’m around my brothers, Jonathan and Patrick, and my sister, Lucy. The problem is that I don’t see them all that often and honestly, I’m okay with that. As long as I check in here and there, they are satisfied.

  A long, heavy, defeated sigh pushes through my lips. I’m nearly surprised that I have enough air in my lungs to breathe. My body feels like an empty shell, barely living, only enough to keep me from being pushed over the edge to death. My chest feels hollow and I’m truly amazed that there’s functioning lungs and a beating heart in there. I don’t feel them. It’s impossible to feel like I’m living when my life was snatched from me.

  I’m rotting away, my body and mind are slowly giving in as I decay. My life was on the cusp of amazing. So close. So fucking close, and five hours is all it took for it to disappear. And it’s all my fault. I’ve replayed that day over and over in my head, rewinding each time to pinpoint the moment that started the tailspin of events that would make me fall to my knees with no hopes of recovery.

  Every single time, I come back to me.

  And it sucks. It sucks so fucking bad to know that I’m here. My life, my brothers’ lives, hell, even Lucy’s life was football. The team, the fans, the stadium, that was our lives. Now, my brothers are the only Kennedy brothers playing and Luce has moved on to hockey. Don’t get me wrong, I love them and I’m happy they are doing so well in the sport. I just wish I could still be a part of the game too.

  “You won’t be able to play anymore. I’m sorry.”

  Those words are on a constant loop in my head. I can’t stand it. I’m no longer, Corey Kennedy, the football player. I’m the bouncer at clubs you’ve been to. The bright side, if you can call it that, is that without football, I do have more time to work. Well, when I go to work. I haven’t been lately.

  Anyhow, not only do I have to support myself, but I send extra money to my brothers and to Lucy too. She’s the only one of us that doesn’t have a job, which is okay. Her part of Mom and Dad’s life insurance pays for her schooling and what she needs for now. Patrick and Jon have full ride scholarships, but they need money for rent and such. They work, but I send what I can anyway. That’s normal for me, and I need them to think things are normal.

  I was one of those dumb asses who thought football would be all I needed. Sure, I kept my grades up and earned a degree, but I wasn’t planning on ever using that degree. Football defined my life, who I was, and now, who I am not. So here I am in grad school for political science. What the fuck am I going to do with that? Nothing I want to do, but I don’t know how to want anything other than football.

  That’s what it always comes back to; football. How do you live without the one thing that defined you? How do you smile and be happy when your life is altered and you genuinely don’t want the backup plan you’ve been forced to take?

  Maybe you don’t.

  My phone vibrates on the end table, so I lift my arm over my head to reach behind me and grab it. I’ve been lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling for hours and drinking a bottle of my favorite Bourbon.

  “I’m alive, doing okay, and will hang up now,” I slur my usual line to Patrick.

  “You don’t sound okay. You sound drunk.”

  “Don’t start.”

  “I think I will. You need to quit drinking and—”

  “Don’t lecture me, Patrick!” I interrupt, suddenly furious. “I’m the oldest, so leave me the fuck alone. I’m not worth it anyway.” I’m not. I’m worth less than a grain of fucking sand now that I can’t play.

  Patrick ignores me effortlessly. “You’re supposed to work tonight, and you can’t bail for the third time in a row.”

  Fuck. How’d he know that?

  Before I can question him, he sighs. “This is the last straw, Corey. We can’t watch you do this to yourself anymore. You keep going like this and you’ll lose your job and fail your courses. We’re coming to see you.” My mouth opens to object, but he hangs up.

  Damn it.

  Rage surges through my veins as the phone flings from my hand, crashing against the wall and shattering. Like I need my brothers here tonight. At least, he can’t call me now. I sit up and try to drink the rest of the bottle. My goal is to finish it before they get here because I’m sure going to need something to tide me over. Everything in life has stopped moving for me. Life didn’t go on and I still can’t see how it can. The people around me can function and live their lives, but I can’t.

  The rare memory of my parents, hooting and hollering in the bleachers during one of my football games when I was a kid, plays as clear as the day it happened. I just made a touchdown, and their smiles and cheering displayed how proud they were of me. I can remember Dad telling me that he knew I would be a star in the NFL one day. And now, I’ve let them down. There will not be a spot in the NFL for me ever again. Fuck, there won’t be a spot for me on a local recreational team. I’m no longer an athlete and not much matters anymore.

  If it wasn’t for my siblings, I would be even more lost. They are like this tiny islan
d, keeping me ashore instead of sinking further and drowning. The waters are rising, though. I’m not sure how much longer I can stand to be strong. It’s excruciating to survive on days like this and it makes me wish things were just a little easier to adjust to. A little lighter of a load to carry so I don’t constantly have this humongous weight on me.

  Transferring to another school was supposed to help. I didn’t expect it to do much, but I did hope that I would be able to take a deep, cleansing breath away from where my life ended, so I could breathe a little easier. Instead, I lock myself up here most of the time as things continue to deteriorate.

  It doesn’t really matter because I’ve given up on trying. I’m barely alive and that is perfectly okay with me. My eyes drift closed, taking me away from my walking nightmare of a life.

  “COREY?” A SOFT, concerned voice that can only belong to my sister awakens me.

  Fuck. They brought Luce? She’s been kept in the dark about most of my shit, but there’s no way to hide it now. I’m painfully aware of the empty bottles that were once filled with alcohol along with the dirty clothes, empty pizza boxes, and dirty dishes scattered about my apartment.

  I sit up, seeing those innocent blue eyes looking entirely too worried for my liking. “I’m fine, Luce,” I mutter as she sits down next to me on the couch. Patrick and Jon have their arms folded over their chests and the mean look they learned from me on their faces. They are standing up, one at each end of the couch.

  My baby sister wraps her arms around me in a hug and whispers, “No, you’re not, and that’s okay.”

  Ugh. This is why they brought her. None of us can stand to let Lucy know when something’s wrong, even though we know she’s more than strong enough to handle it. She’s stronger than I am. That probably hurts the most.

  Luce leans back to look at me, a frown on her face. “Do you want to talk about it? They said this is because you can’t play anymore. You know we love you anyway and that you still have a bright future ahead of you, right?”

  I lock my jaw. What bright future is she talking about? The only bright future I ever had was with football and that’s gone. It disappeared down the drain, was thrown out the window, vanished into thin air. Lucy doesn’t get it. None of them do. It’s pointless to try and explain it to them.

  Instead, I ignore everything she said and reply, “I love y’all too.”

  Lucy stares at me for the longest time, struggling with whatever she’s thinking. Finally, she glances around my apartment. “Let’s get this place cleaned up, and you should shower before work.”

  I glance around the room at each of them. They’ve cornered me. If Lucy wasn’t here, I’d tell them to fuck off and lie back down. But she is here, so I sigh, stand, and retreat defeatedly to the shower. By the time I finish and have changed into my work clothes—black jeans and a black shirt—I reenter the living room to see that my apartment is completely clean again. Lucy is just finishing up the vacuuming.

  My brothers glare at me, and I send them a nasty look right back, not only for coming, but for bringing our baby sister. Lucy reaches down to turn off the machine and smiles at me.

  “Ready for work?”

  “Yeah,” I lie. I go over and sit on the couch.

  Luce puts away the vacuum cleaner and comes to sit next to me again. She leans her head on my shoulder as Patrick and Jon find themselves seats as well. “Are you going to be okay, Corey?” she asks softly. “Maybe you should talk to someone or—”

  “I’ll be fine,” I cut her off to reassure her, resting my head against hers so she won’t take the interruption as a negative thing. “I need more time to figure out what I’m supposed to do now, that’s all.” No need to tell her that there’s nothing left for me to do.

  I lift my head as Lucy does. She looks at me and scrunches her nose in confusion. “What do you mean? You finish your degree and start your career.”

  “That’s not what he’s talking about, Luce,” Patrick says. If anyone understands, it’s him. He manages to have at least a little understanding of everything. It pisses me off, really. It might be why he’s a psychology major, though. “He means without football.” Patrick has been injured a few times, so he probably knows what it’s like to be hurt, but he doesn’t know what it’s like to have the simple possibility of playing taken away forever.

  Lucy opens her mouth, but then closes it. She gives me a hug and whispers, “You’re my big brother and I love you no matter what.”

  Her words are numb to me, as if they hold no real meaning. “I love you too, Luce,” I reply automatically. With it being time for me to head to work, I grab my things and we all walk outside to our vehicles. We say our goodbyes, but my mind has already checked out, my actions just going through the motions.

  When I get to work, I kiss the boss man’s ass to make up for missing work and thank him for not firing me yet. The good thing about my job is that it’s pretty mindless work for the most part. The entire time, I’m wishing I was at home instead. Time moves extra slowly, but quitting time does eventually come.

  I’m walking up the stairs to my apartment when I hear, “Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck! Please, no, no, no.”

  As I reach the top of the staircase, I see a girl standing outside the door across the hall from mine, frantically twisting the doorknob. She hits the door with an open palm and lets out another curse, resting her forehead against the door in defeat. She must be my new neighbor, who has been noisy as she moves in her stuff.

  “Everything okay?” I reluctantly voice as I head to my door.

  Her brown hair is cut short, hanging an inch or two above her shoulders. Before she turns to face me, she snaps, “No, everything is not okay!” Her angry brown eyes land on me, but her shoulders slump in defeat. My eyes scan over her. She’s in green pajama shorts and a hoodie. She’s beautiful. Must be freezing, though. Why she’s wearing shorts and not pants, I don’t know. I would think if it’s cold enough for a hoodie, then it’s too cold for shorts. “I locked myself out,” she says, much calmer now. The girl takes a deep breath. “Sorry for yelling at you. It’s been a bad day. Is there any way I could borrow your phone?”

  “I…um…mine is broken, sorry,” I say, remembering throwing it against the wall earlier.

  Tears suddenly well up in her eyes, her lower lip trembling. My first instinct is to unlock my door and leave her, but I would be pissed if someone didn’t offer help to Luce when she needed it.

  As I unlock my door, I tell her, “C’mon. You must be freezing.” I push it open and turn, but she makes no movement towards me.

  “I don’t know you,” she states simply.

  “I don’t know you either. You can come in or stay outside until you figure out what you want to do, but you have exactly three seconds to make a decision. I don’t care either way.” With that, I head for my kitchen, leaving the door open in case she does come in. I’ve just opened the fridge when I hear the door close. “Want something to drink? It’s Mountain Dew or beer.” I’ll keep my Bourbon to myself for later.

  “Mountain Dew is fine. Thank you,” she adds when I hand her one, keeping one for myself. She follows me into the living room, taking a seat in the chair. I toss her the blanket laying over the back of the couch. “Thanks.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Olivia.”

  “I’m Corey,” I offer, sitting down on the couch. She glances around the room for a moment while I watch her. I’m not sure where to go from here. It’s not every day that I’m a social butterfly, interacting with others and being nice and helpful. Olivia’s eyes land on mine, as an awkward air of silence and discomfort engulfs us. Clearing my throat, I ask, “How did you lock yourself out?”

  A laugh escapes her lips as she brings her legs up into the chair. “I ran out to my car because I forgot my cell phone, but halfway to my car, I realized I forgot my car keys and wouldn’t be able to open the doors. When I came back, the doorknob was locked, so I couldn’t get back inside.” There’s s
omething about her voice and the way she rattled on that’s a bit soothing.

  With my phone being broken and she not having hers, we’re in a bind. My body has already begun to shut down with exhaustion, so I decide on a plan. “Well, you can stay here tonight and go down to the office in the morning. I’ll get some blankets and a pillow for the couch.”

  “Thanks.” She gives me a small smile of gratitude. I’m not sure why. I could have offered her my bed, but the hell with that. I don’t sleep much, but when I do, I prefer for it to happen in my own bed.

  After searching my hall closet, I find what I need. The least I can do is make the makeshift bed for her. As I start laying a sheet over the couch, the muscles in my back twitch and it feels like she’s watching me. Sure enough, when I glance over, her eyes are on me.

  “I can do that,” she offers.

  “About done now.” I toss the pillow at one end and throw the blanket on the couch. No need to fix that when she’s about to crawl under it. “There you go.”

  Olivia nods. “Thanks, Corey.”

  I nod, wishing she would stop saying that. As if a Mountain Dew and a couch to sleep on is me going above and beyond for her. Nope. I’m doing minimal work here and it’s nothing to be so thankful about. Without another word, I go back down the hallway to my bedroom.

  MY EYES BURN from being open for so long. I blink rapidly a few times to ease the annoyance. No sleep. At all. I’ve been staring at my ceiling since I laid down. My body feels weak and I’m tired. So, so tired, but sleep isn’t coming. Sunlight has already started to stream in through my open blinds.

  The door to my room creaks open. I turn my head to see Olivia stick her head inside.