Free The Love Sucks Club by Beth Burnett Page A

the car. I’ll feel
better tomorrow. I watch her until I can no longer see her taillights.
               
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
    The sun shining through my window is making sleep impossible. I
should have closed the curtains last night before I finally fell asleep, but
despite a restless night, I don’t want to sleep the day away. Lying in bed, I’m
debating whether or not to call Roxanne. I wonder if she’s upset that I kind of
came on to her. Probably not. She’s pretty pragmatic.
I’m probably more bothered by it than she is. Rolling over to look at the
clock, I groan at the creaking and cracking in my back. Frank chirps at me for
disturbing his sleep, so I pet his head and get out of bed. He moves into the
warm spot I left and plops his head on my pillow. He’ll probably wander out
into the kitchen in a couple of hours and demand his morning meal. In the
meantime, I’m going to make some coffee and get some writing done.
    Rummaging around on the floor of my bedroom, I grab a pair of
boxers and slip them on. I’ve never been squeamish about going topless, but
even in my own home, walking around fully naked feels strange to me. I just
don’t relish the idea of putting my bare butt down on certain surfaces.
    There’s a shimmer hanging at the edge of my vision as I wander
around the kitchen, making coffee, cleaning up last night’s dishes, and filling
Frank’s bowls. Over the years, I’ve come to liken my psychic fits to a panic
attack. Sometimes, I can feel it coming on and I’m able to breathe through it,
or successfully distract myself in order to ward it off. Sometimes, even though
I know it’s coming, there’s nothing I can do about it, and the best I can
manage is to get into a safe space and hope for the best. I don’t think of
myself as a standard psychic. I can’t tell you the winning lottery numbers. I’m
certainly not about to have some television show where I convince a studio
audience that I can communicate with their dead relatives. I sense there is
someone here who died suddenly . No shit, really?
    When I was five, I had a dream that I died. The next day, my
grandfather died. That happened to me a lot when I was younger; I would have
dreams that I died and someone I knew would die the next day. It didn’t even
have to be someone I knew well or even liked. Once, I dreamed that I was hit by
a car and the next day, the school crossing guard was hit by a car. It kind of
sucked because it would get so that I would have these death dreams and I’d be
on edge the next day, waiting to see who was going to kick the bucket.
    After I hit puberty, my dreams faded a lot. I could go months or
even years without having any dreams or visions. It really wasn’t until I met
Fran that they started back up in earnest. While we were together, I usually
felt like I was on guard. If I wasn’t, sometimes the simple act of her reaching
over to touch me would send me into a fugue state. Of course, I didn’t know
what they all meant back then. Hell, I’m not sure I know what they all mean
now.
    Throwing a muscle shirt on, I head outside. Sipping my coffee on
the deck, I try to avoid the eye of my nearest neighbor. We aren’t that close,
but if he stands in his backyard, he can see onto my deck. His driveway is down
some other dirt road that branches off the lead in to mine. Unfortunately,
because of the way the land was divided, parts of our properties are just a wee
bit close for comfort. If I make eye contact with him, he’s likely to come
over. It isn’t that I don’t like the guy; it’s just that Sam and I are pretty
sure he’s a serial killer. He’s always walking around looking sweaty and
twitchy. I had to borrow his shovel once to dig up some stubborn weeds and for
weeks after, Sam would glance over at the shovel, leaning innocuously against
the house, and say things like, “Course, now your prints are on it” or “We gotta get that shovel.” One time, he was digging