Free Melted & Shattered by Emily Eck Page A

month since you were released from the hospital. Anything come back to you in that time? Any memories at all of being shot?”
    Aw, hell. “Uh, no. Nothing.” Fucking everything had come back. At least everything about that night until I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me. I remembered looking into J’s eyes and realizing the man I loved, the man who promised to protect me had been the one to shoot me. I remembered fading in and out of consciousness and hearing him and Chris fighting. He still cared about me. I knew he did. I just couldn’t understand why he hadn’t called. My pride prevented me from picking up the phone to call him, not that I hadn’t thought about it a thousand times.
    “Well, I’m going to have you sch edule another appointment for six weeks from today. I’d like to check on how the scar looks then. Maybe you’ll remember something by that time.”
    “Maybe,” I mumbled as he left the room, sending the nurse in to schedule the next appointment.
    I left in a daze. I stopped at the liquor store and got a bottle of wine. I hadn’t drank alcohol since I’d been on antibiotics, and I was done with those and craving the dry taste of a Merlot or Malbec on my tongue. I vaguely recall the guy at my usual liquor store asking me questions about where I’d been. I couldn’t tell you what I answered. I think I decided on a Merlot, but it could‘ve been a Cabernet for all I knew. I felt like I was on autopilot.
    I got home and opened the bottle of wine. The sun had barely set, and rays of purple and orange were coloring the sky. I sat on one of my kitchen chairs, with the table pushed up against the picture window. I sat there watching the sun make the final leg of its descent while remembering doing the same with J. Only we watched the sun over the pond, my body cocooned for the first time in his. It got dark and I didn’t realize I was sitting in the dark. The streetlights had come on and provided enough light for me to keep filling my glass.
    I lifted up my shirt and looked at the gnarly scar on my left side. It was a scar that would never let me forget the one man who made me feel safe. The one man who I gave my love to. The one man who managed to melt my ice. I curled my back and leaned forward, one hand still clutching my rocks glass of wine, and let go. My body quaked as silent sobs ripped though me. Tears fell , like my eyes were the sky and it had opened up to let go a hurricane that rivaled Katrina. It tore through me, leaving destruction in its wake. My heart turned into New Orleans, and like then, FEMA was nowhere to be found. I felt empty, so why were there so many tears inside me, waiting to pour out at a moment’s notice? I laid my hand on the scar decorating my left side, and cried into the other hand. I gave up trying to fight it. I let my heart take over, and it was dying inside my chest.
    “Elle?”
    I pulled the hand away from my eyes and saw an apparition in front of me. I blinked a few times trying to get my bearings. I was drunk, but not drunk enough to see what I thought I saw. I gripped my glass of wine, looking to see just how much I drank.
    “J? How did—what are you doing here?”
    He knelt on the floor in front of me. Prying my hand off the rocks glass, he took it and the one that had fallen from my side into his own hands. Was he really kneeling in front of me?
    “I have a plan. I need to tell you my plan so I can fix this.”
    A plan? He had a plan to fix what? My fucked up life? My lack of a best friend? The hole in my side? I looked at him with wide eyes. “Plan? You have a plan?” I asked. I was no longer sad. I was suddenly filled with rage. I don’t know what I expected. An apology maybe? Hey, sorry, I shot you in the side. Really, I didn’t mean to . Not I have a plan . How did he think he was going to fix this? Had I really been crying for weeks over this man?
    I shot up from my chair. Staring down at his kneeling form, I started shaking, rage was