I jumped to my feet so fast that she startled, stepping back away from me. “That ink on your skin does not make you who you are,” I sneered. “Don’t you ever fucking say that.”
Tears continued to stain her cheeks. I made no move to catch them. I would not, could not, ever touch her again.
“I think you should go.”
The words were like the final nail in my coffin. She was right, but that did not take away the pain. The guilt of what I had done. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t actually had sex with her. My hands and mouth had been all over her. I’d touched her when I had no right to.
I nodded, “Ho’oponopono.” I headed for the door. I did not look back at her as I said, “I never lied about loving you. It kills me that I hurt you. Take care of yourself, Caroline.”
It would no longer be my responsibility. I could not be trustedaround her, and whatever wrath or punishment came my way for what I’d done with her this morning, I would gladly take. Because no pain could be worse than the agony tearing apart my soul right now.
Chapter Eight
Cold water slammed down on top of me. Gasping for breath, I bolted upright. Glass clattered loudly on the hard ground, irritating the throbbing in my head. Was someone drilling? I clamped my hands to my ears, and tried to breathe through the rising nausea.
“If yuh cho-up ton mi floors, mon, mi wi mek yuh nyam it.”
I forced one eye open. Blaring light, like someone was holding a flashlight directly in front of my face, pierced my brain. Slamming my eye closed again, I gagged.
“Bumboclaat! Wah di raas wrang wid yuh?”
My fog-filled brain had absolutely no hope of translating that. My stomach heaved, and there was another string of accented cursing. Something was shoved under my face just in time to catch my puke. Bile and acid filled my nose as my guts violently convulsed.
Though I was pretty sure I was called a, “Kakaclaat.”
When nothing but air came up, the bucket of sick was taken away. I laid back down as gently as I could on the cold, hard floor. I had no idea where I was or why I felt like someone was trying tomake an ice sculpture out of my brain, but I knew I deserved the pain. Even hungover, grief and guilt tore at my insides.
I wanted to die. I deserved to die.
Another wave of cold water slapped down on top of me. I gasped, choking as the water clogged the back of my throat.
“Wah di raas yah deh ere?”
Through a single squinted eye, I managed to look up at Hops’ pissed-off face. “Speak English,” I begged. My mouth tasted like ass. “And quieter.”
“Tis fa di mon who spik tin Hawaiian-Pidgin?”
My stomach heaved again, but there was nothing left to come up. I blindly reached for something, anything, to rinse my mouth out with. I felt only empty glass bottles at first, until finally my fingers landed on something heavier. I grabbed it before it rolled away. Not knowing or caring what it was, I took a swig of liquid fire before spitting it out on the ground.
“Blurtnawt! Yah batty head! Wah mek yuh duh dat? Pussyclaat! Guh suck yuh madda!”
Ignoring words I had no hope of understanding in my current state, I brought the bottle back to my lips and chugged down the fire. I hoped it burned me from the inside out.
Barefoot,I stumbled down the road. After Hops threatened to get boiling water rather than cold, I managed to get to my feet and work my way out into the blazing sunlight. As sweet as dying would be right then, I knew I deserved the pain more. Death was too good for the likes of me.
My head felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I only wore my shorts, yet it felt like I was wearing a snowsuit in the tropics. I didn’t know what time it was or where I was walking to. I keptthinking about starting a bar fight. That sounded like a good way to get myself fucked up. But I couldn’t find a fucking bar!
Maybe it was this way. I made a right turn down a road. Or maybe it was a left. Either way, I kept walking.
I was aware enough to know I’d started fromShakaloha, the club’s brewery. I must have broken in at some point last night and gotten into the stash. Hops had built the company from the ground up when he’d moved to Hawai‘i from Jamucka. Jamicka. Jam…something. But then the club bought it from him and now he managed it. The way he put it, he was still doing the exact same job. Just without the risk of owning a small business.
Where the fuck was he from? I should know this. Where the fuck wasI?
I stopped, looking around. I was fucking hungry. My liquid diet of boilermakers, and now just pure whiskey was not exactly nutritious. Why did the sky look so dark? And where did the sun go?
My bladder pinched. At least I wasn’t so black-out drunk that I unknowingly pissed myself. I put the high neck of the glass whiskey bottle between my teeth and dropped my shorts to the ground. Tipping my head back, I kept one hand on my dick and the other on the bottle as I began to piss. Recycling at its finest. I really should be a spokesperson for an advertisement company. Out with the old and in with the new!
Oh, that’s a good saying. Damn, I was smart. Since I didn’t have a pen and paper to write that down with, I started to write it into the dirt with my piss.