Hard Beat

“Fuck,” I sigh out into the empty room, feeling so out of place in my own home. Setting my empty beer bottle down, I shift on the couch so that my head is on one armrest and my feet are on the other. The problem is when I look up toward my ceiling, the cracks I’m so used to tracing as I work through my thoughts aren’t there. Restless, I move onto my side so that I can look elsewhere, when something jabs my rib cage. Shifting again, I reach down to find my cell phone there, but when I pick it up to toss it on the table and glance at the screen, my heart stops for a beat.

It was all a lie and none of it was a lie. —Rookie