Constant Headache

Aidan was asleep on the couch as I pushed the front door to our apartment open and threw my body inside. The simple walk from the elevator to our door down the hall was enough to make the pain in my chest start again. It bothered me that I was so fragile, but every time I started to beat myself up over this, I ran my tongue along my teeth and smiled to myself. I may have been kicked in the ribs, but I still had all of my teeth.

The large apartment was bathing in the early morning daylight light as I started to peel the layers of clothes from my body, carefully and painfully. Tossing my sweater onto the ground near the bathroom, I kept walking, fumbling with the back clip of my bra. Once I had managed to maneuver it off, I shouldered the door to my bedroom open and dragged my feet inside and over to my dresser.

Groaning as the pain in my body stayed at a steady pulse, I held my right hand against my bare stomach and used the other to pull open my dresser and grab one of my brother’s old Texas Rangers tee shirts.

Once I had managed to put the shirt over my head and poke my arms through the sleeves, I stumbled over to my bed and carefully laid my body down on my back. Without moving the sheets or crawling up so my head was resting on a pillow, my eyes fluttered shut and I was taken to a dead sleep where not one swirl of color played behind my eyes.



“Dude where the fuck were you!” Jordie exclaimed as soon as I walked through the door and kicked my sneakers off into the pile of miss-matched shoes we had created by the front door. It wasn’t as big of a mess as it was when Tyler lived here, but it was getting pretty close.

Tearing my eyes from my sneakers, my brain moved in slow motion as I dragged my eyes across the room and locked them onto my brother who was sitting on the couch in a pair of boxers holding a cup of coffee and a protein bar.

Shaking my head, a loud groan escaped my lips. The events from the night replayed behind my eyes, causing my stomach to twist and knot mercilessly. All I could see were those teeth on the pavement, and her raw knuckles. The way her hair stuck to the dried blood that was under her nose and around her lips, the way she screamed when her ribs broke, the way she knocked the guy out with a single punch, it all seemed surreal to me. I fought on the ice constantly, but to see it so raw in real life, to see it with some tiny little girl and a much larger guy, it was gut wrenching.

I tried to force myself to believe that the world wasn’t like that. I told myself fights like that were on the ice and professionally staged and that was it.

It was a harsh drop from innocence.

“So who was she?” Jordie moved over to me as I leaned my body against the counter near the fridge.

“It wasn’t… Tyler and I were at the bar, and after he left with some blonde chick, I went to walk back to my car and I heard this chick scream.” Her eyes flash flashed in my head.

“Where is this going?” Jordie asked quickly, his eyes almost as wide as mine normally were. When I shook my head at him, he let out a huge breath and then smiled a little, urging me to go on.

With a nod, I put my hand against my forehead and continued. “I thought nothing of it, people scream all the time. Then I heard it again, and it was like a pain scream, so I headed over to that huge vacant parking lot by the bar.” I looked over at him and watched as he nodded.

“Well, I run over there and there’s this dude and this chick full on beating the shit out of each other. Like, pools of blood on the asphalt kind of fighting. So I see this chick curled up on the floor and I go over and she gets up and fucking, I don’t know how she managed it, but she punched the guy right in the mouth, right in the teeth and the guy just drops to the ground, spits out some teeth, and-“

“You’re making this shit up.” Jordie said excitedly as he slapped his hand against his bare leg. His eyes were wide and interested as he watched me frown.

“I wish I fucking was.” I growled as I remembered how rude Ryder was the whole time I was trying to help her. It made the vein in my forehead pulse like it never had before, but even with that, I found myself no being able to leave her unless I knew for sure that she was okay. I wasn’t sure if it was just my attitude, the way my parents raised me to be the sweetest little Canadian boy I could be, or there was just something about her, something about her headstrong attitude that sucked me in.

“So you were where the whole night?” My brother tore me from my thoughts.

“She fought me tooth and nail the whole fucking time, but I took her to the ER, and then I was going to leave because she was just so… so rude”, I clenched my fists and then let it go, wiggling my fingers a little. “Like, just relentlessly rude, but as soon as I dropped her off, she like ran out to say thank you to me, and mind you this chick was in like shuffling, bleeding from everywhere, broken ribs, kind of shape, and as soon as I saw her do that, I found myself waking back in and waiting for her to come out. Then of course she gave me the biggest attitude ever, referred to me as a serial killer, and then I dropped her off at her car and came home.”

“You’re a little angel, huh?” Jordie chuckled as he leaned over and set his mug down in the sink. “Good thing we have the day off today, because you look like a fucking wreck.”

I nodded, my mind still consumed in the girl. I kept replaying her eyes when I stopped her walking to her car. I remember the way the air in her lungs hitched as I gently held her against the fence. The way her eyes widened and locked onto mine. They were so scared, so embarrassed and sad that I wanted to just hug her.

I could just imagine someone trying to hug her, it was probably like someone trying to hug a cactus.

Blinking a few times, I tried to push the thoughts of her to the back of my head as I turned to face the counter and reached for a clean mug off the drying rack. Taking a few steps over to the Keurig, I placed the mug on the bottom, pulled a Starbucks k-cup out, placed it in the top and then shut it, listening as the little metal spikes poked holes in the plastic cup.

As the steaming hot liquid started to drip into my cup, I inhaled deeply and tried to replace the smell of her flowery perfume and cigarettes with the strong smell of coffee. Instead of replacing the other, they mixed and created a smell that made my stomach knot. I thought of meeting her at a Starbucks, seeing her skin clean of dirt and blood, seeing her lips in a smile instead of her normal frown.

A groan passed my lips for the millionth time tonight as I covered my eyes and let flashes of the fight between her and that man that I saw roll through my mind like a slow motion video.

“Dude, was she like gorgeous or something?” My brother asked causing me to jump a little. As soon as we stopped speaking I completely forgot he was in the same room as I was.

“I don’t know”, I huffed as I grabbed the hot mug and walked back over to the fridge, pouring some vanilla almond milk into it before grabbing a spoon and mixing the liquid until it was an extremely pale brown. Watching the liquid swirl, I looked over at him and watched as he gave me a small smile.

“Figures you have a crush on a badass.” I lifted my eyebrows in question and watched as he started laughing. “You’re a saint off the ice, it’s only right you have a girlfriend that kicks ass in real life.”

“I don’t even know her last name. We didn’t exchange numbers or anything, I’ll probably never see her again, so shut the hell up.” I rambled on as I grabbed my cup of coffee and walked passed him, around the corner, down the hall, and into my room. As I kicked my door shut, I walked over to my bed and set the coffee mug down on the floor as I rested my back against my sheets and shut my eyes, quickly falling asleep with images of her nearly transparent hazel eyes running through my head.



I woke up to a loud scream of annoyance ringing through the apartment. A part of me wanted to throw something at whoever was making so much noise, but in my half asleep state, my mind was still consumed in the feeling of him holding me up while I tried to walk. I could still feel his fingers against my skin, I could still smell his cologne.

At the time, I didn’t even realize he was wearing any, but now that my head was clear and the pain in my body wasn’t overbearing, I had time to dig into my subconscious and pull out everything I had unknowingly picked up about him.

“Jamie”, I whispered to myself as I blinked a few times, feeling a small pinch as my eyelids touched. It was the same pinch that I had felt countless times through my life. The pinch that gave me the signal that someone landed a punch to my face and the bruise decided to take place on my eye.

Sitting up, I ignored the way my chest tightened, and then slipped off of the bed. Once I was standing up and balanced, I yawned a little and walked over to my bedroom door, smiling that the pained shuffle was gone.

The last thing I needed was to walk around campus with a shuffle. It was bad enough I had a black eye and bandaged hand, I didn’t need to look like I lost the fight.

As soon as I took a step into the living room, I listened as the man I had walked into on the couch let out an annoyed groan and then appeared in front of me, his dark blue eyes set in a glare. “Again, Ryder!” He yelled, “Really, again?” He said as I walked passed him, walking over to the kitchen and leaning against the swirling black countertops. “What the fuck is wrong with you? This is like the third fight this month.”

“I won?” I shrugged as I watched the blue-eyed boy crack a small smile and then shake his head.

“You’re going to get yourself killed if you keep fucking with those guys.” He said, his eyes wide and locked on mine. I knew he was right, I knew if I kept fucking around with those men I would probably be faced with something much more deadly than a kick to the ribs. They were ruthless.

“I’ll stop.” I lied.

“I know that’s bullshit.” Aidan said as he waked over to me and took me into a light hug. “So what was the damage, and how did you get home?”

“Three broken ribs, cleaned the skin off of most of my knuckles, black eye, gash on the back of my head, probably had a mild concussion, but I knocked his teeth out, and some guy helped me.” I said nonchalantly as my memory instantly flashed back to the brunette with the wide eyes. The smell of his cologne somehow filled my head again, and I as it did, my body relaxed and I wondered if I was literally starting to lose my mind from getting his in the head so many times.

“Wait, some guy?” Aidan looked confused and interested.

“His name was Jamie, he took me to the ER and then followed me home in case I crashed.” I let out another yawn and then glanced at the clock. It was one in the afternoon.

“Are you going to marry him?” Aidan said, his eyes never losing the seriousness that was so common to him.

“I don’t even know him.” I said quickly, shooting down the small surge of happiness that ran through me. “Besides I’m not a relationship kind of person”, I turned from Aidan and quickly opened the cabinets and pulled out a box of Captain Crunch with crunch berries. It was probably the one thing I couldn’t live without besides Aidan.

Aidan rolled his eyes as he reached into the box and grabbed a handful of cereal. After funneling some into his mouth, her sucked started chewing and walked back into the living and sat down on the couch, grabbing his notebook and jotting down something that must have been written in his textbook.

As I watched him write things down, I shoved more cereal in my mouth, suddenly remembering that I hadn’t eaten anything since this time yesterday. Setting the box of cereal down, I walked over, grabbed a bowl, and then opened the fridge and grabbed the carton of vanilla almond milk. Pouring milk into the bowl, I overflowed it with the crunchy cereal, and then quickly put both of the things back and grabbed a spoon. As I pressed the cereal into the milk, I walked over to Aidan and carefully sat next to him, glancing over at his book all about programming software.

It made me want to rip my hair out, but I was almost positive he felt the same way about my Biomedical Engineering books.

As I shoveled the cereal into my mouth, Aidan and I sat in a comfortable silence. Not necessarily silence because of the loud crunching of my cereal, but other than that, our large apartment was pretty peaceful.

The silence left me time to think about what I had to do once I was done eating. I thought about all of the notes I should be taking, and the laundry I should be cleaning. I thought about the classes I had on Monday and the office hours I had scheduled the same day. I worked at Stryker, which was one of the leading industries for prosthetics of all kinds, as a receptionist. I had originally spent the last summer there as an intern, and they liked me so much that they hired me as a part time receptionist until I got my degree.

It was nice to know my life was put together now. It was nice to feel like I was going somewhere. The years before this, the years where I was in that dark whole I dug myself into after my mother had passed away from heart failure, I didn’t see much beside myself overdosing and dying. I never once thought that I would be here. I never once thought that I would be considered smart, that I would be useful.

“Hey, you know”, Aidan turned to me, his ballpoint pen between his fingers like he was going to write something and just abruptly turned to me as the thought hit his mind. As I looked up from my bowl of cereal that was almost empty, I locked my eyes onto his and examined the unusual sadness. “You have to stop doing this Ryder.” His voice was soft. “I know you blame everyone else for Hudson’s death, but-“

“Shut up.” I said quickly, the knuckles of my left hand turning white as I held tightly onto my spoon. “Shut the fuck up, Aidan.”

“Sorry.” He whispered and went back to his textbook, his eyes sad as he read small lines of text and then quickly jotted things down.

It killed me to think about him. It tore my organs out and threw them into fire to think about how my brother’s death was his own fault and not anyone else’s. I wanted to blame someone else; I wanted to blame the man that sold him the heroin he overdosed with. I wanted to blame the people he hung out with and the girls he slept with, but I knew I couldn’t really pin the blame on anyone but him. I just loved him so much that I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe that he did this to himself.

Tears threatened to fall from my eyes, but the sudden rush of sugar in my mouth cleared that up. As I chewed the cereal in my mouth, I thought back to before my brother and I were addicted, when we were little and used to sit at our large dining room table and eat Captain Crunch with my mom and dad. Some families had pancakes and bacon and all of the other breakfast foods on Sunday mornings, but my family, we just ate Captain Crunch. It was a stupid and simple ritual, but now that half of my family was gone, it meant a lot to me. It was the only cereal I ate.

As the thought of my mom and brother hit me, I quickly put my cereal bowl down and walked as fast as I could over to my room. Opening the door, I grabbed my cigarettes and lighter and walked over to the window by my bed. Pushing it open, I stuck my head outside into the warm air of the afternoon and lit the end of the paper.

Inhaling, I shut my eyes and let a few tears slip out as I thought about my father living in that huge house, all alone, eating Captain Crunch on Sunday mornings, staring at the three empty chairs around the table that used to hold his family.

With a sudden inhale, I let the smoke burn in my senses before I exhaled through my nose and quickly turned around and ran my hands through my bed sheets until I found my cell phone. As I held it in my hand, the cigarette firmly hanging between my lips, I unlocked the screen and went into my contacts.

As my eyes connected with the three-letter word, I inhaled again, shutting my eyes and shaking my head.

He wouldn’t want to hear from me. I hit the top button on my phone and exhaled the smoke through my nose again. He tried to help me, he begged me to get a grip, he begged me to be careful, but I gave him the same attitude I gave everyone else. I pushed him away just like I pushed everyone else away.

Shutting my eyes, I inhaled a little and with the smell of the smoke, the faint smell of his cologne filled my head, reminding me of another person that I pushed away, one that would probably be stuck in the back of my mind for the rest of my life or at least until I awkwardly ran in to him one day and mustered the courage to just say a simple ‘thank you’.