Release Blitz: Remembering Phoenix by Randa Lynn
Life gives, and life takes away.
Charlie McGee knows all too well just
how much truth that statement holds.
She was drowning, wasting away from
guilt and sadness.
But when she meets Slayter Beck, he
becomes the only calm in her ever-present storm.
He's her light in the darkness. An
angel in the midst of her demons.
All she wants to do is remember, and
when the weight of that burden becomes too much, she tries giving up.
But he won't let her.
He vows to help her remember.
Remember Phoenix.
CHAPTER 1
CHARLIE
OCTOBER 15, 2013
I don’t know why people say life is
funny. It’s not.
Life is cancer. Just when you think
it’s all smooth sailing, it ruins you.
I strum my fingers along to the beat of
the music as I take the last gulp of my beer. It’s a song full of
color, and cheer, and happy. And I hate it.
I was happy once, with a life I’d do
anything to keep… I think.
I imagine I used to wake up in the
mornings and make chocolate chip pancakes and pour a glass of orange
juice without the pulp. I hate pulp in my orange juice with its
thick, chunky texture. It makes me gag. I bet Phoenix hated it, too.
But what do I know?
Nothing.
I know nothing because that is all I
remember—nothing.
Annoyed, I stop strumming my fingers. I
hate everyone dancing to the happy song with their smiling faces and
laugh lines around their eyes.
I hate the beams of light shooting from
wall to wall, all bright and colorful like it’s Christmas time.
I hate everything today.
Everything.
Two years ago today was the day
everything changed for me.
The day everything was taken from me.
I wave to the bartender, needing
alcohol to help blur my heartache. “What can I get you?” he asks.
I look up at his extremely tall, extremely skinny, frame. His
rectangular glasses sit atop his overly large nose.
I know a nose never stops growing. I
know eyes always remain the same size throughout life. I could tell
you what the square root of a number is without a second thought, but
I couldn’t tell you what I did for my twenty-third birthday, or any
birthday before that, for that matter. I couldn’t tell you my worst
fear growing up, or what it felt like when I fell in love for the
first time.
I couldn’t tell you anything, because
I don’t know the answers to any of that. Life took those simple
pleasures from me.
I jump as a hand brushes my arm,
startling me from my reverie. “Ma’am? What can I get you?” the
big-nosed bartender repeats.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I’ll have two
shots of whatever is good and strong. Lay it on me,” I answer as he
walks down to grab some shot glasses.
Within seconds he’s back at my side.
“Tab, or you tapping out for the night?”
I grab the cash out of my clutch and
count it. Shit. I’m twenty shorter than I thought. I sigh.
“I’ll tap out. I don’t have my—“
A hand reaches across me, halting me
mid-sentence, and grabs both of my shots. Dumbfounded, my eyes
follow, watching as a guy downs them one after the other. “Excuse
me?” I bark, shoving his arm.
He tosses a hundred dollar bill at me
before looking at the bartender. “Get her whatever that was I just
downed, plus me two more. I’ll pay for all of them.”
Rolling my eyes at his audacity, I grab
the money and hand it to Big-Nose. “He’ll also pay my tab off.”
I turn to the rude, arrogant prick who jacked my alcohol. “Thanks,
asshole.”
A smug, pained grin hints on his face
as he sits down on the barstool next to me. He shrugs his jacket off
and hangs it on the hook underneath the lip of the bar. He runs his
fingers through his golden brown hair, disheveling it more than it
already was, before rubbing the slight stubble peppering his jawline.
If I wasn’t pissed off at everything, including him, I would find
him attractive.
If being the operative word here.
The shots magically appear in front of
me. Making sure my drinks don’t get stolen again, I quickly grab
them both, downing them one after the other. The burn of the alcohol
makes its way down my throat. It numbs me, but only for a second. God
knows it won’t numb me forever. I’ve tried.
“That good?” the guy beside me asks
smugly.
I cut my eyes in his direction and flip
him off. He grins. He grins, and laugh lines appear at the corners of
his eyes. I automatically hate him.
Laugh lines mean happiness.
My mouth snaps in a straight line.
Bitterness boils inside of me because he has laugh lines, meaning he
has reasons to smile in this world. Or maybe I’m bitter because
there is nobody in my world to make me smile. At least no one I can
remember.
“Sorry I stole your shots. I really
needed them. Bad day,” he confesses, before throwing a shot back.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m Slayter, by
the way.”
I scoff. “Bad day, Slayter?” I spit
his name out of my mouth like it’s vinegar on my tongue. “I’m
sure it’s just been awful. Your girlfriend having her monthly visit
so you can’t get any for a few days?”
His stone gray eyes delve into me, like
they’re trying to read me, trying to know me. Oh, the
irony of it all.
“I wish,” he clips. “My fiancée
left a month ago, taking my daughter with her. Only for me to find
out today via paternity test, she wasn’t my daughter at all. So now
I’m without a fiancée, which I can handle, and I’m without the
little girl I raised for nine months, which I can’t.” He shakes
his head, lost in thought. I feel bad for the guy, almost enough to
not hate him.
I don’t have any clue what to tell
him. “Yep. Sucks a little worse than what I was imagining,” I
spit out, sounding every bit as sincere as I feel, which is not at
all.
His eyebrows scrunch together as he
looks at me, tapping his fingers on his chin. “Yeah.” He sighs.
“Only being able to live with her memory, and not her, for the rest
of my life, is going to fucking kill me.”
I roll my eyes, unable to stand his
pity-party of one any longer. “Yeah,” I sneer. “I’d also
imagine living with no memory at all for the rest of your life sucks,
too. But you wouldn’t know, would you?”
I slam my hands on the bar as I get up
from the stool, kicking it back with all my might. The metal legs
screech along the dirty, concrete floor before it topples over. I
knew coming to this place was a bad idea. It’s been two years
today, and my emotions are everywhere. Every little thing is pissing
me off.
I went to bed last night with his
picture clung to my chest, praying, hoping, wishing today would be
the day I would wake up and remember. Remember everything, good and
bad. At this point, I don’t care what it is I remember, as long as
I have something to grasp on to. I just want something to be able to
tell me, “Charlie, this is who you were when you were
you. This is what your life consisted of.” But no, I woke up this
morning with a memory as blank as the day I woke up from my coma.
With tears in my eyes, I storm out of
the bar. The cool October breeze nips at my face, chilling me.
Leaning against the black brick wall, I grab the photo out of my
jacket pocket. It’s worn, torn on the edges from constantly being
carried around. Even though it breaks my heart, I can’t help but to
look at it every single time I feel like the weight of the world is
suffocating me.
I rub the pad of my thumb over the
photo, closing my eyes, hoping this will be the last day I have to
live with this black hole of pain in my chest. A tear trickles down
my cheek as the pain completely consumes me. The pain of loss, of
emptiness. The pain of not remembering the absolute largest part of
who I am.
Or who I was.
“Phoenix,” I whisper, “please
help me remember.”
Randa Lynn is an avid reader and lover
of all things romance. She has sketched stories since she could
write, and decided to finally pursue her dream in crafting real words
from fictional lives.
She lives in Louisiana with her
husband, five children, two dogs, and obese cat. In her spare time,
she loves watching her favorite movies, find recipes—that she’ll
never cook—on Pinterest, and find GIF’s that fit any occasion.
Her favorite things in life are her
children and husband, spending weekends at the baseball/softball
diamonds, and reading, of course.
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