Another Night Alone

Home : Stories by Catw00man : Dark Nights Series : Another Night Alone

Summary: Someone was on the other side of the door, and she wasn’t asleep.

AUTHOR: Catw00man
EMAIL: catw00man@cryptoffic.com
RATING: PG-13
SERIES: Dark Nights Series
CHARACTER: Brooke Gordon, Brooke POV
SETTING: Companion piece to Nights Like Tonight
CATEGORY: Dark Angst
COMPLETED: July 14, 2004
WORD COUNT: 2,138
DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING and am affiliated with NO ONE mentioned here. Not the drivers, not the teams, no one. This is all fiction and fun. In other words...NOT REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL. ;-)
DEDICATION: To “oldlady” for asking for this, even though I know this isn’t what you meant ;-) and to Daisy for giving me advice and listening to me whine about this one.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ok here it is, the next part in what I think is going to be a series of dark stand alone fics stemming from Nights Like Tonight. I have no idea why this is Brooke’s voice as I don’t even really like her. But she wouldn’t leave me alone. So here’s the next angsty installment.
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The Night Before the Winston Cup Banquet: New York, 2001

I know he thinks I’m asleep as he slides shut the glass door leading to the balcony. Or maybe he doesn’t think of me at all as he drinks and smokes himself into oblivion. I never know what is behind those eyes anymore. Not since that day in Daytona when the entire world fell away.

Something broke in him that day, and it left a black void that I don’t think can ever be filled. Something in him has been lost to me, and no matter how I try I cannot not reach through that abyss and find him. I don’t even know if the man I loved is still in there, or if he ever even existed.

I really don’t even know how we got here. But I do know when he first started to change. We didn’t find out until we got home that night and checked our messages that he was gone. I couldn’t believe it. People like him don’t get killed. I just couldn’t accept it, because if he could die….

I’m not even going to go there.

I just know that was the night everything started to change.

***

“Wow, look at all these messages. There must be at least twenty.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him as we walk into our kitchen. “I should have let you check them when we landed. I just wanted a little bit of time with you with out racing being involved.”

That’s all that it has been with him for a month and a half. Spending every waking minute getting ready for that stupid race. I will never understand why the few precious months we get to have away from the track have to be spent getting ready to go back. Can there ever be time for us? When will we ever get to….

“…no, no, No, No, NO….”

“Jeff, honey…what’ wrong?” I ask as I look over to were he is standing by the kitchen island with the cell pone still to his ear. All of the color has drained from his face, and his eyes are wide as saucers. He’s really starting to scare me. What on earth could possibly upset him this much? He almost looks scared himself. “Jeff…,” I ask again.

That’s when he turns and looks my direction, and I gasp when I see his normally expressive blue eyes…empty. A chill runs through me as he finally focuses on me, and my heart stops at his words.

“Earnhardt…Earnhardt’s dead….”

“What? He can’t be dead,” I say and shake my head. There must be some mistake. People like Dale don’t die. They just don’t. “Jeff, you said yourself when we saw the wreck in the motor home that it wasn’t that bad.”

He’s still just standing there, holding the phone away from his ear. This just can’t be right. Why are is eyes so vacant? He’s really starting to scare me now. “You said it wasn’t that bad…Jeff, how can he be dead if it wasn’t that bad?”

I can hear the panic in my voice, as I realize this isn’t a joke. I feel the tears roll down my cheeks when I realize that it could have been Jeff. It could have been Jeff. I can’t handle this. What would I do if he left me here alone? I can feel my body begin to shake as the sobs tear from me. It could have been Jeff! Why isn’t he holding me?

I look up and see the phone drop to the expensive marble floor. His eyes are still empty and not looking at me. Why isn’t he looking at me? I watch as he turns and walks back toward the door without a word. Where is he going? Can’t he see me standing here crying? “Jeff,” I call out as he reaches the door…and walks out.

I stand here, in the middle of the kitchen floor for what seems like an eternity until I finally realize that he didn’t just go out to the car. That the engine I heard start up and drive away was his. That he isn’t coming right back to hold me and tell me everything’s going to be ok. He just left.

He. Just. Left.

I walk out of the kitchen into the living room in a state of shock. My mind is a whirl as I fall down on the leather couch and stare into the black night. Where would he go? Why isn’t he here holding me? Doesn’t he understand this affects me too? Earnhardt’s dead. Dale Earnhardt is dead. He’s not invincible. Jeff’s not invincible. I could lose him. I could lose him and be totally alone.

***

I spent that night alone, in the living room, looking out into the dark night waiting to see the headlights of his Monte Carlo pull into the drive. I never saw them. I don’t know when I finally cried myself to sleep, but I do remember him walking, or should I say stumbling in.

I woke to the slamming of the door as he came in from the garage. I could see the sun was rising and I couldn’t imagine where he would be all night. That’s when he passed by me on the way to the bedroom reeking of stale alcohol and cigarette smoke. I remember wondering where he had been and what had happened to him because my Jeff didn’t drink or smoke. My Jeff never left me at home alone at night either. I didn’t know it then, but he wasn’t my Jeff anymore.

I tried talking to him about that night, and about the smoking and the drinking. I reminded him that I did not tolerate those things in our house. That’s when he just shrugged at me, grabbed a bottle of tequila and went outside.

He started doing that a lot, not listening to me. Ignoring my wishes and doing whatever he wanted. We hardly even talked except for when we were in public and had to make the perfect couple. It was in those times that I actually had hope. It was in those times that he treated me like the way he used to. I just didn’t realize then that it was all an act. I still wonder if maybe it always was.

I can’t help but ask myself if he really ever loved me or if I was just another trophy he won that day in victory lane. I knew when we met that he had a bit of a wild past. But he changed didn’t he? He went to church with me, never cursed or drank or smoked. Was it always an act? Was I just another accessory like a sponsor who has to be pleased at all cost until they aren’t needed anymore?

I just don’t know who he is anymore, and to be perfectly honest sometimes he scares me to death. I remember the first night I really and truly knew that this wasn’t just a form of mourning that would pass, but that he was a completely different person than the Jeff I knew. Maybe it wasn’t so much that something was lost or broken in him as much as it was that something was freed. Something I never knew was there. Something that was hidden so deep inside him…. Something that turns his eyes to ice and heart to stone.

***

I look out the back window of our home and see him sitting out there on the beach, in the dark, alone. It’s been a little over two months since Dale died and I’m getting really tired of this “phase” he’s going through. I’ve tried to be patient, this has been hard on everyone. But this new hobby of his is going to come to an end.

I walk out the back door and across the patio to the steps that lead down to the beach. He’s sitting in a lounge chair facing the ocean with a bottle of something at his side. I catch a whiff of smoke as I walk up to him, and tell myself again that this ends now. I come to a stop at his side and look down at him. He’s just sitting there, ignoring me, staring at the ocean and taking occasional drags off of his cigarette.

Who does he think he is? He knows I don’t tolerate anyone smoking around me, least of all him. I stand there, waiting for him to acknowledge me when it hits me. He isn’t going to. He’s just going to let me stand here like a fool while he continues to stare at the ocean waves.

I take a breath, ready to ask him who he thinks he is acting this way, and why he thinks I’m going to put up with it when he chooses that moment to speak.

“Do you ever wonder what it would feel like to drown?”

I’m completely stunned by this question. Why would he say something like that? That’s when I take a closer look at him. He’s not lounging on the beach with out a care in the world. If anything he’s the complete opposite. And the way he’s just staring at the ocean…like he wants to walk right in and let it pull him under.

His voice is so empty and devoid of emotion. I’ve never seen him like this. It’s like he’s hollowed out inside. There is no trace of the man I fell in love with sitting here in front of me. His eyes weren’t so cold, and he was so full of life, so unlike this shell before me.

That’s when he finally turns my direction, and a chill runs through my entire body as I see his eyes. But I don’t think he’s really looking at me so much as in my direction as he continues his cryptic narrative.

“Would you be overwhelmed by the lack of oxygen first, or by the water burning in your lungs?”

That’s when I really realize what he’s really saying. What he’s thinking. He didn’t ask have you ever thought about drowning…he asked what it would feel like.

I can’t hear this anymore. I can’t look at him when he’s like this. I turn and run back up the beach stumbling in the sand at my hasty retreat. I make it all way up the stairs, across the porch and back in to the house before I stop running. My heart is pounding and I don’t know if I’m breathing hard from running or from fear. Probably a little bit of both I think, as I lean back against the door.

***

That was the last time I ever tried to confront him when he gets like this. I don’t know exactly what I’m afraid of, I really don’t think he would hurt me. I just can’t bear to see him that way. I kept thinking if I left him alone, maybe he would find his way back. Maybe if he did well on the track, or we went enough places he might find himself again. He might shut out this devil that has invaded him.

Well, here we are. He’s the champion again. He’s won races again. We’re in a beautiful hotel suite in a city he loves, and it Makes. No. Difference. He’s still outside lost to his demons that he can no longer control, and I don’t know how much more I can take.

I turn over and see my diamond tennis bracelet laying on the night table and I remember when he gave it to me. It was after his first championship. We were so happy then, full of plans and hopes and dreams. I thought that when he won enough we could have a life. I thought that at some point it would be enough. I never planned on all of this. I never planned on being a NASCAR wife, and I know I didn’t plan on being married to a man I don’t even know.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I don’t know how many more nights I can sit alone wondering if he’s going to come back to me. I don’t even know if he was ever mine to begin with.

I hear the chair move outside and know that he’s gotten up. I close my eyes as the door opens and I hear the clink of beer bottles he carries in. I pretend I’m asleep as he drops the bottles in one of his bags and shuffles into the other room. I can’t help but open my eyes and watch his back as he walks out of the bedroom leaving me with another night alone.

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Catw00man - catw00man@cryptoffic.com