Crazy Girl Read online

  CRAZY GIRL

  Copyright © 2017 Brandy Toler

  www.bntoler.com

  All Rights Reserved

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the authors, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, to factual events or to businesses is coincidental and unintentional.

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  Chapter Forty Four

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by B.N. Toler

  To All Crazy Girls

  Rodney Beckman leaned back, his chair creaking in protest with the shift of his weight, his firm but sympathetic stare fixed on me. He’d just finished playing the bearer of bad news, and now he was about to switch roles and tug on his tough-guy hat. I imagined being a financial advisor wasn’t always a delightful job, and even in the midst of my own life-altering demise, I couldn’t help assessing him. My writer’s mind tended to take over that way; pushing aside real life to absorb an idea for later. Rodney was a big man, his fingers short and plump like sausages, his scalp shiny where hair had long been abandoned. His chest hair sprouted over the collar of his shirt, and his arms were carpeted in it. Why were some men bald yet so hairy everywhere else? He was a kind man, and I’d known him for years. He’d handled the books for my brother’s business since he’d started up. I would never have pegged him as a man in finances from simply looking at him, though. Maybe a bartender. Or a furniture store manager. I pondered if once upon a time he’d dreamed of more. As a youth, did he imagine he’d be something more than this? Was he happy with the way his life had turned out?

  “Do you understand what I’ve just explained to you?” he asked when I simply stared at him, unmoving. When I didn’t respond, he tried again. “Hannah. You have to make some decisions.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but the words got lodged in my throat, causing me to cough. I cleared my throat and exhaled a few times. Composing myself after a few seconds, I asked, “My home? I have to sell my home?”

  He nodded.

  My father’s voice echoed somewhere in the back of my mind. A memory that tapped my brain like glass, sending fragmented cracks across it.

  He’d come into my room. It was unusual for him to come home; he never came home anymore. He’d lain on the bed beside me and tugged his hat down to cover his eyes.

  “I’m losing the house, Hannah,” he rasped, his voice thick with emotion. I was the youngest of the Bircham brood. My sister had just graduated college and had been gone for years, and my brother was just about to graduate high school.

  I’d cried.

  So did he.

  But mostly, I’d cried for my father. For his pain. For his loss. At twelve, he was the best man I knew and seeing him hurt and on his proverbial knees was devastating.

  “Hannah,” Rodney said my name, pulling me from my thoughts.

  Blinking back my tears, I cleared my throat. Where the hell had that memory come from?

  Once Rodney felt he had my attention again, he continued. “I know you don’t want to, but you’re killing yourself to keep that house. Your utilities alone are too much. The equity in your home will pay off a great deal of the debt, but you’ll still have a ways to go. If you sell the furniture, that might give you a small cushion to help for a few additional months. But you’ll need to get a job.”

  “I have a job,” I snapped. I knew he hadn’t meant it that way, but it was a defensive reaction I couldn’t help. People who didn’t write lived in this illusion that authors sat around all day and didn’t do shit. They didn’t understand that there may be days when we didn’t write simply because we couldn’t—the creative door was welded shut—and there were other days where we couldn’t sleep or think about anything other than our story. We exist in two worlds, the real one and the one we create, yet we never entirely exist in either.

  “I mean a job that pays you now. Not in six months to a year when you finish your next manuscript.”

  “But we’ve sold everything else,” I huffed, defeated.

  “Not everything. There’s the Hanover house Ross bought. It’s been on the market for months. You could take a hit, sell it cheap, but you’ll lose your ass on it.” Just the sound of my ex-husband’s name made my jaw clench. He’d ruined me financially then took off, and now I was here alone, losing everything, cleaning up his mess.

  “What do I do?” The question skirted out on a desperate breath and wasn’t really meant for him as much as it was meant for me. I had nothing except for a run-down house my ex had purchased when he’d decided he was a real estate tycoon, using my money.

  I was losing my home.

  My dream home.

  “You could live in the house he bought, Hannah,” Rodney asserted. “At least you don’t owe anything on it. You won’t have rent or a mortgage payment, and right now you need to minimize your spending as much as possible until we get you caught up.”

  “Is it livable?” I asked, exasperated. I hadn’t seen the property in person, only a photo and tax records when I’d met with the realtor to list it. I didn’t want to see it. Seeing it would only be a painful reminder of how someone I had trusted so much did me wrong. I just wanted it gone.

  He snorted and rubbed his head. “Hannah,” he sighed. “It’s not what you’ve become accustomed to, but it’s walls and a roof, hon. That’s a lot more than most people have.” I looked away from him so he wouldn’t see me scowl. I knew people had it worse and no matter how shitty my life got, there would always be people who had it worse. But I hated that he was using that on me in that moment. I wasn’t a lesson. My life had crashed, and I was standing amidst the wreckage watching it slowly burn to ash. In my mind, petty as it may be, I deserved to feel a little sorry for myself.

  Leaning forward, he patted my hand where it rested on the table. “Moving there is the smart thing to do, Hannah. You need to put your house on the market. Now.”

  I fought the tears burning my eyes and swallowed back the lump in my throat. I’d lost everything. My career was tanked, my money, my marriage, and now I had to lose my home. I had to give it up.
I had no choice, and out of everything I had lost, that felt the worst—losing choices. I felt like the twelve-year-old me again, losing everything.

  “I guess that’s what I’ll have to do.”

  “A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.”

  -Franz Kafka

  The church had an elegance to it with its marble floors and exquisite stained-glass windows. Britney Caston, soon-to-be Britney Lake, donned in her brilliantly white gown, the train draped over the steps elegantly, stared up at her husband Kyle as he spoke his vows, his voice thick with emotion.

  “And I promise you, and only you, my heart forever and always.”

  I closed my eyes to stop myself from rolling them.

  “You are my everything,” he went on, his voice cracking.

  Not moving my head, I opened my eyes and darted my gaze around noting several other guests dabbing their eyes with tissues as they quietly sniffled.

  Ugh! Why did I agree to come to this? Why is everyone crying?

  Sitting next to me, my best friend Courtney lifted her glasses and wiped under her eyes.

  Turning my head toward her, I scowled, saying everything with my stare that I couldn’t say out loud because we were in a church at a wedding.

  Are you seriously crying?

  She scowled back. What? Weddings make me cry. Bite me.

  I smirked, returning my focus to the couple at the altar as I let out a quiet exhale. She might’ve been getting a little teary-eyed, something I didn’t understand, but she was still my sassy asshole friend. My sasshole.

  As I forced myself to watch them, my stare landed on the best man. He was definitely easy on the eyes, but that’s not why I let my stare linger on him. No, there was something else. Something about him spoke to me. Maybe because he looked as pained as I felt listening to the nuptials. His gaze flicked to mine, almost as if he had sensed someone watching him, and I jerked my eyes away. That was awkward—he’d just caught me staring at him. Looking down at my left hand, I read the reminder I’d written on my palm in small lettering—Don’t be awkward. I wrote little reminders to myself like this often. It had started years before as more of a don’t forget to buy milk or don’t forget to call your insurance company about your policy type of thing, but over time it rolled into inspirational and motivational reminders. Words were my life. How many of them had I typed and written on paper? I was a woman down on her luck and down on herself. I hated that about me. So I wrote words on my skin, words that told me to do better and try harder, absorbing them, making them part of myself. Fisting my hand closed, I shook my head. Focus on the bride and groom, Hannah. I didn’t know the betrothed. Courtney and Britney were cousins and when Court’s husband woke up with a stomach bug that morning, she begged me to go as her plus one so she wouldn’t have to go stag.

  Go with me, Hannah? Please.

  No.

  There will probably be a few single guys there. Maybe you’ll meet someone.

  Hell no.

  We can dance and pretend we’re having a girl’s night out.

  Courtney. The answer is NO.

  There’ll be free booze.

  What time are you picking me up?

  By the time the ceremony ended, I felt like I would combust if I didn’t escape the mass of weepy guests. Two hours later, the reception was in full swing and I was three glasses of champagne deep, my fourth glass in hand as I watched Courtney do the Macarena with her grandmother while her mother asked me every single question I didn’t want to answer.

  “Hannah, honey, are you dating anyone? A woman your age has to be aggressive. Time is running out. Don’t you want children?”

  On the outside, I maintained an appearance of calm and cool, but on the inside, I was banging my head against a wall. Courtney’s mother Queenie meant well. I knew as forward as her questions were they came from genuine care and concern. Be that as it may, that didn’t stop me from wanting to strangle her. Was she trying to kill my buzz?

  “I’m just taking some time,” I explained politely. “I’m not in any rush. You know, playing the field.” The last part was a lie. I wasn’t playing anything. Hell, I couldn’t even find the field. Nor did I want to.

  She pursed her lips. “That Ross sure did a number on you, didn’t he?”

  I gulped my drink and grabbed another flute from a tray as a waiter passed us, trading him my empty glass. Did she really have to bring up my ex-husband? Really?

  “Well,” she went on, “we just had this young man move in a few doors down, and I happen to know for a fact he’s single.”

  Don’t wince Hannah, I thought to myself. Focus. Control your facial features. “Really?” I chirped.

  “Maybe I’ll give him your number and you two can chat.”

  It took all of my strength not to let my thoughts leak out through my expression. The last thing in the entire world I wanted was for Queenie to start playing match maker for me. “Uh—”

  “Queenie,” a tiny lady called from across the way. “We need you for a picture.”

  Squeezing my arm, Queenie kissed my cheek. “You keep your head up, hon. Mr. Right is out there, and Mama Queenie’s gonna help you find him.”

  I plastered on an appreciative smile. “Thanks, Queenie.” She scurried off, and I silently thanked the Lord for the tiny lady that called Queenie away and interrupted that conversation.

  Returning my attention to the dance floor, I found Courtney and her grandmother still dancing and laughing. I had to give it to Granny Mae, her dancing skills were pretty impressive for eighty. Shifting a little, I winced. My normally flip-flop-clad feet were killing me, sore from being jammed into heels I rarely wore, but the free champagne was worth the discomfort, and watching my bestie boogie with her granny was pretty entertaining as well.

  When the spunky Granny Mae wiggled her ass a little, I had just taken a sip from my glass and nearly spit it out, but managed to stop myself—mostly. A little dribbled out of my mouth and down my chin before dripping into my cleavage. Damn, I was a mess. After I swallowed, I touched at my mouth to dab away the liquid when a hand appeared in front of me with a handkerchief.

  Glancing up, I realized it was the best man—the one that caught me staring at him during the ceremony. What was his name again? The D.J. had announced the names of the wedding party at the beginning of the reception. Why didn’t I pay attention?

  “I’ve only blown my nose in it once,” the groomsman said with a smirk, letting me know he was kidding. The way he carried himself, shoulders back, yet somehow still relaxed, I guessed he was late thirties, maybe early forties, though his face didn’t show his age. Time had been kind to him, even with his salt-and-pepper hair. He had a stellar smile, the kind that made you struggle to tear your eyes away.

  Taking the folded cloth, I dabbed at my face then my chest before I handed it back to him. “Thanks,” I mumbled, a little embarrassed. There’s nothing like a good-looking man coming to your rescue because you’ve dribbled your drink on yourself like a toddler. Nice, Hannah.

  “No problem.” Shoving it in his pocket, he bobbed his head once as he stared at the newlyweds on the dance floor. “You enjoy the wedding?”

  “Umm…yeah,” I lied, my voice raising an octave. “It was great.” I’d never been good at deception.

  His mouth turned into the kind of frown that looked more like he was trying to stop himself from laughing. “Don’t you think it’s silly to spend all this money? I mean…why? To impress your friends and family? They spent forty-large on this shin-dig for one day knowing, statistically speaking, they’re more likely to end up divorced than living happily-ever-after.”

  I tilted my head side-to-side, digesting what he’d said. I couldn’t say I didn’t see his point. I, too, had spent a fortune on my wedding day, and look how that ended. I was skeptical, just like him, but I didn’t want to be. So I tried my hand at optimism. “You never know. Maybe they’ll make it.” There. Well done, Hannah. Way to be positive. “And maybe they spent a
fortune, but it’s an important day. The wedding was beautiful.”

  He cut his eyes to me without fully turning his head, his mouth tugged up on one side as if he didn’t believe me. Okay, so he knew I was forcing myself to see the bright side.

  “It was a nice wedding,” I reiterated.

  “You said that already.”

  “Well, it was. Not just the décor and food. It was a very touching and heart felt ceremony.” Okay, maybe parts of it had made me want to gag, but that wasn’t the real me. That was bitter Hannah. Bitter Hannah was a crotchety old hag that moped around grimacing and mumbling bah humbug. The real Hannah was a romantic at heart. She loved love and pretty words, and wrote tales of beauty. Sadly, she had been MIA for a while and bitter Hannah had taken the lead. But the real Hannah would’ve loved it.

  He kept his stare fixed on me, the same you’re-full-of-it look on his face.

  “I’m just a little cynical these days.”

  He didn’t look away.

  “I’m recently divorced,” I explained as I pushed some hair behind my ear, unable to stop myself from filling the silence between us. “Well, not recently. It’s been a while, but…” I fumbled for what to say next. I was babbling. “Like I said…cynical,” I finished with a curt nod.

  “As you should be,” he chuckled. “This,” he motioned around with his bottled beer, “is all bullshit.”

  “The concept of marriage?” I queried, my buzz taking hold and letting out the sad writer in me. “Or love itself?” Were we about to have a deep conversation? My belly fluttered a little at the thought. I hated small talk. It was the worst. But a conversation with depth…I craved it.

  “Both.” He sipped his beer.

  Maybe it was that little part of me that hadn’t given up hope yet, or maybe it was the alcohol, but I decided, even as doubtful as I felt, to give optimism one more try. “They look happy,” I observed with a small shrug. “That’s a good sign.”

  After taking a long swig of his beer, he lowered it and gazed at the bride and groom again, shaking his head as if disappointed. “Nah. I give it a year, maybe two.”