Page 159 of Broken Lines

“Thanks, Mitch.”

Against my better judgement,I do end up back at Shoreline Spirits getting Jackson another few bottles of whiskey.

Mitch isn’t wrong. I do vaguely remember reading somewhere about how going from heavy habitual drinking to not drinking at allcanhave pretty disastrous effects on your heart and other vital organs.

But God do I hate myself for walking out of that store with more poison for Jackson.

I’m halfway to the docks again when my phone goes off. Finally. The service is pretty sucky over in town, too. And usually when I come over about once a week, I have to wander around to find a bar of service or two so that I can check in with June and let her know I’m not dead.

Sure enough, when I stop at a bench and glance at the phone, the first few messages are from my friend—all usual stuff like “are you ever coming home” “miss you a lot” and varied versions of “how’s the lobstersman dick?”

Fucking fantastic, thank you very much.

I type out my usual replies: that I’m fine. That I miss her too. That I’m figuring out when I can come back to New York for a while. That lobsterman dick is awesome. After that, I start to put the phone away, when I realize I’ve got other texts.

From Judy.

Call me. It’s important.

Melody, I want to talk to you about something.

It’s about the book. Call me.

Goddamnit.

I wish I could ignore her. I wish I could shrug off whatever bullshit she’s trying to throw at me this time, and just go on with my life.

But I can’t. Because I know if I ignore this, I’ll spend the next few days slowly losing my shit wondering what she was talking about.

Judy picks up on the second ring.

“Where—weeks!”

I groan. Shit. Bad service strikes again.

“Judy?”

“Melody, can you hear me?”

“Yeah. It’s bad—”

“—Hear me?”

I sigh.

“YES, I can hear you. It’s bad service—”

“Melody—warn you—book.”

My jaw ticks.

“What?”

“The book, Melody. I—leaking—chapter—tomorrow—encourage media interest.”

I roll my eyes angrily, my lips thinning.

“Judy, I don’t fucking care. Do whatever you want. We both know you will anyway.”