Sweet Keeper (Sweet Talkers Book 1)

by Thalia Sanchez

  “Since the day you started screwing up. Which is a lot.”

  I bite my tongue to prevent me from snapping at her because, deep down, I know that she's right. Sometimes my friends need to have me on a leash to restrain me from making bad decisions—not that it has worked before.

  “What name should we put in the account?” I ask, avoiding a discussion between us.

  “Just put a random name,” Ash responds. Her voice shakes with excitement.

  This is probably the riskier thing that I've done this semester.

  “I can't think of anything!”

  Now, this is turning into a failure quickly. I look at the bottle of vodka, trying to find some divine inspiration in the alcohol gods. An idea crosses my mind like a shooting star. It's spontaneous, but I don't let it go away in case I regret it.

  “Noff Smir?” They both question at the same time.

  It sounded better in my head.

  “It's the vodka,” I say in my defense.

  They're both disappointed in my choice of name, but they let it pass because even if it's a dumb idea, it serves its purpose. There's no way that someone will track that back to me.

  I come up with an easy password that I won't forget so fast.

  Basicjohn20.

  “You truly hate his name,” Ash notices.

  I laugh because I do hate it.

  “I can already picture Cora's deception when she finds out about this.”

  Ash and I glare at Karma.

  “She's not going to find out,” I pronounce through clenched teeth.

  If she does, she'll kill us all for being so stupid.

  The stress starts increasing as time passes by, and I finish creating the account. Being drunk and nervous is not a good combination. Sometimes the letters are blurry, and I feel like the screen moves around as I type. I've never felt the buttons so soft as I do now, but I try to eliminate that thought that threatens to break my concentration.

  “Okay, it's done.” I have an empty account that resembles a blank canvas. “We need to edit this to make it seem a little more realistic. I need to find a good photo.”

  I open a new window, and I freeze. All of my ideas go away, and I don't know where to begin with.

  “Put 'sexy girls',” Karma suggests.

  A frown appears on my forehead; I’m confused and skeptical that she said that. Ash does the same. Neither of us can believe that she suggested that. I make a mental note that the alcohol hit her harder than it hit me.

  “I'll put 'Tumblr girls.”

  I navigate in the infinity of photos of girls that look unrealistic and perfect to be true. I find one that looks more normal, a girl with a baseball cap covering half of her face. It's the most natural one that I could find, and I choose to make it the profile picture.

  “Edit the bio,” Ash orders. “Your age and put a catchy phrase.”

  I do as I was told and fill in the blanks. I send a couple of friend requests, follow some people, and make sure to write a message that says: “New account. The other one got deleted”. I doubt that it's going to make a difference, but there's no wrong in trying.

  “Perfect.”

  “Now, add him.” They cheer me on.

  I find him quickly, and my heart starts beating fast. I'm anxious and worried that it's going to be a mess, but I do it anyway. It's just a fake account. Nothing can go wrong, I repeat in my mind, trying to convince myself of that.

  “Send him a message.” Ash pushes me slightly.

  My throat closes with anxiety.

  “Guys, I don't know about this,” I mumble, feeling the confidence lower. I'm no longer high with adrenaline. Instead, I'm trying not to puke all over my laptop.

  “Closure, Bree,” Ash reminds me in a sweeter tone.

  I swallow, nodding.

  I need this.

  This is my only chance of letting him go, of being able to rip him from my chest—or my underwear— and finally, say goodbye to all of my crazy fantasies that I've made up during the lonely nights. I'm striving to be free from everything that involves him.

  John Carter can't be a part of my life. Not anymore.

  I grab the bottle again, chugging down the clear liquid. I dry heave with the awful aftertaste that fills my mouth, but I feel more sure about this.

  Tonight is the night that I'm burying him away from my brain, I think, as my fingers start to type, driven by the drunken mind that took control over me.

  Chapter Six

  There’s a thumping inside my head that wakes me up with a groan. Disoriented, I open my eyes to greet the white ceiling on top of me, and it takes me more than a minute to process that I’m lying on the floor of the bathroom. A thin sunray filters through the small window, and it’s enough to hurt my sensitive eyes. The floor is cold, hard, and uncomfortable underneath my body. How I ended up sleeping here is beyond my reasoning. I guess it’s a part of the chronicles of a drunk girl.

  Wasted. Last night I was utterly wasted.

  My muscles ache as I try to sit up to carefully observe my surroundings, registering how I’m feeling by segments. Instead of feeling better than I thought I would, I feel awful. There’s a terrible sour and bitter taste in my mouth, probably because I threw up at some point during the night. My eyes burn as the light continues to hit my face, making me wince. I’m sure that my heart moved to my head because it’s pounding inside my skull.

  A moan escapes from my lips, and it only makes my discomfort grow as it drills my brain. Mentally, I make a note to my future self, reminding me not to pronounce any loud noises when I have a hell of a hangover. No, this isn’t a normal hangover. This is pure hell. I probably died during the night, and I’m resurrecting because this is pure torture.

  My stomach is a disaster; a mix of nausea, pain, and a strange feeling of uncertainty has taken home in there. I don’t remember a lot of what I did. I’m confused and lost. However, I’m grateful that I woke up in my bathroom and not in the corner of a random street, which is a relief. Not because I’ve gotten through that before, but I’m afraid that something like that can happen to me.

  I let my hands caress my temples for a minute, trying to ease the constant hammering in my head, wanting to break it in half.

  The door slams open, and the grating sounds three times louder than it is. My senses are more susceptible thanks to the hangover.

  I don’t want to drink again.

  “Thank God you’re awake. I thought that you would never wake up.” Cora ventures inside the room only dressed in a long-sleeved black leotard and white ballet thighs that adjust to her lithe legs. Her blonde hair is tied in a tight and perfect bun. Not even a single hair is out of place. She’s exhibiting the perfection of what she is, a ballerina. “You don’t know how strange it was to shower with you being half-dead at the other side of the curtain.”

  “What?”

  I turn my head and notice that the shower curtain is dry. There aren’t any residues of recent water. How long ago did she shower? Because I’m confident that it must’ve been hours ago. Hell, the fact that she’s back from the academy lets me know that it has to be past noon.

  I was passed out for hours.

  “How much did you drink last night?” she interrogates, sounding like a mother taking care of her irresponsible daughters. “Karma is in another dimension, and the only reason why Ash woke up is that her phone wouldn’t stop ringing.”

  And I’m sitting on the bathroom floor, I add in my mind because I know that she thought it. Her creased brows let me know that.

  I’m aware that our current situation is not the best one, but it could’ve been worse and weirder. Ash and I have lived stranger events in the past. I can’t remember one, but I’m sure of my statement.

  “I—I don’t remember,” I admit in a low mumble.

  My memories are a knot of confusing and blurry pictures that I can’t completely decipher. Putting them together is almost impossible. There’s a void every time that I try to remember ever
ything that happened.

  “That’s worrisome.”

  I frown, not because I disagree because I do find it unsettling being in the shadows, but because it sounds like she doesn’t trust us.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  “Explain yourself,” I ask, struggling to get up.

  The mirror greets me, and I try not to look at my reflection, but it’s inevitable when I notice that my hair looks like a nest. There are huge knots on top, and my waves have turned into a weird mix between straight and curly that look like I was electrocuted. I have dark eye bags that mark my face over my cheekbones.

  I look sick, and I feel like that too.

  “Bree, I barely trust your sober judgment.”

  I gasp, putting a hand on my chest, offended by her comment.

  “How dare you say such a thing?” The question leaves my mouth in a skeptical scoff.

  I avoid my reflection as I approach the sink to brush my teeth. The awful taste gets replaced with a minty one; my mouth feeling fresh and renewed after last night.

  “It’s the truth, Bree. I just hope that you didn’t screw up a lot because I don’t think we have any contingency plan left.”

  Yeah, I don’t think I have a plan for any more screw-ups. I’ve had enough to last a lifetime. We probably just listened to some bangers and kept joking around. I hope. I don’t have many chances to get myself into trouble when I’m with the girls. Mainly because Ash needs to watch her back in case her mom finds out of the stuff she does.

  I don’t reply back. Not even when I finish brushing my teeth because, deep down, I know that she’s right. If we did something troublesome, we don’t have any backups to even try to fix it.

  Slowly, I walk out of the bathroom with a new worry blooming in my system. I don’t know where it comes from, but I can’t get rid of it. It’s just there… present, hounding me with the doubt that I may have done something last night that I regret.

  I go to the kitchen to take some pills for my headache and to hydrate. My dry mouth lets me know that I need the liquid to feel better.

  There’s a bottle of vodka almost empty on the table of the living room. Shit, did we really drink that much? I know that we took a couple of shots, but not that we drank almost all of it.

  I also notice that my laptop is next to the bottle, and the panic increases. The alarms in my head are blasting, screaming that I messed up. A memory jumps in, whipping me.

  “You don't have to do that, mujer. Just create a fake account.”

  Oh, God, this is bad.

  The terror triggers in my system so quickly that I completely forget about the headache. I jump over the couch to reach the laptop. The adrenaline doesn’t let me trip or fall. I crush Karma as I move, kneeing her belly.

  “Ay, puta.”

  I probably break a couple of laws of physics, moving so fast that I can’t register what’s going on around me. Grabbing the laptop, I press the power button. The screen remains black as a sign of an uncharged battery pops before shutting down again.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I repeat the only word that I can think of.

  I run to my room, carrying the laptop with me.

  The need to know that I didn’t mess up is bigger than anything else.

  “What the fuck is up with Bree?!” Karma shouts.

  “How should I know?” Cora replies from the hallway.

  My room is a complete mess. The sheets are undone as if someone rolled over them a thousand times, and the pillows are on the floor. Shaking my head, I focus back on my initial task.

  I stumble upon my phone in the middle of searching for the charger, and I put down the laptop on the bed. A moan escapes my lips when I see a huge crack crossing the screen of the phone, but that’s the last of my worries.

  It still has fifteen percent of battery, which is more than enough to swim past the ton of notifications. I have messages in the group chat that my family has, a couple of them from my brother, and some from Ryder Weiss on Instagram.

  I choose to check Ryder’s first because they’re the ones that confuse me the most.

  My eyes almost pop out of their sockets when I notice that he sent me a photo that I posted at 3 A.M. I’m the protagonist of the picture, holding a bottle of vodka in my right hand, putting it close to my mouth. I’m licking the tip of the bottle, and my eyes are closed, but the heat covering my cheeks demonstrates that I’m more than drunk. I’m wasted. The person who took the photo also was because it’s blurry, giving it some weird aesthetic feel.

  His messages make me giggle.

  ryderweisss: I’m offended that you rejected ME for a bottle of VODKA. You def need to check your priorities.

  ryderweisss: kidding. I’m assuming that you posted this drunk and I’m going to be a decent person for once and let you know about it.

  So the guy is charming, and he may have won a piece of my heart with his last message. Although his actions are confusing, I can’t help but admire his decency and concern. I leave the photo up because half of my followers already saw it.

  The messages from my family are mostly from my mother asking me where I got the alcohol and if I have a fake ID. The ones from my brother are just him begging me not to tell mom that he was the one who bought them for me.

  Me: I won’t tell a soul, but u owe me now.

  James: fuck, whatever.

  A mischievous snicker leaves my lips. I know that this is a suicide mission because my mom will kill me, but I couldn’t pass that chance.

  I make sure that I didn’t make any risky posts that I don’t remember. The feeds of my other social media are fine, a detail that makes me sigh with relief. It seems like I’m finally learning how to control my drunk self after all.

  Apart from the photo, everything looks okay.

  Pride fills my veins. Knowing that I could’ve done so much more idiotic things and I didn’t is a big step for me. It feels like a reward.

  Carefully—because I don’t want to crack it more—I deposit the phone on the bed, and I reach for the laptop’s charger and plug it in. Since I checked the rest of my apps, I just need to go over the emails to see if my professors sent something.

  I’m even happy, mumbling a song as I wait for the laptop to turn on.

  My heart drops when the screen comes back to life and shows me my Facebook page and a conversation with John R. Carter.

  There’s a message from me.

  “Here’s the thing, aszhole. Even tho I think ur an fucking prick, I can’t seem to stop thinking about you… you should probably ask for forgivness on ur knees, and put your awful tongue on me too…”

  The message keeps going talking about the idiot that he is and that I’m still into him with a massive amount of abbreviations and mistakes. That without counting the obscene words and embarrassing confessions. I even asked him if his mother was high when she decided to give him that terrible name.

  The worst thing?

  It wasn’t sent from the fake account, but from my personal one, that has photos of me and my full name.

  I put the laptop away and grab a pillow. Putting it over my face, I let out a scream full of stress, frustration, and self-hatred.

  Chapter Seven

  I’m exhausted, and I don’t know how I can keep myself awake in front of my laptop, trying to understand the explanations of the video that’s reproducing on the screen. I was up late searching for material that can help me pass the class, and I woke up early to continue the research. Unfortunately, my brain can’t comprehend the words or concepts. It’s like another language for me.

  Overwhelmed with frustration, a groan escapes from the back of my throat. I don’t know what else to do. The Harpy never gives extra credits or additional lessons during the official office hours. All the study groups are full, and they chose to limit the free tutors to people with a lower GPA. I can’t afford to get a private tutor, even when I desperately need one. I can’t afford one, nor am I willing to ask my parents for extra money.

>   So, I need to learn this on my own, even if it seems impossible.

  Pressing the spacebar, I play the video again, comparing what the person is explaining to my notes. I can’t spot any similarities or differences. Everything seems like a bunch of abstract concepts that I don’t understand.

  Groaning, I lean over the dining table where I’ve been camping since yesterday to avoid getting distracted in my room. I rub soft circles on my temples trying to relieve the accumulated pressure. Studying, or my lame attempt to, chemistry is leaving me brainless. My head hurts from the lack of sleep and the effort I’ve been putting into learning the subject.

  Pointless. This is pointless.

  I still don’t get it, nor will I soon.

  Yeah, I’m going to fail.

  It doesn’t matter how hard I try. I can’t focus, and I’m not getting it. I’m just wasting my damn time doing this. I would drop out if it weren’t because the period to do it fairly already closed. Now I need to stay because if I leave it, I’m not going to meet the minimum of credits to keep the scholarship.

  The dry noise of someone knocking on my door breaks my concentration, and I frown, slightly annoyed and confused.

  Why is someone breaking my door when there’s a fucking doorbell next to it?

  I gather the patience that I have left as I stand up. My irritation increases when the person doesn’t stop knocking. On the contrary, with every second that passes, the person bangs harder and faster, almost sounding desperate. The only reasonable explanation is that someone is about to get murder in the hall because there’s no other way.

  “I’m coming!” I exclaim loud enough for the person on the other side to hear me, but the banging doesn’t stop.

  The Lord is testing me today.

  I quicken the pace, stretching my arm to reach the doorknob and turn it, meeting pure nothing. I lower my gaze and spot the one responsible for my newest source of irritation. A groan forms in my throat, but I don’t allow it to emerge.

  Bree fucking Pierce is standing in front of me. Her wavy hair is tied up in a disastrous ponytail, and her outfit is similar to the one she had at the party. I’d say it’s the same one, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. Her appearance doesn’t concern me. No, the fact that disturbs me is that she’s in front of me.