I grin. “If you must know, I was thinking how lucky I am to be the only girl in here that knows what you look like naked.”
“God, Zoe,” he moans. “You cannot say stuff like that to me in public. I’m liable to ravish you on this table.”
“Eww,” I say, leaning back to break the spell. I don’t want to, but I also don’t know how much more sexual tension I can take without being able to touch him. “Food court tables are so not hot.”
“You have a point there.”
He leans back in his chair, too, watching me over the table. “So, what are we doing tonight?”
I know it’s silly to feel a little rush at the fact that he assumes we’ll be together tonight, but that doesn’t stop me from smiling. “I don’t know. Hunter was talking about going to a party, but I don’t know where.”
He eyes me somewhat warily. “I think Preston is throwing a big bash tonight.”
I scowl. I’m really not in the mood to hang out on that side of town—which I guess is kind of dumb, considering I’ve been sleeping on that side of town pretty much every night this week. But I never feel out of place in Taylor’s little apartment.
“We don’t have to go,” he says quickly. “I’m just saying that’s probably what Hunter was talking about.”
“Do you want to go?”
He makes a non-committal noise. “If Hunter and those are guys are there, it might be cool. I think Fred is planning on showing up. It might be nice to revisit the place where we first met.” He winks at me.
“God, you’re a cornball.” He only laughs, and I realize that I’m grinning at him like an idiot. I try to rearrange my face so I look less crazy. “If you want to go, I’m fine trying it.” The truth is, I’d rather not. Ellie has a date and won’t be there to protect me from bitchy girls. But we’ve only been hanging with my crew, with the addition of Fred, since we started dating. It won’t kill me to go to one of his friends’ parties.
“Cool,” he says. “I’ll come and get you at nine.”
I nod, knowing that will give me enough time to get my mom to bed.
It’s almost time for my next class, so I reluctantly say goodbye, kissing him hard on the lips before he goes.
Like I said, I sympathize with those girls who’ve been staring at him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want them to know he’s off limits.
***
I knew it was too good to be true.
I sigh and back out of my mom’s darkened room. Even though I’d been half holding my breath, waiting for this to happen, it still struck me like a blow to find her in bed when I got home from school.
She’s been doing a lot, I remind myself as I head back to my room to study for a while. It’s normal for her to need more rest. It doesn’t have to mean she’s backtracking.
Of course it’s all fine and good to say that, but it doesn’t mean I believe it.
I try to keep my mind on studying. I have a midterm next week, and I’m behind. Turns out Taylor isn’t just a distraction from the bad stuff in my life—he also makes it pretty hard to concentrate on my courses. But even here in my room, Taylor nowhere in sight, it’s hard, today, to keep my mind on economics. I can’t help but wonder what happened to send my mom back to bed. Was she tired? Overwhelmed? Did something happen when I wasn’t here to help her?
And there’s the guilt again, back in force. I should be helping her more, should be home more, should be doing more.
But I’m tired of it.
I’m tired of feeling like a bad person because I want to go to college. I already quit my job because it was taking me away from her too often. I put off school for three years. I plan all my Taylor time based on her sleep schedule. But none of it feels like enough, not ever.
And then, as so often happens, my fucked up mind responds to the guilt with anger. I want to get out of here, run as far as I can. I want to swill vodka until my throat burns and the worried voice in my head shuts the hell up.
I’m so tired of it.
So when Taylor finally shows up to get me, I check up on Mom one more time, then I get in the car determined I’m going to forget her tonight. For the most part, I’ve been drinking less since I’ve been spending so much time with Taylor. Like he said, our relationship takes the edge off. But not tonight. Tonight I’m going to do whatever it takes to make my brain turn off.
If Taylor senses something is wrong, he doesn’t mention it. As soon as we get in the house I set off in search of something harder than beer, finding it in a nearly-full fifth of vodka. I grab the bottle and head for the stairs, stopping to make sure Taylor sees where I’m going.
When my eyes find his across the kitchen, he looks a little pissed. Great. Now I’m being a shitty girlfriend too. I exhale loudly, and head down the stairs. Girlfriend. We’d never broached the subject of what we are to each other. Am I his girlfriend? Or am I still just fun for him?
I find a quiet spot on the same couch where I first met Taylor. The rec room is nearly empty, which is just fine with me. I don’t need anyone to witness me gulping vodka straight from the bottle.
The first sip hurts, like it always does, but then the fire becomes welcome. It spreads across my chest, warming me, and I smile. Just what I needed. I take another swig, feeling better already. I should talk to Taylor when he gets down here, let him know my pissy mood isn’t his fault.
But he doesn’t show up right away. In fact, I get several more long pulls into me before I see him across the room. By now the room is pretty full, and Mary has joined me on the couch. She had some big blowout with her boyfriend Kris earlier. She doesn’t seem to be in the mood to talk about it, which suits me just fine. Instead, we sit in morose silence, passing my bottle back and forth between us, getting slowly drunker. I watch Taylor enter the room and scan the faces before spotting me. Do I detect a hint of disappointment there? I wave, but he doesn’t join us. Fine, I think. What the fuck ever, Jet Taylor.
Kris shows up a few minutes later, and begs Mary to come talk to him. She refuses, then jumps up from the couch to run from the room, Kris hot on her heels. “That’s what relationships get you,” I mutter.
“Zoe?”
I look up, and my heart sinks. Grace stands in front of me. “Hey,” I say.
Her gaze firmly on my face, she takes Mary’s seat. “How are you?”
I look away, wishing Taylor would come over. I don’t want to deal with this right now.
“I’ve called you, you know. Several times.” She sounds annoyed, so I close my eyes. Maybe she’ll take the hint and leave me alone.
She doesn’t though, of course. That was never Grace’s style. Instead she reaches out and takes my wrist, her fingers tightening until it hurts.
“What the hell?” I ask, trying to jerk my hand back. Her face is close to mine, and I can tell she’s pissed, even as my vision blurs enough to make her head look like it’s swaying on her neck.
“I should be the one asking that,” she snarls. “What the hell is wrong with you, Zoe?”
“Nothing.” I finally manage to pull my arm away.
Grace laughs bitterly. “Oh, yeah. Nothing is wrong. Sure. It’s totally normal behavior to sit all alone at a party polishing off a fifth of vodka.”
“Leave me alone, Grace.” I close my eyes again.
“So this is how it is for you now, huh? Hanging out with burnouts all the time, getting hammered every chance you get?”
“Fuck you.” Now I’m pissed. My eyes snap open, and I glare at her. “You don’t know the first thing about my friends, so you can just keep your mouth shut.”
“Friends.” She makes a scathing noise. “Yeah. Your friends who leave you alone like this to get wasted all by yourself. Great friends.”
“At least they accept me.” My heart is beating hard now. I think I might burst into tears or slap her—or both. “At least they don’t try to change me. At least they didn’t ditch me when things got rough for me.”
Her entire face changes, harden
s. Her skin becomes red, and her eyes narrow to slits. “I never ditched you, you ungrateful bitch. I was there, Zoe. I was always there. You’re the one who pushed me away. You’re the one who didn’t want me around.”
I rub my eyes. She’s right, of course, but what the hell could I do? She was going to school, she was going to have the life we had both dreamed of. And I was stuck right here, right where I’d always been, with no hope of it ever changing. Still, I can’t let it go.
“Everyone else, Gemma and Kaitlin, they all dropped me so fast when the rumors started. Every one of them turned on me, and you know it.”
“I’m not talking about everyone else,” she yells. We’re attracting attention now, and I just want to hide, cower in a corner somewhere with my drink. But she doesn’t lower her voice. “I’m talking about me, Zoe. Me and you. I wanted to help you, wanted to be there—”
“I didn’t want your help,” I hiss. “I was some fucking charity case for you, huh? Real nice friend.”
“You’re unbelievable.” Her voice is quiet now, sad and disgusted. “Pathetic. You could have been so much more than this, Zoe. Things got tough, and you threw it all away. And blamed everyone but yourself.”
The fight goes right out of me. She’s right. I am pathetic, worthy of her disgust. That’s pretty damn obvious. A wave of tiredness crashes over me. I wish I was at home, in bed. But, really, my home is pretty much the problem.
“Just leave me alone, okay, Grace? I don’t need this.”
She stares at me for what feels like minutes, her eyes right on mine. I’m struck with the strangest desire to reach out and grab her, fall into her arms and let her hug me. I’m angry at her, angry at myself, but there’s a part of me that just misses her so damn much.
“Fine,” she finally whispers. Are those tears in her eyes? “I’ll leave you to your fucking drink, Zoe.”
Then she’s gone, and I’m alone on the couch. Alone with nothing but the bottle in my hand. I wish Ellie were here, wish I hadn’t even come. But I am here, and there’s nothing I can do to change that now. All I can do is sit here and listen to Grace’s words run over and over again in my head. See the disgusted, pitying look on her face. I imagine what I must look like to her. Every summer she comes home and sees me, and every summer I’m worse than I was before. Thinner. Sadder. Older. More and more brain cells wasted over a bottle just like this one. Never moving or growing or accomplishing anything.
I can see myself through her eyes, all right. I know what she must think of me. And the bitch of the matter is she’s right. I am wasting my life, wasting my time. I’m stuck here, trapped, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.
So I do the only thing I can do; I raise the bottle to my lips and take another drink. And another after that.
And another after that.
Chapter Fifteen
Taylor
I can tell from the moment we walk in that Zoe isn’t comfortable. She drops my hand as soon as we enter the foyer, and doesn’t take it again even as we’re jostled through the crowd in the hallway. As we head back for the kitchen, she scans the crowd. Probably looking for Ellie. Something about the way her eyes dart back and forth, almost as if she’s nervous, pisses me off. Can she not have fun at a party without Ellie? Am I not good enough company for her? Or maybe she just doesn’t trust that I’ll be able to shield her from this crowd, from these people.
In the kitchen, she makes a beeline straight past the keg to the counter and several bottles of hard liquor. I’m not surprised when she picks up an unopened bottle of vodka. I suppress a sigh. It’s obvious she’s planning to get hammered straight off the bat. I don’t know why that bothers me as much as it does.
With the vodka in hand, she heads straight to the stairs, stopping once to look over her shoulder to see if I’m following. I want a beer first, and the line to the keg is long, so I wave her ahead. She goes without a second glance.
“Jet, man, you made it.”
I turn and see Preston approaching across the kitchen. He slaps me on the back and points in the direction of the stairs. “That’s what’s been keeping you so busy all summer, eh? Well done, dude. She’s hot.”
I suppress the urge to shove him. “Yeah, man, whatever.”
He grins lasciviously. “Losing interest already, huh? Maybe I can step in when you’re done with her, have my turn.”
My first instinct is to punch him in his stupid, smug little face. But that would reveal just how serious I am about her, and I don’t want our relationship turned into party gossip. Not with the kind of jerks who are here. Taking a deep breath, I turn for the beer line. “You’re an asshole.”
He slaps my back again. “I know, man, I know. Hey, have fun, okay? I’ll catch you later.”
He’s just an idiot, I tell myself. Not worth getting pissed about. Still, I have to flex my hands to keep them steady as I get in line for beer. I’m so distracted trying to keep calm that I don’t even notice who’s in front of me until she turns to face me. I barely manage not to groan when I realize I’m standing face to face with Sarah.
“Hey, Jet,” she says, and her voice brings up a hundred memories I’d rather forget. “It’s been a while.”
I nod. “Hey, Sarah. How’ve you been?”
It’s a pointless question. I know exactly how Sarah has been. I’ve had a front row seat to the destruction of my brother’s girl over the past four years.
She gives me a wide smile, but it does little to cover the pain in her eyes. I wish there were a way to make it easier for her, to help her move on after all this time. It’s just one more area where I failed him. More than anything else, I’m sure my brother can’t forgive my inability to take care of Sarah after he died.
“Oh, you know. About the same.” She lifts a hand to move her hair from her face, and I get a momentary glimpse of her bare arm. The scars stand out against her pale skin, and I clench my teeth at the sight of them.
She must catch me looking, because she blushes and hurriedly pulls her sleeves down.
“I wish you’d let me help you, Sarah,” I say, my voice soft. “Jim wouldn’t have wanted—”
She laughs bitterly. “Seriously? You think you can help me?” She looks me up and down. “Like you’re in such better shape than me? I know how well you’ve dealt, Jet.”
My stomach drops. She’s right, of course. How much help could I offer someone when I can’t even get my own shit together? Was her cutting herself really much worse than any of the shit I pulled? I’ve basically been drunk or hungover ever since the day of the funeral. Not to mention the weed I’ve smoked to make the noise in my head stop, or the dudes I’ve fucked up in bars when the anger became too much, or girls I’ve screwed for a little release. No good to her. No good to anyone.
“Yeah,” I mumble, looking down. “You’re right.”
She’s quiet for a moment. We’re almost to the front of the line. Finally, she sighs. “It doesn’t matter, right? Whatever it takes to get through the day.” She looks around the crowded kitchen at our peers, each in various stages of drunkenness. An angry expression comes over her features. “At least we admit that life sucks, you know? At least we’re not in fucking denial, like all these assholes.”
We’ve reached the front of the line now, and she fills her cup with beer before turning to face me fully. “Whatever it takes to get through,” she repeats. I nod, helpless. She gives me one last fleeting smile before she slips through the crowds and disappears.
“Hey, buddy, hurry the fuck up,” a voice behind me calls. I shake my head, having forgotten where I am for a second. Beer is no longer appealing. I duck out of line and head for the liquor counter. I know Zoe has vodka downstairs, but I need something more, something sure to wipe this entire fucking night away. I grab a bottle of tequila and take off for the stairs.
I find Zoe in the rec room, the same place we’d first met. She’s sitting with Mary, passing the bottle of vodka between them. Even from across the room, I can
see a good portion of it is gone. I catch her eye as I enter the room, and she gives me a little wave but doesn’t motion for me to join them. Not that I blame her. She doesn’t need my shit in her life. No one does. I sit next to Fred on one of the other couches and open my own bottle, taking a long swig.
“You okay, man?” he asks.
I snicker. “Oh, yeah. Swell.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
I take another gulp. “I ran into Sarah upstairs.”
He grimaces. “Sorry, man. I know that’s always rough.”
“Yeah,” I say, but the truth is, he doesn’t know. No one can possibly know what it does to me to see Sarah the way she is now. My brother loved that girl, loved her in a way I had never fully understood. It wasn’t just some teenaged infatuation, either. They looked at each other in a way I’ve never once seen my parents look at each other. In the end, when he was so sick he couldn’t even get out of bed anymore, when we all knew time was running out, she’d proposed to him. She said she wanted them linked forever, no matter what happened. I think she was hoping it might be enough to pull him through after all, the thought of the two of them getting married.
It didn’t work. He died and Sarah slipped farther and farther away. I wonder if he would even recognize her anymore. The thought hurts my chest so bad I feel like I might scream. Instead, I take another pull of tequila, willing it to do its job quickly. I need to forget.
***
I lose track of Zoe after a while. I watch Everett and Hunter join a group of kids playing pool in the next room, and she doesn’t go with them. She also isn’t on the other couch. I know I should get up and find her, but the alcohol has taken over, muddling my brain. I’ve finally achieved some peace, and I really don’t want to do anything except sit right where I am.
“Have you seen Zoe?” I ask Fred. I’m vaguely aware that my voice is a lot more slurred than I would have thought. It’s going to be bad when I finally stand up.
“She went upstairs with Everett.”
Wait, she left the basement? How had I not seen her?
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