"You flinched!" He bellows.
I blink at him. I did flinch, but not out of fear of Sam. The truth is that in that tense moment I didn't know what was about to happen. What Drunk Stranger Asshole was going to do next, what he was capable of.
"I—" I try to defend myself, to explain myself, but Sam isn't having it.
"You fucking flinched away from me, Rory! Like you thought I might hit you!"
Bullshit. I never thought Sam would hit me. Not for a single moment. "I'm sorry I flinched, Sam, but you know what? Not everything is about you!" I cut myself off and take a deep breath. "It was just a conditioned, natural reaction to a raised voice. And it wasn't directed at you."
Sam's anger deflates, but there is no relief. "Except I don't know if that's completely true. Because the thing is... I'm not that different," he says, only the slightest slur to his words, as if although he's drunk, he's just had some sobering moment of clarity.
And I get his meaning. Sam thinks that because he's just done something violent, because he's been violent before, that he deserved my fear. That his violence echoes Robin's, and that of his own father, and that he is thus no better. But, God, why can't he see how wrong he is?
"Sam—" but he interrupts again.
"You know I saw Schall, too, before," he murmurs. "Got into a lot of fights—just like that one." He gestures with his chin back toward the entrance to the bar. "Anger issues, supposedly… and maybe they were right." He scowls in self disgust, "Fuck, Rory, I hit your fucking father! You've seen me lose my shit—on that motherfucking bastard, on your dad... now on this dipshit. That's why you flinched, b- Rory… that's how you see me… apparently, that's what I do."
I've been shaking my head through his entire self-recriminating, inebriated rambling, but somehow, I can't find the right words. I hadn't feared him. That's the truth. But he's drunk and practically castigating himself, and I know nothing I say right now will get through to him.
Suddenly sirens sound faintly in the distance and a horde of people starts pushing out of the bar entrance and spilling onto the sidewalk. I recognize our friends and Tucker spots us, gesturing with urgency for us to join him. He rolls his eyes when neither of us moves, whispers something to Carl, and kisses her hard on the mouth before jogging over to where we're standing.
"That douchebag called the cops, we gotta go," Tuck says, and my breath catches in my throat.
The cops? Shit, Sam could get in trouble. I blanch and grab Sam's bicep, trying to push him to move, to get the hell out of here. But Sam doesn't seem scared, he doesn't seem like he wants to go anywhere at all. Instead his gaze shoots to where my fingers clutch his arm, his brow furrowing in that adorable way that makes my knees buckle for a moment. His glazed, alcohol shrouded midnight blues meet my gaze and look right through me, paralyzing me, and he looks so confused, as if he doesn't know what to make of my obviously desperate concern for him.
"Cap, now," Tuck urges, and I retract my hand. Sam rolls his eyes and acquiesces. Carl comes out of nowhere and grabs my hand, pulling me in the direction of her car, but my feet are glued to their spot until I'm satisfied that Sam is leaving with Tuck. He does, glancing back only once to make sure I'm doing the same with Carl, and just like that, the night is over.
Chapter Twelve
So much for a drunken night of distracting myself from Rory. Of moving on. What a joke.
I stumble into Tuck's bedroom and press the ice I grabbed from the kitchen onto my swollen knuckles. We don't even bother discussing my hitting that douchebag, because neither of us is surprised it happened. Tuck knew our night was fucked the second he laid his fingers on her hair. I think he's probably more surprised at the fact that I didn't hit the fucking bartender who'd been staring at Rory's perfect ass all night than the fact that I did hit that fucking douchebag who put his hand on her.
Instead we talk about the same thing we'd been talking about for half the night—Rory's drunken outburst.
My plan had been to try and move on. To try and get over her by hooking up with some random girl. But the girls that Marshall found just weren't doing it for me.
They were cute enough, I guess, but total dogs compared to the last girl I was with—the one standing less than ten fucking feet away, her proximity only highlighting how lacking they truly were.
But I realized pretty quickly that they weren't the problem, that it was me, so I forced some game to go through the motions.
But my heart wasn't in it.
Who am I kidding? My heart's never been in it. Not until Rory. But I knew that before tonight.
The problem was my dick wasn't in it either. Those girls just weren't doing it for me. And Rory was right fucking there.
But she's in our group of friends, she's my friend, so she'll always be around—I want her around. So I figured I'd need to figure out how to move on even while the girl messing up my head was barely a few feet away.
And then she flipped the fuck out.
I wish I could say that I was as pissed off as I acted. But the truth is it was hot.
So fucking hot.
Watching her go all possessive and call that girl a slut. I fucking loved it.
My dick was definitely in it then, just not for the girl I'd been flirting with, but instead for the one who'd caused all this damn heartache in the first place.
It confused the shit out of me though.
This was what she wanted. So why she was acting all jealous and possessive tonight, I can't for the life of me figure out.
"Why now? It makes no sense," I mumble.
Tucker just shrugs, noncommittal. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
I raise my eyebrows at him, which is all I need to do to communicate my internal question to my closest friend since fucking kindergarten. In all reality, he's the only close friend I'm actually close to. The boys are the boys, but Tucker knows shit. I've talked to him—as much as I've ever talked about anything to do with my private life. Well, before Rory, that is. I've opened up more to her in a few months than anyone else I've ever known. It's pretty crazy when you think about it. But the truth is, I don't regret it. As pissed off as I get, I know I'm only angry because I still fucking love her, and it kills me not to have her.
Tuck shrugs again then says, "It's not really that big of a surprise, I mean, is it?"
I stumble over to the foot of the bottom bunk bed. I still think it's ridiculously funny that Tucker still has fucking bunk beds. He's fucking eighteen years old. I slide down to sit on the floor and lean back against the mattress and Tuck sits on his writing desk, sucking down a bottle of water. I could probably use one of those, but right now I'm feeling too lazy to get it. And I want to know why Rory's behavior tonight wasn't surprising to Tuck.
"Why would it not be surprising? She ended it with me, not the other way around. We were together, she wanted to go back to being friends. She said so very clearly, I fucking assure you… She knows how I feel about her."
"Does she?" Tucker interjects.
"Of course she does, I fucking told her!"
"And what did she say?" Tucker asks, nosing after the details. Fucking Tucker. Why the fuck would he need the play-by-play now? What does it matter what she'd said back then?
"You know what the fuck fucking happened." I really do curse a lot when I'm drunk, apparently. "She said she loved me too, and then she broke up with me not a full fucking day later, and then left a goddamned motherfucking note, and got on a plane in the middle of the night." I repeat what he already knows for his sadistic fucking pleasure. My chest hurts. I rub it with my fist. I've been doing that a lot lately.
"So she said she loved you, too."
That's his takeaway from what I just ranted? My expression says it all.
"I just mean… when you told her how you felt, she said she felt the same way. You said she knows how you feel about her. Because you told her, right? But when you told her, she felt the same…
"It isn't as if you've told her since. And judg
ing by her reaction tonight—which is, again, the reason we're having this conversation—she obviously still has feelings for you. So by your own logic, if you didn't know that fact before tonight, even though she'd told you so in the past, don't you think it's possible that she doesn't actually know how you feel about her? You've kind of been avoiding her the last few weeks…"
I'm still way too drunk to follow his logic. Fortunately, he realizes this almost immediately and revises his play.
"If you thought she went from loving you to over you in a few fucking weeks, don't you think maybe she thinks the same about you?"
My brow furrows and I blink at my friend.
What the hell is happening here?
I'm drunk. So very drunk. But Tucker is using my own logic against me and has kind of just made sense of fucking everything. Is it really possible she thinks I don't want her anymore? That I don't love her?
The thought kills me. Completely fucking guts me. I never even considered the possibility that she didn't know. But how could she not know? And how is Tucker the one bringing this to my attention?
I'm still stuck in this alternate universe, where on top of the day I've already had, now Tucker lands Carl for a girlfriend and suddenly he's fucking Relationship Yoda.
"I fucked her," I admit, my intoxicated brain making my voice sound way too loud as my head starts to pound. "No, not fucked her. You know…" I will not say made love out loud, not to Tucker. But now that Tucker has Carl, I think he might know what I mean, or at least something like it. I'm not sure anyone could have ever experienced how it is with Rory and me.
Tuck lets out a short laugh. I am amusing to him. I guess I am a little slurry.
"Whatever. That day she was all falling asleep at lunch. At the diner. And I took her home before sixth period, remember?"
Tuck nods.
"So one thing led to another, and then after… she was acting like it was just a friends with benefits kind of thing. Like it was no fucking big deal. That's when I decided to back off for good. It finally got through to me that she just didn't want to fucking be with me. And I got mad. And then… I just needed to distract myself." Tucker hadn't known about that. I doubt anyone did, since Rory is just as private as I am. All Tucker knew was that Rory and I had had an argument and I called him to pick me up and drive me back to school to pick up my car.
"So after you you-knowed her," Tuck replies, and my eyes narrow. "And she acted all casual, what'd you do? Did you tell her that it wasn't no big fucking deal to you? Did you tell her how you felt?"
I glare at him, and I see a flash of anxiety in his eyes. It's barely even there before it's gone. Tucker and I have always had a no-holds-barred kind of friendship. We don't sugar coat things, and we've always both been thick skinned enough to take it. But right now, I'm pissed again.
How dare he imply that this fucking torture is my own doing? That I didn't do enough to get my girl back? I put myself fucking out there. I'd been all about that girl since the first day I ever saw her. I put myself out there and she fucking obliterated my fucking heart. And Tucker is saying I didn't?
Now I'm more fucking pissed. And I guess Tucker might be thinking about the other times he's seen me both drunk and pissed off. A few brawls at house parties and two bar fights. Well three if you include tonight. I wasn't even actually drunk for the second one. But it happened in a bar and I was underage so it landed me back with weekly appointments with Dr. Schall for six months. Nobody gave a shit that the prick I'd laid out fucking deserved it. That he'd grabbed some girl's ass even after she told him to leave her alone. But the other times—those times I was just drunk and pissed for some reason or another, a bad combination for me.
And Tuck's implying I didn't fight for Rory is making me want to fight him.
"You make it sound like I just gave up. I fucking fought for her!" I growl. Since when do I fucking growl?
And then Tucker fucking shrugs. Again. And that agitates me even more. "Did you?" He says the wrong goddamned thing, and then makes the mistake of not backing up before I charge him.
I swing hard, and he's lucky I'm drunk, because though the hit lands, it connects with his shoulder instead of his jaw. He pushes me back and we grapple, and my back hits the side of his stupid fucking bunk bed. Motherfuck that hurt.
I strike again, a solid punch to his stomach, and Tuck bends over and grunts. He growls as he runs at me, knocking me to the ground, but in my current state, we're pretty evenly matched, and we wind up in a wrestler's hold.
"You didn't fucking fight for her! Shooting the messenger isn't going to change that!" Tuck shouts.
"I fucking love her!" I slur, losing my resolve.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Why am I fighting Tucker when it's myself I want to fucking hit? I loosen my grip marginally, and Tucker does the same, albeit cautiously.
"I never doubted that," Tuck takes a deep breath.
I reverse my grip and push him away from me instead. He catches his footing easily. Of course, he's not the drunk one. He straightens out his shirt, and runs his fingers through his hair. "I just think, well, maybe she doubts it."
Holy fucking shit. I didn't fight for her.
It's amazing how fast realizing you've destroyed your own fucking life can sober you up. That night in Miami ricochets through my slowly clearing mind.
She asked me if I meant it when I said that if she couldn't handle a relationship, we could go back to being friends. What else could I do? Not honor my word? Give her an ultimatum when she needed my friendship more than ever? She'd just been fucking attacked, again, and she still thinks he's just going to get away with it.
I'd told Rory that if she couldn't handle a relationship she just had to tell me and we would go back to being friends. And that's exactly what she did. So I did what I'd said I would. Rory fucking needed me.
And then when I'd put myself on the line with her again, when I'd given in and taken what I'd been so desperate for, for so damn long, she… alright, fuck it, she broke my goddamned heart. All fucking over again.
And fine, I was pissed then, too. It fucking hurt.
I fall back onto the lower mattress. "I call bottom bunk," I mumble.
Tuck sighs; he knows he's gotten through to me. Fucking Tucker.
"Who the fuck still has bunk beds at our age? You're about to go to fucking college." I've been teasing him about this since the eighth grade. He doesn't give any more of a shit now than he did back then.
"Like you could climb up to the top bunk anyway, you're fucking hammered, bro," he shoots back as he makes his way into the adjoining bathroom to brush his teeth.
"Fuck you."
And as I lay back on the bed, too drunk to bother washing up despite the sobering effect of my epiphany—thanks to Tucker Green, of all people—my mind reels interminably with the thought that getting her back is a possibility. Because, fuck, maybe she really doesn't know.
****
It's a damn good thing it's Senior Sleep-in because I woke up hung the fuck over. I had barely thirty minutes to shower and make it to school before I would've been tardy even for the afternoon block of classes.
I passed out last night while silently lamenting over the realization that Rory might still have feelings for me—that she might somehow not know that I still have feelings for her.
Ha. Feelings. That's bullshit if I ever heard it. More like she might not know that I'm still head over fucking heels, batshit crazy in love with her.
But the late morning light is brutal and unforgiving, blinding me with the harsh glare of reality. Because feelings or not, love or not, she still broke things off with me. She could have taken it back at any point—certainly when I had her naked in my arms again.
Fuck.
It killed me. How she acted afterwards. I'd been laid fucking bare that afternoon, opened my chest and put my heart on the line, again, even after she'd broken it once already. And she reached on in, and shredded it all over again.
Even if it was a fucking hot jealous rage.
I sigh. It's all irrelevant. The point is that none of it means she wants to be with me. Because if she wanted to be with me, she would be with me.
So feelings or not--as much as the possibility of it fucking thrills me—I'm pretty damn sure it doesn't actually change anything. It doesn't mean there's anything I can do about the situation if she just wants to be friends. If she still can't handle something more.
My drunken Tucker-induced epiphany only reiterates the hopelessness of the situation. It only proves that none of the details actually matter. That there's no getting Rory back, and it's time I accept that.
The only thing that last night has changed is my realization that I was wrong in pushing her away. It was fucking selfish and vindictive. I feel ashamed that I ever treated her that way.
I'm supposed to be her friend. Her best fucking friend. And I've been avoiding her for weeks. And then last night she fucking flinched away from me. She says it was just a conditioned reaction because of that motherfucking bastard. And maybe she's telling the truth. Rory's never been a liar. It's not who she is. She rationalizes half-truths, but never lies, not without practically chewing her lip off. But even if she meant what she said, it doesn't mean it didn't also have something to do with me. God knows she's seen me lose my temper enough.
Fuck. I'm such a dick. I feel like I can't do anything right by her, and maybe she's right to have ended it in the first place. Maybe I am meant to only be her friend.
I sure as hell don't think I could handle putting myself out there like that again—being that vulnerable—and then having the same thing happen.
How could our friendship survive? Especially after how I've behaved.
I owe it to her to accept her decision and to be a good friend to her. I know I do. And I fucking will. Starting today.
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