Devin gives me a don’t do this to me look, and I feel guilty. She’s been looking forward to spending time with Max since their last outing ended in a dramatic failure.
But my temples twinge with pain and I wince.
Ben’s arm comes around my waist and I realize I almost stumbled, reminding me that I am also still pretty drunk. “I can give you something for your headache at the house if you want.”
I look at Devin’s pleading gaze, then back to Ben, who looks sincere and concerned.
“Up to you.” He shrugs.
I sigh. “Okay. Just for a little, though.” Just long enough for Devin to make out with Max so she can call the evening a win. Hopefully a couple of aspirin will do the trick.
Fifteen minutes later we’re walking into the lax house. The living room is empty, many of the guys having gone home for break, and I wonder if Tucker is still here. I don’t know if I hope he is or isn’t. The more time we spend together working on our group project, the more we seem to get along, but as much as I find myself basking in his company, it doesn’t actually ease my heartache. It’s jarring to miss someone when he’s right beside you, and the thought of us both spending Thanksgiving at the Caplans’ makes me consider canceling for the hundredth time since I accepted the invitation. But I don’t. Because Billy deserves to experience a traditional family holiday for once, even if it isn’t with our actual family.
Devin and I sit and Ben disappears down the hall to his bedroom to get me aspirin. I down them greedily, eager for the pounding waves in my head to dissipate. We sit and talk, joined briefly by Ricky, and it isn’t long before my headache begins to clear. I’m still kind of drunk, but my head does feel much better.
Actually all of me feels better. Including my mood.
We’re not talking about anything important, but I can’t stop chatting. I watch Max make subtle moves on Devin, and the two of them try to pretend like they’re not waiting for an excuse to make an exit to his bedroom.
It makes me extremely happy for some reason. Thrilled even. Devin is a cool girl, but the truth is, the more we’ve gotten to know each other, the more I’ve realized we’re not likely to become especially close. I enjoy her company, but our friendship is the kind that comfortably skims the surface, and I suspect if it ventured too far into the deep, it would probably founder.
“Headache gone?” Ben smirks.
I smile. “Yes. That was some good aspirin you gave me. Thanks!”
Now that I’m feeling better, the warm glow of alcohol runs lazily through me, easing my earlier concerns. Easing all of my concerns, actually.
Ben bristles a little, and I wonder if he’s not as relaxed. If perhaps he’s still thinking about moving our friendship into something else. Something decidedly physical.
But right now, I don’t care. I’m just not interested. I wish I was. I wish I was ready to move on from Tucker with someone new. And Ben is certainly a prime candidate if there ever was one. Gorgeous and sweet, thoughtful, and obviously interested. But he isn’t the one thing I want. The one thing I’ve always wanted.
Tucker.
I feel strange. Fuzzy. My limbs feel heavy—that’ll be the alcohol—and my euphoric mood is starting to succumb to the weight of reality. I wonder if my buzz is beginning to shift into the hangover phase. Though it’s a little soon for that, surely. But I’m definitely feeling a bit woozy. My stomach rolls with nausea, and my head doesn’t so much spin as it blinks, moving like a strobe light, skipping about the room.
My eyes land on the cable box by the far wall, and I’m surprised by how much time has passed. It’s nearly two in the morning.
I peek over at the loveseat where Max and Devin were earlier, and realize they did, in fact, disappear into his bedroom. But I’ve no clue how long they’ve been gone. It could have been hours.
I don’t want to interrupt her, but I need to get back to the dorm. It’s late, and even though it’s now been a couple of hours since my last drink, I’m feeling too out of it in a way that’s remarkably unfamiliar. Like a curious combination of physical exhaustion and a wakeful dream.
I lean back on the sofa and let my head fall onto the headrest to try and regain my senses. My eyelids drop heavily, slamming me into blackness, but also not. Thoughts still swirl, but they take me far from where I know I’m meant to be—the lax house, with…Ben?
But I’m not thinking about him anymore. I’m thinking about who I’m always thinking about, whether in the forefront of my mind or buried in the deepest crevices of my soul.
Tucker is talking to me. But I force my eyes open and, of course, he isn’t there. It’s Ben. Good old Ben. Mouth downturned in a frown of concern, full brow furrowed, eyes still shining with an alcohol-induced haze of his own. But, unlike me, he seems to have retained most of his awareness.
I don’t even know when he sat next to me on the couch. Or how the minutes on the cable box have managed to jump a full half hour in the two minutes I had my eyes closed.
He’s asking if I’m okay. If I need anything.
I shake my head.
Or I mean to. My neck barely moves. So I do it again with rallied focus and effort, and this time, instead of its intended shake, it kind of rolls side to side. I feel far too warm. Almost feverish. I think I hear the mumble of my own words voicing this, or maybe it’s just the echo of my thoughts.
My eyes open again. Ben has magically procured a cold glass of water, and I startle as he holds it to my lips and asks me to drink. When did he get that?
My chest rises and falls too slowly, my breaths too shallow to give my lungs any real satisfaction. It’s scary. I just want to breathe normally.
“Carl, you need to lie down. You can stay over,” Ben says.
Stay over? Where? Where are we? Why am I with Ben again?
He’s pulling me up, but my legs feel bizarrely like liquid.
Ow.
“Steady, Carl,” Ben says when the wall bumps into my hip. Stupid wall.
He leads me past the kitchen and then suddenly we’re in the hall that leads to the first-floor bedrooms. I stop walking—stumbling.
“You need to sleep, Carl. You’ll feel better in a couple hours. I’ll drive you back to your dorm in the morning.”
I think I shake my head, but I don’t know. I’m so damn tired. My eyes won’t stay open for more than a few seconds at a time. I must be getting sick. I know I drank a bunch earlier, but this is something else; I must have caught some kind of bug or something.
But even in the haze of drink or illness or both, I know I can’t let Ben take me to his bedroom. I think he’s a good guy, but I don’t know him well enough to actually trust him.
I’m too fucked up right now. I can’t make sense of anything, but rising just above the clouds are giant, gleaming red flags.
“No,” I mumble. I want to explain myself. To say I want to go home.
Not home. To my dorm.
Or home. I don’t know.
I don’t know fucking anything right now. I can’t think straight, but I can feel.
And I feel fear.
I twist out of his steadying hold and then I’m falling. But his arms catch me and start pulling me again in the direction he wants me. His bedroom.
“N-no.”
“It’s okay. You just need to lie down. I’ll keep an eye on you, you’ll be fine.”
Yes. Lie down. That’s what I need.
My feet move, somehow, but then I’m looking down the hall, past what I recognize as the slightly open door to Tucker’s room, and toward an unfamiliar bedroom, and I remember—I don’t want to go in there.
I pull away and manage several steps back before I trip. I barely catch myself on the wall, and I crush my eyes closed to block out the glaring lights that suddenly burst from overhead. Ben’s large hands close firmly around my shoulders, and dread knots in my stomach. Because I need help. Everything is fucked up, and I can’t even walk straight. I need him for balance, but at the same time, he is what I’m afraid of. Him, a
nd this feeling of being out of control of my body.
I am helpless, and it’s a new feeling for me, one I loathe with every cell in my compromised body. One that echoes of a time when I was just a little girl, gripping my father’s legs as he’s stolen from me, just as surely and desperately as I now grip this damned wall, which, for a stationary object, is doing a damn good job of evading my hold. But even through the fog, I have a tiny out-of-body vantage of perspective—as if through a kaleidoscope—observing the cliché of the drunk college freshman, helpless and being led to the bedroom of a boy she does not want to go to bed with.
The lights assault my head even through my shuttered lids, and Ben’s incessant murmuring booms in my temples, and then, a lion prowls onto the scene, roaring wildly.
Tucker.
Either I’m imagining him, or he’s here, but I don’t open my eyes to check. Because if it’s only my imagination, then that’s where I want to live. Because everything spins and blurs now, and I can do absolutely nothing to help myself other than cling to the corner where the wall of the hallway meets that of the kitchen, my nails digging so fiercely they must chip the paint.
“’The fuck is this?” Tucker’s volume makes me wince, but the sound of his voice, even in obvious rage, is a quilt of comfort. It is safety and refuge and it helps me suck in deeper breaths.
More murmuring from Ben. I make out words like “fucked up” and “bed.”
“You’ve lost your damn mind if you think you’re taking her to your fucking bedroom,” Tucker seethes.
The floor tilts beneath my feet as I’m ripped from Ben’s grip. My eyes squint open but process very little. All I hear is Tucker’s fury at Ben and his whispered words of comfort to me, and I let him tuck me into his strength, and silently beg for his mercy.
Chapter Fifteen
Tucker
Present Day
I can barely see straight through my rage. The only thing keeping my clenched fist from ramming itself into Ben’s face is Carl. She needs my hands to keep her fucking upright. I shake my head, my jaw so tight I don’t know how I manage to grit out words.
“What did she drink?” I demand.
Ben shakes his head, concern drawn across his face.
“She had some shots of tequila at dinner and a few beers,” he murmurs cautiously, thoughtfully.
Fuck. She’s shit with hard liquor. I look down at her, her delicate features flushed and skin clammy. Her breathing is too slow, its rhythm off—something doesn’t seem right. I know Carl, and she should be dizzy and slurring if she drank too much, or passed out, but not like this. Her eyes—when they actually stay open—are dazed and unfocused.
“Carl.” I try to get her attention. “Are you okay? How much did you drink?” I don’t fucking trust Ben.
Carl whimpers and blinks, and then her eyes are wet and she looks like she might cry. And Carl never cries. Up until our breakup I had only seen her cry a handful of times, and the sight of her tears sends warning signals rushing through my veins like white water.
My gaze charges back to Ben. “What the fuck is going on, Aronin?” And then a thought shoots through my brain.
I go from angry to enraged, and I hold my breath to keep The Hulk at bay. “Did you fucking slip her something?”
Ben’s eyes go wide, horrified at my accusation. “Of course not! Fuck you, Green!”
“Fuck me?” I nod in the direction he’d been trying to drag her. “Why the fuck would you take her to your room like this? Why is she like this?”
Fuck, my heart is racing. I’m scared. Carl is more fucked up than I’ve ever seen her and what if she isn’t okay?
My fear compounds my anger and I refocus it back onto Ben, whose eyebrows pinch together in concern as he nervously shifts his feet. I know there’s something he’s hiding, and I realize he still hasn’t answered my question. So I repeat it. “Why. Is. She. Like. This?”
Ben chews his lip. “She had a headache. I told her I’d give her something for it. It knocked it right out, but…I think she took too much.”
“Too much what? Tylenol?”
Ben shakes his head, his shame apparent in his reluctance to answer. “Percocet.”
I lose my shit. “You motherfucker!”
Carl winces at my snarl and I pull her tighter to my chest and whisper an apology before settling my wrathful gaze back on Ben. “You gave her a narcotic painkiller? And let her mix it with fucking alcohol? What the fuck is wrong with you!”
Ben looks away.
I can’t believe this. Fucking Percocet. I had them prescribed to me when I sprained my wrist during football season last year. They are fucking strong. Not something you take for a goddamn headache. “How much?” I demand.
Ben frowns sheepishly. “Two,” he answers. “Ten m-g’s. Each.”
Shit.
One five-milligram pill is the dose she’d be prescribed if she needed it. Like if she got hurt, or had a root canal or something. But four times that? And Carl is a skinny little thing.
Fucking shit.
It’s not enough to put her in real danger—like for her to overdose or anything like that. But it’s enough to get her seriously high. And with alcohol? Forget it. She’s in outer fucking space.
“Was this your plan? Take her out and get her fucked up? Give her pills and then drag her to your room?”
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
Ben opens his mouth to defend himself, but I’m not fucking interested. I need to take care of Carl.
“Come on, Princess, let’s get you to bed. You’re going to be okay,” I promise her. I nail Ben with my gaze. “If I didn’t have to take care of her right now, you’d be a dead man, Aronin. You know that, right?” As it is I will have to wait to resolve this. But I will resolve this.
“It was a mistake, man. She had a headache. I thought it would help. I gave one to Courtney last week when she had a migraine and it totally worked. And she felt better, too.” He nods to Carl. “But then she started acting all out of it and I got a little worried. I was just gonna put her to bed and keep an eye on her. That’s all.”
He seems earnest, but I don’t give a shit. He put Carl at risk. And he could just be a good actor. Guys like him usually are. For all I know he had every intention of waiting until she was fully passed out, and then fucking her.
God, just the thought of it makes me murderous.
But what the fuck was Carl thinking taking fucking painkillers? And when she’d been drinking? It’s so unbelievably out of character for her. I’m so frustrated with her lack of judgment I could kill her myself.
But none of that matters right now. All that matters is making sure Carl is okay, because if she isn’t, I never will be again.
Ben takes a step forward, watching Carl with ostensible concern. “And what’s it to you, anyway? Carleigh’s my friend. I may have fucked up, but I thought she was nothing to you—isn’t that what you told me, Green? Why should I trust you with her? A few weeks ago she’s nothing and now I’m supposed to let you take her to your bedroom to ‘take care of her’?” He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
Has he lost his fucking mind? I’m so stunned by his gall that it takes me a second to even process that he’s reaching for Carl’s wrist.
“I got her, Tucker.”
I yank her behind me. “Like fucking hell you do!” I growl.
Carl starts trembling. “T-tuh,” she squeaks. Fuck, she can barely even get my name out.
“Get the fuck out of my way, Aronin,” I demand. God, if I thought she could stand without my support I would end this now, with my fucking fist.
Ben stands tall in my path, but if he thinks I’m going to allow him to take Carl to his room like this, he better be prepared to kill me. “Carleigh,” he says, his voice slithering with an attempt at comfort. “I shouldn’t have given you those pills. I’m sorry. You’ll be fine, though, I just want to look after you. Will you come with me?” He offers his open palm,
and for a split second I’m terrified she’s going to take it. Because who the fuck am I to her anymore, anyway?
But her shaky fingers just grip me more fiercely, and I feel her already compromised breathing skip even more. “T-uck.”
I lean down so my eyes are just in front of hers, ready to beg. “Carl—”
“Please. D-don’t leave me.” Her liquid jade eyes plead as much as her words, and I’m done.
I shove Ben out of our way, my glare speaking volumes.
Carl’s legs barely hold her upright, and halfway down the hall I scoop her up to carry her instead. Her arms wind weakly around my neck, and I whisper to her that she’s going to be fine, and that she just needs to sleep.
I slip off her shoes and lay her gently on my bed, tugging the comforter out from underneath her.
Jeans on or off?
Shit. I can’t just strip my ex-girlfriend.
“Carl, open your eyes,” I encourage her.
She moans softly.
“Just for a sec. Please?”
They dazedly flutter open.
“Do you want to sleep in your jeans, or do you want me to take them off?”
Her eyelids drop back down like they’re being pulled by weights. “Off,” she breathes.
I sigh. I don’t know how much of her judgment she currently retains, but she had enough to choose me over Ben—who she barely fucking knows—so I hope she means it.
I undo her fly and pull off her jeans. She makes no move to help me. I don’t know if she even could right now.
I hang her jeans over the back of my desk chair and sit beside her on the bed. I pull out my phone and Google the drug to make sure my assumptions about the amount she took were accurate, and breathe a vague sigh of relief to confirm that they were. That she definitely overdid it, but she doesn’t need a hospital or anything like that. I just need to keep an eye on her—make sure her breathing doesn’t become too depressed.
“T-Tuck.” Her eyes stay closed.
I lie on my side to face her. I brush away the hair that fell over her cheek and tuck it carefully behind her ear. “Yeah, Carl?”
In Ruins Page 17