Saving Ever After (Ever After #4)

by Stephanie Hoffman McManus

  Chapter 23

  Mia

  When I woke the next morning, it was only because I heard someone move in the bed beside me, cursing under their breath.

  “Fuck!”

  And then, “Oh shit . . . . fuck!”

  I tried to sit up, but my head spun and I dropped back down to the pillow. My eyelids felt like sandpaper when I started to open them. I needed to do a quick evaluation of my surroundings because I had no idea what was going on. I blinked a few times, finally prying my eyes open, but the pounding in my head was almost too much. The sun was barely high enough in the sky to shine through the windows of my room. A very naked Kris scrambled out of the bed, searching for his clothes while he continued to curse under his breath, completely unaware that I was awake and observing him.

  Why the hell was Kris naked in my bed?

  At least it is my bed and room this time, I thought and then scolded myself for thinking that. That was completely irrelevant. The big issue was Kris’ nakedness, and my own. Yup I was completely naked too. I guess the question wasn’t so much why, that part was embarrassingly obvious, but how? How the hell had this happened?

  Nevermind, the awful headache and nausea I was feeling, as well as the sight of empty bottles across the room, were all the reminder I needed.

  “Ugh,” I groaned, announcing to Kris that I was awake. He’d managed to pull on his jeans and t-shirt and was wobbling on one leg trying to tug a black sock on. He quickly whipped around to face me, wearing a look of total distress. I didn’t quite understand it. “Are you okay?” I asked groggily.

  He let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Am I okay? What do you think Mia?” He snapped at me and my head throbbed. He made quick work of getting into his socks and shoes.

  “So that’s a no, but could you keep it down a little. It’s quite possible that I died last night and I haven’t completely returned to life yet.” At least that was how I felt.

  “Fuck, Mia. How can you be joking about this?”

  “Because I’m too tired to freak out like you are. I haven’t really processed everything. Can you just calm down for a minute and we’ll talk about it?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t be calm about this. We fucked everything up,” he said angrily. I squeezed my eyes shut and breathed past the sting that his words caused. I wasn’t exactly happy about the situation either, but we couldn’t undo it. We couldn’t just rewind the night and not get completely trashed and have drunk, passionate sex, as much as he might wish we could. He didn’t need to take it out on me though.

  “I’m sorry. It probably wasn’t the best decision either of us ever made, but –” I never got to say my but, because he started in, yelling at me.

  “No, it wasn’t! It was the worst fucking thing we could have done. Dammit! Why the fuck did you have to start kissing all over me?”

  I was taken aback by the venom in his words. It was such a contrast to the way he’d whispered in my ear last night. The details might be a little fuzzy, but I remembered the overall experience. He’d been sweet and attentive, and just as consumed as I had been. The regret and disdain that were directed toward me now hurt, and pissed me off. I couldn’t afford to dwell on the hurt right now, so I went with pissed off. I glared at him.

  “Why the hell did you pull me on top of you Kris? Why the hell did you take my shirt off? You were fucking there too, so don’t put this all on me. We both messed up last night.”

  His face fell. He lost some of the anger that had been burning in his gaze just a minute ago, and he looked tortured. “Fuck, you’re right. I know, I just . . . fuck. I don’t know how . . . why I . . . Dammit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Mia. I need to go.” He didn’t even look back at me as he made his escape from my room. I was left naked and tangled in a set of sheets for the second time feeling utterly rejected and stupid.

  This time it was so much worse, because not only did I remember the night before, but it meant something to me. Kris was my best friend, even if I agreed that it shouldn’t have happened, I could never look at him like a horrible mistake. We cared about each other, we’d been consenting adults, it happened, but now I was wondering if maybe I had it wrong and he didn’t really care. At least not enough. Why was I always the one to care more? Why couldn’t I just turn that off and stop caring so much?

  I felt the hurt trying to choke my insides, but I couldn’t let it. I wasn’t going to fall apart over this. I laid my head back down on my pillow, trying so hard to forget how it had felt to be held by someone who meant so much to me, who I’d trusted. Was there something wrong with me? Why did waking up and finding me in bed next to them send guys running like they couldn’t get away from me fast enough?

  I pulled the blanket around me tighter, grabbing my turtle, curling my body around it and hugging it to my chest. I closed my eyes, squeezing it tighter, hoping something would make the ache in my chest lessen. It didn’t work, and I felt the first tear slip out and run down my cheek to my pillow. Another followed until they were flowing in a steady stream and my pillow was damp under my face. The harder I tried to hold them in, the harder my body shook, but still they didn’t stop. It wasn’t until I fell back asleep that they finally did.

  It was several hours later that I woke up the second time, feeling only slightly less like the walking dead. Foolishly, I checked my phone, hoping that with a little bit of time, Kris might have cleared his head and tried to reach out to me. That wasn’t the case. Zero unread messages awaited me, and when I couldn’t stop myself from texting him, begging him to talk to me, I received no response. I tried again all day, and every time it was the same. Silence. No ding or buzz of vibration alerting me to a new message.

  Each time, it was like being rejected all over again. It felt like he was dismissing me and our friendship, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. So I cried, I got mad, I screamed in frustration, I threw things and then I cried some more. Just once, I wanted to be enough for someone to stay. Instead, everything I did pushed people away. My Mom. My Dad. My sisters. My friends.

  This was one of those moments where you pick up your phone and you call your best friend to bring the chocolate and the chick flicks, but I could scroll through all six hundred and some contacts in my phone and not find one who was that friend for me. The closest thing I had to that friend was the one who left me like this. I almost called Sadie, but I didn’t know how to tell her that I’d screwed up again, that I wasn’t really the little sister she wanted to be so proud of. For half a second I even considered calling Jaxyn, but she was Sadie’s best friend, not mine.

  I had no one, and it was my own fault.

  It was difficult to focus on anything else, so my attempts at distracting myself with studying and homework failed. Nothing could keep my mind from replaying the night over and over in my head. How had our celebration turned into this? How could we go from laughing and dancing together, to making love, to not even speaking? How could I have been so stupid to think that he really cared? Why had I trusted him enough to let him in? How could I have thought he really wanted me last night? How could I have ruined everything, driving away the only real friend I had? Why did I do it last night, when I knew in my heart I didn’t truly feel that way about Kris? There were just too many why did I and how could I’s.

  Every time I got something good, every time I thought I was on the right path, I did something stupid and blew it. Why did I bother trying? My life was nothing but a series of mistakes and bad choices and no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t seem to be able to turn it around.

  I wasn’t creative, smart and savvy like the twins. I wasn’t strong, independent and talented like Sadie. The only thing I had a talent for was sucking down alcohol and destroying shit. I was like a bomb, just waiting to detonate and hurt someone else.

  I threw my literature text across the room. Thomas Hardy was an asshole. Why couldn’t he ever just give someone a damn happy ending? I didn’t want to read that shit. Life was brutal enough already.

>   The few bottles Kris and I hadn’t drained last night sat on top of the mini fridge. I craved just a moment of peace, of escape, the chance to forget for just a little while, but I knew I wouldn’t really find what I needed at the bottom of those bottles. I wanted to be stronger than that.

  If I could beat the pain just one time without a bottle, maybe I wasn’t completely hopeless. The only other place I thought I could lose myself was online. I logged into my League account, not at all expecting to see Chris online, but he was, and it didn’t take but a few seconds for him to invite me to join a match with him and Ace’s brother Marcus who also played regularly. I hesitated to accept. Could I handle this with him right now, in my state?

  In the end I did accept, because if there was anything or anyone that could make me feel better, it was him. I shot him a message as the match loaded.

  Shouldn’t you be on a beach or sipping Coronas poolside in Mexico?

  Came back early.

  The match started and it was a few minutes before I responded.

  Why did you guys come back?

  His reply didn’t come right away. On the map I could see that he was engaged with one enemy from the other team while Marcus battled another in their lane. It was another several minutes before his reply came, and when it did, I think I re-read it three times before the words sank in.

  Long story. I came back, but she didn’t. Don’t really want to talk about it. Just want to kill things.

  He came back without her.

  He came back without her.

  I was having a hard time concentrating on the game and the other team was able to take me out, but I couldn’t make myself care. Too many questions were running through my head.

  Why did he come back without her?

  Did they break up?

  Why else wouldn’t he want to talk about it? I couldn’t help myself from pushing him for more.

  Are you guys okay?

  . . .

  . . .

  It felt like hours before he answered me.

  I can’t talk about this with you, Mia. Can we just play?

  Right. Of course he wouldn’t want to talk to me. I felt stupid for thinking he would. I felt stupid for allowing myself to consider this could mean anything for the two of us.

  What would he think if he knew about last night?

  A knot formed in my stomach.

  I remembered thinking of him last night, and ugly, ugly shame crept up on me. How much more screwed up could I get than falling into bed with guys that I didn’t even want, while everything in me was wishing for someone I would never be good enough for? It was humiliating to know that twice now I’d given a guy everything because I was so desperate to feel something and be wanted, but it was a joke, a big fat lie, because they didn’t really want me.

  What was I even doing here with Chris?

  Thinking this game was something special we shared was ridiculous. It was a game. A stupid game. One I was currently getting my ass handed to me at. I slammed my laptop closed.

  A minute later my phone buzzed.

  Chris.

  What happened? You left the game.

  Computer went offline, was all I texted back, and then for some stupid reason I sat there staring at the screen, waiting for him to say something else, willing him to call me on my bullshit. He didn’t text back. Why would he? I don’t even know what I expected him to say, but I just wanted someone to make sense of why I felt this way. I wanted him to see through my excuse, I wanted him to know that it was a lie. I wanted him to make me tell him why. I wanted to be able to tell someone everything. I wanted the chance to tell him how I felt about him, but I was too coward.

  I stared at my inbox. The message thread of all the unanswered texts I sent to Kris was just below my last message to Chris. Screw all the Chrises, with a ‘C’ or a ‘K’.

  I hate you.

  I typed it out and my finger hovered over the send button a second before I pressed it, adding one more message in a long thread of messages Kris wouldn’t bother to respond to. Then I tossed my phone away on my bed before I sent any more angry and immature texts. I wasn’t even drunk and I was resorting to emotional hate texting. It would be better if I was drunk.

  The bottles still sat on my fridge. Until they were in my hand and I was emptying them into a cup.

  It would be better if I was drunk.

  There wasn’t enough there to get me drunk though, so after I drained my cup I shuffled my ass into the shower and then I dressed with the purpose of going out and finding a way to get my hands on more alcohol.

  Yeah, yeah. I’m weak. Pathetic. Couldn’t make it one night without drowning my damn tears in a bottle. Why the hell should I care? If I wanted to be drunk then I was going to get drunk.

  I froze when someone knocked at my door. Hope that it was Kris coming to fix things surged in my chest for a moment until I pulled the door open and saw Jillian.

  “What the hell bitch?” she said, shoving her way inside. I sighed and closed the door behind us, knowing I wouldn’t be able to get rid of her easily. “You’ve been dodging my texts for weeks now. You haven’t hung out with us in ages. What is up with that? Is it because your BFF’s with my cousin all the sudden? That’s bullshit that you would ditch us to be one of his damn puck bunnies.”

  “I know. I’m not though.”

  “Then what gives?” She dropped down on my sofa, grabbing my cup from the coffee table where I’d left it. She took a whiff and then cringed.

  “I don’t know, but Kris and I aren’t ‘BFF’s’.”

  “Whatever, then why have you been avoiding me?”

  “Just busy. Trying to focus on school and Kris and I were hanging out a lot, but not anymore. We’re not really friends at all anymore,” I admitted solemnly.

  “Oh shit, did he . . . did he sleep with you and then toss you out like the rest of his one nighters?”

  I dropped my head, unable to meet her eyes.

  “Asshole,” she cursed. “He’s such a prick. Thinks he so much better than the rest of us, looking down on me because of how I choose to live my life, but he’s just a dick who uses people.” She jumped up from my couch. “Come on. I’m not letting you waste another second being miserable in here, drinking alone because of my stupid fuck of a cousin. If you’re going to drink, you’re going to do it with friends.”

  Friends. I almost wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. I just followed her out the door. She was already on the phone with Heidi by the time we shut it behind us.

  Chapter 24

  Mia

  After Jillian got off the phone, we didn’t have to wait two minutes in the common area for Heidi and Dawn to come walking down the hall. I wasn’t sure how I felt seeing Heidi, considering the last view I had of her was her naked and on top of Leland, but I figured of all the things bothering me right now, that was pretty low on the list.

  “There’s a party at the hockey house,” Heidi announced when she and Dawn joined us.

  “No. That’s out,” Jill said, thankfully not filling them in on my Kris shame. “What else is going on tonight?”

  “Well, Derek and Leland are at Justin and Dete’s place. We can go over there.”

  Justin and Dete’s ended up being a house just off of campus. I never figured out who Justin and Dete were, but they had a lot of alcohol, so I considered them friends. This time I didn’t go in with any delusions that I would just have one drink, that I wouldn’t lose control. I was tired of trying to be in control. I was tired of failing, so I just said “fuck it” and spent the night chasing oblivion, trying to have a good time, but it seemed that no matter how much I drank, the shitty feeling remained. So I drank more.

  As always, I ended up stumbling through an unknown house, searching for the bathroom. I pushed one door open and found a group of people sitting on couches around a glass coffee table.

  “Oops. Not the bathroom,” I muttered and started to back out of the room, but then I recognized the faces that were
looking at me. So this is where Jillian, Heidi and Dawn had disappeared to. Derek, Leland and a girl and two guys I didn’t know were also watching me.

  “Hey guys, you move the party in here?” I took in the bottles on the table and then the white powder. Shit. I remembered what Kris said they liked to do at these parties. “I gotta go find the bathroom,” I said quickly and then started to leave.

  “Why don’t you stay?” Leland spoke up and I looked at him confused.

  Why was he asking me to stay? I hate him. Don’t I?

  “Yeah, we’ve got plenty to share,” one of the guys I didn’t know said.

  “Bathroom,” I mumbled again. I closed the door behind me, and followed the wall to the next door. This time it was a bathroom. I stumbled inside and locked the door behind me, doing my business and then washing my hands. I took in my reflection in the mirror, but it was a little fuzzy. My eyes wouldn’t focus, but I could see the flush of my cheeks that indicated how much I’d been drinking. I didn’t like the girl looking back at me with sad, judgmental eyes. She was nothing.

  “Fuck you. I hate you,” I whispered and then shoved away from the sink to get out of there. When I forcefully yanked the door open, I was surprised to see both Leland and Derek waiting for me.

  “Wha’ d’you guys wan?” I straightened my shoulders and tried to look indifferent, but I don’t know how well I pulled it off.

  “Dance with us,” Leland smiled.

  Fuck. That smile.

  You hate that smile, Mia. Don’t fall for it.

  “Dance? Why?”

  “Please,” Derek added with his own dimpled grin.

  “Jusss one dance,” I told them and then let them lead me to the living room area where the music was the loudest and a few other people were sort of dancing. I found my own spot and started to move my hips and feel the music, but right away, both guys invaded my space, one pressing himself to my front and the other to my back. I couldn’t tell which hands belonged to who, but they were all over me. On my hips, in my hair, on my stomach, on my ass. They were touching me everywhere they could. It was almost overwhelming and I didn’t think I liked it. I started to bat their hands away, but they just found new places to touch me. I was pressed so tightly between them that all I could smell was sweat, cologne and alcohol. I pushed them off of me. I needed away from them. It all felt so wrong.