Girls grind against me, and I normally would shake them off because of how not in the mood I am, but I welcome it. Distractions are the best way to get over someone, right? Yes. There is an expression people bide by all the time: “To get over someone, get under someone new.” If that’s what it takes to get over the girl with those big blue eyes and a heart of gold…I’ll gladly do it. Because I am sick and tired of thinking about her.
I hold onto some girl’s waist for what feels like an eternity, even going as far as kissing her neck, though the action makes bile rise behind my throat, the liquor hitting me all at once. My breaths are shallow, and sweat runs across my forehead and down my neck. She pushes herself against me, and where I am supposed to be aroused, I feel absolutely nothing. But I let her shake her ass on me and move to the beat of the music.
She turns and wobbles on her high heels, eyes blue but not as blue as my gir…as someone I used to know. “Want to take this upstairs?” she purrs, and I cringe. She is so gone.
“Eck, no.”
I push away from her and snake through the crowd. I stumble, and the music is ear-splitting. There is hazy white stuff clouding my eyes on and off again. I need a new distraction, one that is familiar to me, one that will make that other Olive girl feel so bad. I want to see her suffer and I want that right now.
I’m turning the corner to that red room when I see a flash of bright red passing by me. “Rose!” I grab her arm and whirl her around and into my chest. I rub my thumb over her cheek, pressing her into the wall. “It’s so good to see you.” My voice is gravelly and heavy, I hope she doesn’t notice. I’m drunk enough; will her lips taste like hers? I lean down and brush my lips against hers and sink them onto hers, and there is nothing but blandness. “Taste like her,” I mumble, mouth pushed against hers.
“Grey,” she breathes, pushing me back and holding me back as I try to kiss her again. “Stop it. You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?” I snap, not liking her accusation.
She runs her little fingers through her thick, red hair. “Looking for her…but I am not something to pass through on some fucked-up journey to get over your goddamn ex.”
That stung.
She begins to walk off, pissed at me, but I grab her hand like I used to do with her and pull her back into my chest.
“Don’t leave me,” I whimper, brushing my knuckles against her soft cheek.
“Stop that, Grey,” she whines, not able to deny me when I am like this. It’s always been her weak spot.
“I need you.” I take her face in my hands, and she silently stares up at me. I let my lips curl into a smirk. “Dance with me?” I croak, twisting up my face so I look desperate. What I’m desperate for is to be distracted.
She chews on her full lower lip, then sighs heavily. “Fine.” A smile dances on her lips, and I feel a tinge of guilt, but it goes away the same moment.
I drag her onto the dance floor and rock against her. I move her hair to the side and pepper her smooth skin. She moans as I run my large hands across her stomach and grip her hips. I close my eyes and try to get lost in the loud music and the flashing colors behind my eyes. She dances against me, and I still feel turned off if anything, but it just pushes me to kiss her more and more, trailing up the length of her neck to behind her ear.
I feel eyes burning through me, so I lift my face and lock eyes with a pair of round eyes so blue, they rival the clearest of tropical waters.
I smile and wave my fingers at Liv, and she actually cries. She looks so hurt, so wrecked…good. She thinks she can wreck my heart, try to do it again in a fucking closet, and get away with it? Fuck that, I want to see her pained, like there is nothing else for her.
“Who are you waving at?” Rose questions, looking up at me.
“No one,” I answer and go back to kissing along her neck, keeping eye contact with the girl I used to love. She’s glued to her spot, unable to take her eyes off me. I take advantage of the opportunity and run my hands up Rose’s stomach and clutch her breasts.
“What are you doing…?” she breathes, obviously confused but turned on.
“Just go with it,” I whisper in her ear then kiss her earlobe.
She’s about to reply when she squints her eyes to where I am staring off to. Then she gasps and swings around, her face as red as her dress. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re just doing this to make her jealous?” She hits me violently, and I take a step back, but she clutches my shirt and yells, “How fucked up can you be? I’m so fucking…ugh!” She pushes me and whirls on her heels, heading for Liv.
“Wait, Rose! Fuck!” I watch as she talks and even consoles Liv, the heartbreaker! Not me, the one suffering her fucked-up whiplash of emotions. And I’m the fucking bipolar one! I can’t take this shit anymore!
I turn around and literally push everyone in my way. I punch a guy or two until I finally reach the front door. I push past a couple, and the guy pushes me. I raise my fist, ready to knock his ass out too, when my name is called by the fucking devil in flats. Instead, I grab his red Solo cup, knock him out anyway because I can, and stumble down the marble stairs. Fucking rich pricks!
“Grey, wait!” I hear heels coming after me, so I speed up, throwing away the cup after downing the alcoholic drink. “I said to wait!” she screams again, and every bone in my body pleads for me to stop, but I can’t. I have to get the fuck away from her before she hurts me again. From that tragic day, I promised myself that no one, especially her, would ever hurt me again. And I’d be damned if I broke my own promise. “Wait!”
I can’t take it anymore.
I whirl around, and she bumps into my chest. Obviously, she didn’t expect me to actually stop.
“What do you want?” I scream, and she flinches. I almost feel bad…almost.
She opens and closes her mouth, trying to find words. “Where are you going?”
“Why do you care?”
She struggles to find those words again. “Because I just do…”
I laugh so loud, she flinches again.
“What’s so funny?” Her voice is low.
“I just tried to make you jealous with Rose, yet you care about me?” It’s pathetic as fuck if you ask me.
She furrows her brows and fiddles with some necklace charm. I frown. She usually plays with mine when she’s nervous. “I just…if you’re going home, I can give you a ride. You are quite…um…intoxicated, and—”
“Fuck off,” I say.
She looks around. “What?”
“I said to fuck off, Olivia!” I scream it louder for her to hear. She whimpers, taking a step back.
“N-no.” Was she always this fucking stubborn?
Instead of answering this fucking fool, I turn on my heel and begin walking away. She calls after me, and her heels click-clack against the stone pathway. I roll my eyes and walk faster. Two frat-looking fucks are making their way to me, and one of them is holding a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.
“Must be my birthday.” I grin and push the guy with the whiskey, which is obviously a present for little Liv. “Thanks, I was wondering where my presents were, selfish fucks.” I throw my thumb back at the house.
“What?” the guy says, obviously confused.
I throw my fist across his jaw, hearing a loud crack, and a loud gasp then my name being shouted behind me. I grab the bottle before it can smash against the ground while his pussy friend stoops down to his unconscious friend with blood dripping down his chin.
“Thanks, dude.” I wink at him and twist open the cap as I make my way to my car.
“Grey, what is wrong with you? You can’t drink and drive!” she shouts as I down about a quarter of the bottle.
“Yes, I can,” I say, smiling at her over the roof of the car. “It’s called multi-tasking.”
She looks hurt the way she’s chewing her lip and playing with her wrist charms. There we go…
“You know you can’t,” she says, trying to reason with me. “You
can get pulled over and locked up, or—or even worse, you can get in an…in an accident.” Tears well in her eyes.
“Oh no, don’t start crying,” I mock her, and she scowls at me. “I know what the fuck I’m doing…so fuck off, got it?” I bark, but she still takes another step. So I pull out the big guns and say, “You don’t want me to end up like Jonah, right?” She stops, and I feel the world pause as I slur my words with a shrug and a mean smile. “At least I’d be away from your nagging ass. So do us both a favor and go back to kissing your pretty little golden boy.”
When she doesn’t blink or even say anything to stop me, I take another swig of the bottle while getting in the car. Without looking at her, I rev the engine and peel onto the road.
Chapter Forty-Two
Liv
Hours after the party ended, I am lying on my bed, unable to sleep. My hands lay on the scratchy material of the golden dress I am still wearing, too lazy and frozen to take it off. It’s nearing dawn, and it’s going to take all day to clean the house, but I can’t, for the life of me, find any energy to move my feet. It’s like I am locked into the bed, forced to play out the messy events that occurred in one night that was meant to celebrate another year of me living. So why does it feel like this was the year I finally died?
Why do I feel and look like a corpse when I look in the mirror? Why do I feel like, when people look at me, all they see is a ghost of who I used to be? Why does my murderer resemble a man I would gladly lay my life down for?
These questions may never be answered, but I do know one thing: I will live the rest of my life as a dead girl.
A groan erupts to my right, but I can’t move my head, only stare straight up.
“Fuck…last night was something else.” Mason, I can tell by his voice. There’s pressure on the side of the bed and then another grunt as he lays next to me. There is a brief pause as we stay silent, staring at the intricate ceiling. “What’ya thinking about?”
“How dead I feel on the inside,” I tell him honestly, voice croaking.
“Same, girl.” He sighs. “Same.”
Oh, he thinks because I’m hungover. If only he knew I don’t feel sick or anything just…dead.
Another pause, then a strangled yawn followed by a curse. “I gotta piss.” The pillow crumples as he faces me. “You okay? Need water or something when I get back? An aspirin?”
I shrug. “I’m good, thank you.”
But I can use a time machine…What am I thinking? Even that wouldn’t be able to dig me out of the ground.
He hugs and kisses my cheek. “How does it feel being nineteen?”
Like I don’t deserve to have made it this long.
I finally face him and inwardly wince at his bright smile. I try to mirror it, but I know I’ve failed at acting like I am okay, bright even. “Like the best is yet to come.”
His smile grows, if possible. “Got that right.” He sits up, and I let my smile fall. “After this, it’s all downhill.”
“Got that right,” I murmur.
He looks back at me, and I raise my smile again. “You say something?”
I simply shake my head. “Didn’t you say you have to pee?”
He stares for a second, then breaks into a hazy smile. “Right…right…I’ll be back after I look for Mateo.” Before leaving, he leans down and pecks my cheek again, giggling, still a little intoxicated, and whispers, “Finally nineteen. What a time to be alive, woo!” Thankfully, he’s out the door before the “woo,” but it still resonates loudly in my ear.
I scoff under my breath. “Yeah, what a time…”
What a time to live each day wishing it was your last. What a time to hate yourself so goddamn much, you wouldn’t mind if someone shattered your heart each time they saw you. What an amazing time to pine for someone who so casually brought up your dead little brother and risked his own life just because he couldn’t stand to be around you. What a fucking time!
I’m groaning, feeling my blood boil, when the bed buzzes. I scrunch my eyebrows in confusion until it hits me: it’s my phone. Although it feels like angry tides of liquor washing up on my stomach, I sit up and begin searching for my phone. Hidden under the ruffles of the comforter is my phone, buzzing with an unfamiliar number. I frown but decide to answer it because of my stomach tightening, like a gut feeling saying I hit decline.
“Hello?” I say hesitantly.
“This is the local police office; do you accept the charges made if you accept this call?” an automated voice speaks, and my stomach drops.
“Um, y-yes,” I squeak, feeling my throat where my stomach is supposed to be.
There’s a little beep and scuffle sound before a very human intake of breath.
“Princesa?” a husky voice says.
I take a moment before saying, “Grey?” I already know it’s him. I just need confirmation before I pass out from shock and this giddiness from hearing that nickname from him.
He sighs, and I can imagine him nodding. “The one and only.”
I gulp. “Uh, why are you in jail?”
He scoffs. “Because I was too hot to be driving. They said I was distracting other drivers too much.”
I can’t help but laugh, and I swear I can hear him smirking. “I’m serious.”
“Fine,” he huffs. “I was a little tipsy, and some fucker cop pulled me over. Can you believe that?”
“Yes, I can, because I warned you it’d happen,” I point out, a little pissed. Then again, he’s hardheaded and has stopped listening to me, as he should. We aren’t a thing anymore. He doesn’t have to listen to me, even though I have a point most of the time.
“Yeah, well, we all ignore warning labels when they say not to swallow bottle caps,” he slurs.
“You’re still drunk, aren’t you?”
A moment of silence…then, “Does a unicorn piss in the forest?”
“I…I don’t…unicorns don’t exist.”
“Then there’s your answer.”
I sigh. “I’m on my way.”
“No, don’t come for me—I don’t like you.”
“So why call me?”
I can practically sense his shrug as he plays with his bottom lip. “Dunno…the guy in the cage with me is mean. He won’t share his gum, and I think he’s trying to kill me,” he whispers.
I hold back a laugh. “I’ll bring some gum for you, and if he does kill you, I’ll make sure to be one of the jurors to send him to jail, okay?” I stand up and slip into some slippers, listening to him groan.
“He’s staring at me now,” he says, then gasps. “Wait, did you say you’re bringing gum? Get the fruity one.”
“Goodbye, Grey,” I say with a smile.
There’s a little pause on his end. “Stop saying that.”
I pause, my hand on the doorknob. “What are you—?”
“You keep saying goodbye, and I don’t like it,” he mumbles like a child, and I frown at how…hurt he sounds.
He purposefully hurt you last night, and now you’re going to go pick him up from jail? My subconscious sneers. How pathetic can you be?
Apparently, a lot, because I continue out the door and say, “Then hello, Grey…I’m on my way now.”
“Hello, I am here for Grey Wyler. He was brought in late last night, maybe eleven, eleven-thirty?” I say to the husky older woman wearing a police outfit at the front desk.
She types away on the computer in front of her, then looks at me and says in a monotonous voice, “Grey Wyler, age twenty-one, residence in Pennsylvania?”
I nod with a soft smile. “Yep, that’s him. How much is it to bail him out?”
She raises her thick eyebrows with a huff. “With how reckless he was when brought in, plus the drugs found in his car—”
“Sorry, d-drugs?” I stutter, the smile fading quickly.
She nods, glancing at the screen. “Yup, a few pounds too.” She narrows her eyes and looks me up and down. “You wouldn’t know or happen to be involved with that,
would you?”
I nervously glance around at the milling office of officers. “No, of course not.” I take a deep breath, deciding to question him about that later. First, I have to get him out before his cellmate kills him. “How much is the bail to get him out?” I reiterate, my throat dry as the Sahara Desert.
“Five hundred dollars,” she informs.
“Wow, well, okay…” Didn’t know it’d be that much. Geesh.
She points me over to the desk to officially bail him out. I follow her pointed finger, and a man behind a booth helps me go through the tedious work of paying the ridiculously high amount. He informs me that with paperwork done, Grey will be released within ten minutes to half an hour. I wait on a bench with, what I assume, is a homeless man named Steve, who constantly asks if I have any nuts on me, whatever that means. After the fiftieth time he asks, I ask the kind police officer if I can talk with Grey and pass time while the paperwork is being taken care of.
He leads me to the back where dozens of drunks and small-time criminals rest in cells. I feel dirty as some catcall me and beg to be let out. But once we finally stop near the end, and I see Grey laying on a metal bench with his arm thrown over his eyes, I feel a sense of relief, anger, and happiness—a very weird combination.
“Wyler, got a visitor,” the mustached officer announces gruffly, hitting the cell bars with a baton.
I blush and step back as he informs me he’ll come back for the both us when the paperwork is done, then leaves. When he is gone, I nervously step up to the cell and curl my fingers around the cold metal bars.
“Grey,” I whisper his name, glancing at the big man sitting on the opposite bench, who’s clearly checking me out. Uncomfortable, I say his name louder, “Grey, wake up!”
“Hmmm…?” There’s some mumbling before he finally lets his tattooed arm drop and sits up on his elbows. He openly stares at me like the man, but his actually holds enough intensity that makes me physically squirm. “What are you doing here?”
Grey: The Retribution (Spectrum Series Book 3) Page 28