I shrugged. “I haven’t been able to find anything full time. I’m putting in some hours at JAC’s but that’s not going to cover the bills and it’s not what I want to be doing. Jobs are scarce though. Shit economy and all that,” I said.
“I just got canned from Wendy’s Hair Salon. Damn economy,” Reggie slurred. Shane rolled his eyes.
“You got canned because Wendy caught you riding her husband in the supply closet,” Shane smirked.
Reggie waved her hand, dismissing his comment. “Whatever. I still don’t have a job. It sucks.”
Shane smacked his hand down on the bar top again. “Hey, I was just made shift lead over at Shag’s. I could see if they need anyone.”
“I can’t say I know anything about de-boning chicken, Shane. But thanks,” I said.
“Well, if you change your mind, my number hasn’t changed.” Shane leaned over the bar and dropped his empty bottle in the trashcan. “Enough of this depressing shit. It’s been three years since we’ve hung out. Let’s get crazy!”
Reggie whooped and jumped down off the stool quicker than I thought possible given the fact that I was pretty sure she had more drugs than blood in her system.
I held up my hands. “My days of crazy are over,” I argued.
Shane handed me a new drink. “Shit, I was there that night you downed twelve shots of Cuervo and then convinced the rest of us to run naked through the middle of town. Our asses never ran so fast!” he chortled.
I groaned. “Not one of my finer moments.”
Shane put his arm around my shoulder and I braced myself to hit him if he tried to grab my tit. But he thankfully kept his hands boob free.
“You may have your straight laced guy and college degree, but there’s nothin’ wrong with having a little fun. There’s nothing else to do in this fucking town. So might as well do it right,” he stated, ordering a round of shots.
Reggie grinned at me and I could almost see the pretty girl underneath the haggardness. “Let’s play some pool. You were always a total shark, Ells! Let’s make some wallets a little lighter.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
I was now feeling more than a little drunk and strangely Reggie and Shane were appealing to a side of me I hadn’t experienced in a long time. The Ellie who didn’t worry or give a shit about much beyond partying and making some noise.
“Why the hell not?” I said. I took the offered shot glass that Shane held out and dumped the contents in my mouth, feeling the burn all the way down my throat. My head was starting to feel fuzzy and I could feel my mouth falling open in a goofy, inebriated grin.
Flynn should be home by now. He would be wondering where I was.
I should probably call him.
“Come on, Ells!” Shane yelled, holding up a pool cue.
There wasn’t anything wrong with being that other Ellie for one night. As long as I put her away in the morning.
It was entirely too easy to slip back into a role I had played my entire life.
That was the danger of Wellston.
I could lose myself, my dreams, my good sense.
They could all disappear as quickly as I had found them.
Chapter Twenty-two
-Ellie-
“Oh god!” the guy moaned as I wrapped my hand around his less than spectacular dick.
I went about the motions of jerking him off, already bored, my mind wandering to other things.
Like if I had left the lights on in my apartment. Or what time my next shift at JAC’s was.
“Harder! Oh fucking god, harder!” the guy pleaded and I complied. Shit, my wrist was getting a cramp. I hoped he blew his load quickly, otherwise I was in danger of getting a Charlie horse in my arm.
I was shit-faced drunk. It was the only way I’d ever allow myself to disappear into a darkened bedroom with a dude I didn’t even know. I didn’t like complications, so quick easy sex seemed to fill an immediate need that I couldn’t get anywhere else.
But tonight I wasn’t feeling it. I didn’t want to go through the hassle of taking my pants off and finding a condom. I hoped using my hand to get the guy’s rocks off would be enough.
“It’s coming! Oh shit, here we go!” he screamed and I rolled my eyes. Was he for real? What a douche!
He came all over my hand and I felt a little sick. When he was finished I got up and quickly went into the bathroom to rinse off. I came back out and the guy was gone. I didn’t even feel shitty about it.
I was just relieved that he didn’t expect anything else.
I walked back out to the party and looked around at the familiar scene. I wasn’t sure whose apartment I was in, only that it was filled with the people that I had been hanging out with since high school.
“There you are!” Dania yelled, waving me over from her spot on the couch. Her shirt had gone missing at some point and she was wearing only her bra. She didn’t seem to care though.
I sat down beside her after making the jackass sat beside her, ogling her boobs move.
“I saw you going off somewhere with Ryan Tusing,” Dania smirked.
“Is that his name?” I asked, unconcerned. Shane, who sat on the floor at Dania’s feet, handed me a small pipe and a lighter. I lit the pipe and took a pull of drug-laced smoke into my lungs.
“You’re such a slut,” Dania cackled, elbowing me in the side.
I shrugged, not wanting to admit that her words hurt. Because she was right.
I was a slut.
A pathetic girl using booze, drugs, and meaningless sex to fill a void. It should mean something that I was at least aware of what I was doing and why. But it didn’t. I went back to my inebriated self-loathing.
I was barely aware of Shane sliding his hand up my inner thigh until he tried to unzip my pants.
I smacked him in the face and got unsteadily to my feet. “I’ll cut off your as well as your dick if you don’t stay the fuck away from me,” I threatened.
Shane laughed, though he looked a little worried, and Dania thought my being groped was hysterical.
I stumbled out of the apartment and onto the balcony. I was going to puke. My head was spinning and I wanted nothing more than to pass out.
And there, just below me, I saw a familiar dark head. The hair was unkempt and hung in the guy’s face. My heart, already thudding in an irregular rhythm, went into overdrive.
“Flynn?” I whispered, hardly able to believe what I was seeing. I saw spots in front of my eyes the harder I tried to focus on the man below me.
My gut clenched in a painful combination of longing and hatred.
“Flynn!” I said a little louder, hanging over the railing to try and get a better look.
What was he doing here? Had he come to see me? Was he back finally after all this time?
I wasn’t thinking clearly but I knew I had to see him. I needed to tell him exactly what I thought of him. I wanted to scream and yell and tell him how he ruined my life.
I sobbed and I barely felt the tears slide down my face.
I wasn’t thinking clearly. The drugs and alcohol in my system were combating with common sense that it wasn’t possible Flynn was here, at this party. He had moved away years ago.
“Flynn!” I screamed, almost falling over the edge of the balcony in my efforts to get to him. Please look at me! Please!
“Ellie!” Stu yelled in my ear, grabbing me roughly by the back of the shirt and hauling me backwards. I struggled in his grip, trying to break free.
“Let me go! I have to see him!” I twisted and writhed in my efforts to get away. I needed to see Flynn! I had to! It was the most important thing in the world!
“You have to see who? You’re totally fucked up and you were about to fall over the fucking railing you dumb ass!” Stu growled less than sympathetically. But I didn’t care.
I ran back to the railing. The people on the ground were looking up at the commotion and I picked out the dark haired boy in the crowd.
“Don’t you
see him?” I asked, my hands shaking, my heart thudding at an alarming rate.
“Are you talking about John Martin?” Stu asked.
“No! Don’t you see—“ I stopped. I was finally able to get a good look at the guy that I swore was Flynn Hendrick.
Because it wasn’t him.
Flynn wasn’t here.
I tore away from Stu’s grasp and stumbled back into the party, barely aware that I was crying. Dania called out to me and Reggie tried to stop me from leaving, but I pushed her away.
I just had to be alone.
Because Flynn wasn’t there.
And it broke me.
**
I had left my car outside Woolly’s and had gotten a ride back to Flynn’s with a guy Reggie knew. His name was Jonathan. Or Jared. Maybe it was Jackson.
I couldn’t remember because I was wasted.
Out of my mind, off my rocker, wasted.
I had ended up playing pool for most of the night. I won a pocket full of cash and damned if it hadn’t been fun.
Shane kept me plied with booze, and before I knew it, I was getting boisterous and rowdy. A bunch of people that I used to party with had shown up and it became a white trash reunion.
I hadn’t thought once about Flynn and the fact that I should probably call him and let him know what I was doing.
It was as though for one evening, I had slipped back into the role I had performed for most of my life. Irresponsible. Making bad decisions. Drinking too much and making an ass of myself.
These people didn’t expect me to get a job. They didn’t care that I had a bachelor’s degree. They didn’t care that I had finally found love with a man who adored me.
All they saw when they looked at me was the same girl I had always been. Only slightly less punchy.
I tried to be as quiet as possible as I opened the kitchen door. I stubbed my toe on the step and fell into the refrigerator. It was official: I was a drunken idiot.
It was just after midnight and the house was dark. Murphy came running into the kitchen growling. When he realized that it was me, his tail began to wag and he started pacing back in forth in front of me, wanting my attention.
“Not right now, buddy,” I slurred, pushing past the overgrown dog and stumbling into the living room. I was surprised to find the television on.
“I didn’t know where you were.”
I jumped, startled by the sound of Flynn’s voice. He sat on the couch, still very much awake.
“Oh, um, well I went out for a drive and then I stopped at Woolly’s,” I explained, not wanting to look at him. Even though the booze had made it easy to forget to feel, the guilt came back with a crushing force.
“You’re drunk,” Flynn said flatly.
I struggled to take off my boots, almost falling over. I braced myself against the wall, unzipped one and tossed it in the corner.
“No I’m not, I’m just tired is all,” I protested.
Who was I kidding?
I was drunk as a damn skunk. When I was away at school, I didn’t drink much. Maybe a beer here and there with Nadine after classes. But I had made it a point to not let myself go back to the mess I had been before.
Until tonight.
If I hadn’t been so wasted, I would have seen how upset Flynn was. I would have seen how close he was to exploding. I would never have provoked him with my thoughtless words.
“You’re lying. You’re drunk!” Flynn stated, his voice rising. Murphy ran back into the kitchen, obviously picking up on his owner’s mood even if I hadn’t yet.
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. I’m fine,” I dismissed.
“Don’t say whatever! You went out! You didn’t tell me where you were! It’s midnight! I’ve been home for six hours and twenty-four minutes!” Flynn yelled, getting to his feet.
“Don’t yell at me!” I yelled back, holding my head with my hand. It was starting to pound and I was beginning to feel a little sick.
“I looked for you! I looked in the woods, and you weren’t there. I tried calling your phone and you didn’t answer! You’re supposed to answer your phone when it rings, Ellie!” Flynn gripped his hands in front of him and for the first time in a long time he began to wring them together. Up and down, over and over again in anxious, methodical movements.
“I didn’t hear it ring, Flynn. It was loud in Woolly’s,” I excused, starting to realize that Flynn was very close to losing his shit on me.
“You shouldn’t have been at Woolly’s! You should have been here! I come home at five-thirty every day! We eat dinner together and then we take Murphy on a walk. We watch television together and then we go to bed! A lot of the time we have sex. That’s what we do! But tonight we didn’t because you weren’t here!” Flynn screamed, throwing the remote control across the room where it smashed against the wall and fell to the floor in a dozen, jagged pieces.
“Whoa! Flynn, hang on a second—“ I started to say, wishing I could sober up a lot quicker.
“I ate dinner by myself! You were supposed to eat dinner with me! That’s what you do when you live with someone! You do what you’re supposed to do!” Flynn was bordering on hysterical and if I hadn’t been so drunk, I would have backed off, given him his space.
But his words pissed me off. If he expected me to be some sort of dutiful housewife then he had another thing coming! That wasn’t me. It never would be. How dare he think that?
I wasn’t thinking very clearly. All I heard was that I hadn’t met his expectations. That I had failed, yet again.
In that split second, I unfairly equated him with the dozens of families that wanted me to be a perfect child so I would be easier to love. Teachers who wished I wasn’t such a troublemaker. My mother who probably wanted a smarter, prettier, better kid and then maybe she wouldn’t have left.
And here was Flynn, the one person in my life who I had thought would always accept me for who I was, telling me that tonight, I wasn’t good enough.
Well fuck that!
I picked up the tiny Westminster Abbey that Flynn had sculpted for me not long ago and smashed it on the floor.
“Don’t do that!” Flynn cried out, holding his hands up as if to stop me.
“You’re not the only one who can throw shit, Flynn!” I yelled, picking up a glass shoe that I knew had belonged to his mother and hurled it against the wall.
“No!” Flynn shouted, covering his ears.
I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt the wetness dripping off my chin. I looked at Flynn who had his eyes scrunched closed and his hands over his ears. He was shaking his head.
“Just stop it,” he whispered.
Oh my god!
What was wrong with me?
I looked at the pieces of hardened clay shattered at my feet and felt the bile rising up in my throat. I ran down the hallway to the bathroom. I dropped to my knees and emptied the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I stayed there for what felt like hours, heaving.
When I was finally finished, I rested my forehead against the cool porcelain and tried to stop my spinning head.
I had never, in all the years I had known Flynn, ever spoken to him like that. I had never scared him with my violence. Not even when I was a messed up teenager, barely able to control my feelings or reactions. I had never taken my vicious anger out on him.
But tonight I had.
Flynn didn’t come to check on me and I was too much of a drunken chicken shit to go find him. I felt like the worst human being in the world.
So I curled into a ball on the cold bathroom tile and fell asleep.
**
I woke up the next morning with my face pressed into the tile, dried vomit on the side of my face. I moaned and sat up. My head felt like it was going to split open.
At some point in the night, Flynn had covered me with a blanket. I pushed it aside and stood up, running the water in the sink, trying to clear my head.
I splashed my face with freezing cold water and ran shaky fingers th
rough my tangled, puke encrusted hair. I needed a shower. Badly.
I braced my hands on either side of the sink and tried to get myself together. There was a good chance I was going to throw up again. My stomach rolled dangerously.
The night before was fuzzy but I remembered, all too clearly, what preceded my rather accurate Exorcist imitation.
I had screamed at Flynn. Shit, I had broken his sculpture and his mom’s glass shoe figurine.
I had gone to Woolly’s and gotten drunk with Shane and Reggie and I had never called Flynn to tell him where I was.
Why in the hell would I do something like that?
Bile rose in my throat and I turned around and dry heaved in the toilet. Shuddering, I forced myself into the shower to rinse off my mortification and shame.
I couldn’t believe how I had behaved. I had treated Flynn horribly.
I realized, standing underneath the spray of water, that last night I had become the woman I had never wanted to be again.
Angry, bitter, resentful. Full of insecurity, tinged with self-loathing. I had been selfish and self-destructive. And for a brief moment I had enjoyed it.
And then I had come home and had taken all of that crap out on Flynn.
I leaned against the shower wall. I was shaking so badly I wasn’t sure I could stay upright on my own. I was losing it. I was doing the thing that I always did best.
Detonate.
I got out of the shower and dried myself off and then wrapped the towel around my body. I quietly went to the bedroom and found it empty, the bed made. I threw on some clothes and brushed out my hair.
The house was silent. I wasn’t sure whether Flynn was there or not.
I went out to the living room and came to a sudden halt. Flynn sat at the tiny table he reserved for his art. Murphy looked up from his perch at his master’s feet, his tail thumping the floor.
Flynn was bent over the table, completely focused. I slowly walked toward him and my heart broke—shattering into a thousand guilty pieces.
He was carefully gluing the pieces of his mini Westminster Abbey back together. At his elbow was the glass shoe I had ruined last night, whole once again.
Chasing the Tide Page 23