“My mother died two months ago.” I’m shaking now, rage making my voice sharp. “I’m so sorry my grief isn’t sexy for you.”
Lizzy is crying, trying to get dressed while still wrapped in my sheet. “We didn’t plan this. It just happened.”
“Oh, it just happened. Multiple times, apparently, based on how comfortable you both looked.”
I haul the duffel bag into the hallway and down the stairs. It’s not even heavy. This is all he has. A month of living here, and he has one bag of stuff.
They follow me down, Mason still shirtless. Lizzy is wearing her dress inside out.
I throw open the front door and toss the bag onto the lawn. The sneakers follow, one landing in the bushes.
“Get out. Both of you.”
Mason reaches for me. “Baby, please?—”
“Don’t touch me.” I step back. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
Lizzy is full-on sobbing now. “I’m so sorry. You’re my best friend. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“And yet.” I gesture to the door. “Out!”
They leave. Mason loads his bag into his truck, and Lizzy gets in her car, makeup running down her face. Neither of them looks back.
I close the door and lock it.
The silence rushes in. Just me and this house full of my mother’s things and the ghost of a life I thought I had. I pace the living room. Back and forth. Back and forth.
“I need a drink.” My voice cracks. “I need a drink.”
Tears are streaming down my face now, hot and fast. I head to the kitchen and start opening cabinets. There has to be something. Wine. Vodka. Anything.
Nothing.
Of course there’s nothing. Mom never drank. I never drank. Well, except for that one time in college when everything felt magical and perfect until I woke up in the ER with doctors explaining that I have some rare neurological condition that makes alcohol do weird things to my memory.
But God, before the ER, before the memory gaps, it felt amazing, like I could finally breathe.
I need that feeling. Just for tonight.
My phone is in my hand before I realize I’ve grabbed it. I open the voice memo app, and there they are. A whole list of recordings, timestamps spanning years.
“Okay, drunk Savannah, you hooked up with that guy from your study group. His name is Tyler. You’re going to be embarrassed tomorrow.”
“Future me, you sang karaoke. Badly. Like, really badly. Everyone has videos.”
“You told Professor Martinez his toupee looks like a dead animal. You have a class with him on Monday. Good luck.”
I scroll through them, a chronicle of every time life got too heavy and I needed an escape hatch. The last one is from three years ago. I promised myself I was done.
But that was before Mom got sick, and I watched her disappear piece by piece. Before I buried her and realized I was completely alone.
I hit record.
“Okay, future Savannah. Today is March twenty-third. If you’re listening to this, it means you drank tonight and need to know what happened. Mason and Lizzy were having sex. Well, not sex exactly. He was eating her ass. In our bed. The bed in Mom’s house. Apparently, it wasn’t the first time. I didn’t get all the details because it wouldn’t matter. After all, they’re both lying, cheating pieces of shits. I threw them out. They’re gone.”
My voice is steadier than I feel.
“I know what happens when I drink. I know about the condition. But I can’t be sober right now. I can’t sit in this house and feel all of this. So I’m going out. Just a few drinks. Nothing crazy. I’ll be fine.”
