Alexis spun and lunged for her coat. “Don’t worry. You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to run to you.”
She stomped out the door and slammed it behind her, making Al and Bill skitter under the couch.
I slammed my back against the cushion. Fucking Alexis. What was she thinking, taking Chris back? How much of an idiot did you have to be—how pathetically lonely—to take a person back who’d acted like that? A person who’d cheated on you so egregiously. Like I’d done to Ben.
Ugh.Something tickled my face. I brought my fingers to my cheeks, only to find them wet. Great. I was crying.
In a matter of days, I’d managed to ruin three of my most important relationships. Dakota hadn’t tried callingoncesince the Governor’s Ball, so I didn’t know if I even had a job anymore. Ben had called and called for days straight, but eventually he’d stopped. Now Alexis was gone, and not just for a little while. For good.
I didn’t want to cry. I was tired of feeling so much. More than that—I was tired of being trapped inside this brain. I wanted a break.
I knew what to do. I rolled off the couch and slumped to the kitchen, where I poured myself a splash of whiskey, even though it was only four in the afternoon. It washed wonderfully down my throat, biting the entire way.That—that was the only kind of pain I wanted to feel. The kind that helped me float outside my body.
I picked up my phone and scrolled through the texts, passing Mac’s and Claire’s names. I didn’t want to see my friends. I didn’t want to see anyone who knew me or loved me. I didn’t even want to see anyone who liked me very much. I wanted numbness.
By the time Kyle came over with four of his friends, I answered the door holding the whiskey bottle.
“Stonerrrrrr,” Kyle crooned, catching me in a quick, one-armed hug as he walked in. “Meet Andromeda, Lucius, Katya and Little Timmy. Dudes, this is the chick I told you about. I promise you, she’s down for anything.”
The four of them streamed in, nodding to me, all kinds of young and Austin weird.
“Alcohol’s in the kitchen,” I said. I turned to Kyle. “Only four?”
“Hey,” Kyle yelled after his friends. “She wants to getlit.”
“I want to forget I have a face,” I corrected.
One of them turned around and dug in his pocket. “I’ve got the thing for that.” He held out a baggie with small yellow pills. Each one wore a smiley face.
“What are they?”
He shrugged and grinned. “More fun if you don’t know.”
I held out my hand. “Give it.”
“Okay,”Kyle yelled, cupping his mouth like a megaphone. “Shit’s getting real.”
“Call more people,” I told him, popping the smiley face. “I want to be surrounded by fuckers I don’t know.”
“Hey, man.” Kyle held his hands up in surrender. “You heard the lady. Nothing that happens after this is my fault.”
There was loud music all of a sudden. Like someone had clapped headphones on me and sound jumped to life. I had a feeling it had been playing for a while, and I’d only just noticed, which was funny. My living room was crowded with people. I’d never seen a single one of them in my life. The other thing was, they glowed. No—each of them carried an aura, a haze of color around their outlines. That was nice. I would have to tell Mac the meditation ladies were right about one thing.
“Hey,” said a guy, bumping my shoulder on the couch. He held up a joint. “You want a hit?”
“Why not?” I said, and tried to take it.
He laughed and swooped something out of my hand. “You might want to put your drink down first.”
“Oh. Ha.” With my newly free hand, I got busy disappearing.
“You’re so fun tonight,” someone said to me sometime later, when I was in the kitchen. The person had an arm around my shoulder, squeezing me. I realized it was Kyle.
“Want to do tequila shots?” asked a girl I’d learned was Andromeda.
“No, you go ahead,” I said, and she shrugged and lined up the shot glasses.
I had a momentary impulse to tell them I’d gotten that bottle of tequila in Mexico City years ago, and the woman who sold it to me out of her family’s tasting room had been the smallest, sweetest woman I’d ever met. But they wouldn’t care. And neither did I; not anymore. The impulse faded, and I was left with a comfortable, buzzing blankness.
