Will yanks the bottle out of my hand. I swipe at it, but he’s so fast right now, he’s blurry.
“Mine,” I tell him. Only, I think it was his whiskey, or his dad’s, but he did say, when I moved in, “What’s mine is yours.” Or maybe he said, “What’s mine is mostly yours. Hands off the whiskey,” but I can’t remember if he actually said that one or not. So technically, that’s my bottle of whiskey and I need it back.
“How many shots did you have?” He shakes the bottle in front of my face. “Because it looks like you drank NEARLY A THIRD OF A BRAND NEW BOTTLE OF WHISKEY!”
“YES I DID.” I can give as good as I get.
“That’s it. We need to go to the hospital. Get your damn coat on!”
I drop back onto the couch. “Not sick. No need.” I kick my feet up on the coffee table, knocking over a glass. Oops. “Hospitals can’t piece together Humpty Dumptys, Will-eeee-am!” I laugh, because I sound like Cameron when I say it like that.
“What?” One of his hands yanks through his hair before tugging on his ear. His blonde is nice. Pretty. Doesn’t look trashy like my fake blonde.
“I like your hair,” I tell him. “It’s pretty.”
“Fuck my hair!” He disappears and reappears, my coat replacing the whiskey in his hand. Where’s the booze? “Get up. We’re going.”
“Not sick,” I remind him, struggling to stand up. “Healthy as a . . .” Huh. “What’s healthy? Apple?” I snap my fingers. Ew, they’re a little sticky. “Hog. No! Horse. I’m a horse. I keep on running, like the Pony Express.” I pat my chest. Jog in place. “See? Not sick. It’d be easier if I were. Sick, I mean. If I could only get sick.” I pick up speed. “I tried to break one of the Connections tonight, you know. Thought it could help me be whole.” I stop jogging; it shames me I’m winded. “Didn’t work. Isn’t that ironic? A Connection makes me whole and broken all at the same time.” I jab at his chest. “It. Bloody. SUCKS.”
And then I laugh, because now I sound like him. Bloody, bloody, bloody. And then I’m sad again because of what I did.
“What the fuck are you prattling on about? You think you’re fine? Think again! You bloody well won’t be after they pump your stomach at the hospital!” He grabs me and shoves my arms into the coat. “Whatever possessed you to drink so much alcohol?”
I stumble as he drags me out the door. “I called him. Thought I could handle it, but I can’t.” There’s no way to swallow the burning lump in my throat. “Thought it’d help. Just wanted to hear something, especially today. Just—it’s hard. So hard. I’m trying.”
He waits until he’s got us in the car and on the road before he asks, quieter now, “Whom did you call?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I whisper. “Was a mistake. Tried to break the Connections—at least one, you know? Only made it worse. Hurts more now.” It does. So. Much.
He digs around, like he’s looking for my phone. I don’t have my phone. It’s back home. No, wait, he’s got my purse and my phone, and he’s got the phone out and—
“Cell phones and driving do not mix,” I inform him haughtily.
Will doesn’t answer me. He does something with my phone and then tosses it back into my purse. I grab the bag and hold it close to my chest. I think I’m going to puke. Something burns in my throat. “Who’d you call?” he barks. “Who fucking did this to you?”
Yep. Vomit. So gross, it’s all over my legs. Worse yet, it’s warm and smells bad.
I close my eyes and let my head sink back against that thingy at the top of car seats. I swear I’m floating. Floating is so much better than sinking.
“Zoe White, you keep your goddamn eyes open right now! You will not pass out on me in this car, do you hear me?”
I let myself float away.
Will is pissed off. That much is certain, as evidenced by the door slamming behind us, not to mention the string of curses in addition to the biting lecture he’d unleashed on me on the way home from the hospital. Plus, there was the blistering lecture I received from an increasingly difficult to understand Cameron Dane in the early hours of the morning. I guess it’s a thing for both him and Will. The more upset they are, the harder they are to understand with their Glaswegian accents. But, the point is, if I’d ever doubted Cameron’s fatherly inclinations toward me, they were illuminated in stark detail this morning. I’d scared him. Hurt myself. Hurt him. Hurt Will. Hadn’t thought of others. What if something had happened? Most importantly, I wasn’t allowed to do it again.