She didn't bother to hide her disgust as she looked up when I entered the room. "Why are you here?"
"She's not feeling well, so you should go check on her in a little while."
Concern clouded her face and she backed up a little. "What do you mean, not feeling well?"
"She drank too much, she was about to go home with some guy and I didn't want her doing something she might regret. If you can just check in on her and make sure she eats, that would be good."
She nodded hesitantly and gnawed on her lip before responding. "Look, I know I seem like a bitch, but I’d appreciate it if you could do your best to steer clear, Robbie. When I say you have no idea what a mess you left behind the first time, I mean it. She was in a bad way. It got to the point that I wondered if she'd ever be happy again. She's happy now.” She shrugged and waved a dismissive hand. “Maybe not happy, but content at least. She loves school, she's excited about med school and being around you is only going to take her to a dark place again. So if you have some fantasy of a nice, like, fling or some reunion fuck for old times’ sake, try to remember that she's a soft heart and what might be nothing to you could send her into a tailspin, okay?"
There was a hint of a warning in her dark eyes and I didn't blame her, but that didn't stop the irrational rage that coursed through me. At least Melissa had Ashlynn when we broke up.
I had been completely and totally alone. There had been no one to call when things got bad. There had been no one to force me to get out of the house, or to eat right, or to stop playing old videos of the two of us together over and over. I'd come as close to alcoholism as it gets, and it had taken a serious scare where I'd fallen in the shower and hit my head to make me quit. The idea that Ashlynn and Melissa clearly thought it had been a walk in the park for me made me want to howl with the injustice of it all because it had been anything but.
And still, if I had to do it all over again to spare Melissa the pain I’d caused, I would have.
But at the end of the day, there was no turning back the hands of time, and Ashlynn was right. It was better for Melissa if we never saw each other again.
No matter how much it tore me up inside…
Melissa
"Dude." I lurched over to the couch and slumped onto it in a heap right as the dizziness overtook me again.
Ashlynn made a comforting sound before peeking out from the kitchen. "I know, buddy. I know. I'm making my special hangover breakfast and you'll be right and tight in just a few, okay?"
I nodded weakly and held a hand to my aching temples. How much had I drank? Usually, I was pretty careful. I think I could count the times I'd been truly drunk on one hand. My state of mind was always naturally pretty positive, so it only took me a couple drinks before I was in party time mode. Drinking more than that only stripped away the layer of scar tissue I managed to build around the hole Robbie had left in my heart. The few times I did get sloshed, I always wound up wrestling with Ashlynn over the computer mouse as I tried to stalk his Instagram page or look up stats on his latest fight.
Now, though, the unimaginable had happened and I'd been forced to see him face to face. I couldn't deny, it had thrown me for a serious loop.
"Bacon, eggs, toast and a side of home fries with a giant Coke with lots of ice."
I stared at the food she had set in front of me and my stomach lurched. We'd been down this road before and I knew if I could get it down, I'd feel much better in the long run, though.
I sat up and closed my eyes to keep the room from spinning, then I squared up in front of my plate.
"So you feel like telling me what happened last night or want to wait until you're done eating?" Ash asked, perching her lean body on the edge of an armchair across from me. "I heard buttface's short version of things, but I'd like to hear it from you."
I had just bitten into a slice of rye toast with jelly and swallowed hard to choke it down. "You talked to him?" I asked, reaching for the Coke and taking a long, soothing swig.
She nodded and examined her fingernails as if her response was oh-so casual. "Yep."
I shoveled in a mouthful of eggs to buy some time.
How much did I want to tell her? On the one hand, she was my bestie and we had no secrets between us. On the other, I had already spent my morning beating myself up about the things I'd said to Robbie and I didn't necessarily want to lay bare my humiliation so soon after the fact. Not when I was still hurting. This trip was supposed to be about having fun and getting Ashlynn out of her funk, not about me and some high school drama that I should've been long over by now. Better to keep it short and sweet, then move along.