Because you are an outsider.
I try to shake off the feeling and get in my car, but I hesitate outside the vehicle.
A part of me wants to go with them. It’s a small part, but a part nonetheless, and it freaks me the fuck out. So I do what I do best.
I run.
I try my hardest to stick to sober activities like grabbing an early lunch at the sandwich shop and picking up a new book at the store, but nothing relieves the pressure in my chest.
The drive to one of the tourist bars on the other side of town is a blur—just like all the vodka tonics I drank afterward to numb my emotions.
So much for limiting yourself.
I tried my hardest, but I’m powerless when it comes to alcohol and controlling myself under extreme stress. It’s not until my vision is cloudy and my head is quiet that I finally feel at ease.
No more thoughts of Lana.
No more thoughts of Cami.
No more thoughts of what my life could have been like had I not fucked it all up six years ago.
Just me, the steady beat of the music streaming out of the speakers, and alcohol to cure my problems.
My world feels like someone tilted it at a forty-five-degree angle. I stumble out of the rideshare and manage to walk up the driveway of the house without falling on my face. It takes me three tries to get the front door unlocked. The house is pitch-black inside, and I trip over my own feet.
I run into a wall, except the wall is actually a table that teeters from my weight before falling backward. Whatever was on top of the wood surface shatters, the echo amplifying the horrific sound.
I wince. “Shit.” I stand there in the darkness, afraid what I might uncover if I turn on a light.
If I could even find a light.
As if the house read my mind, one turns on above me. Flowers of all colors, shapes, and sizes are strewn across the hardwood floor, surrounded by a thousand shards of glass.
“Oh my God.” Lana stands at the top of the stairs. “No. No. No.”
“Lana!” I shout. “I missed you!”
A man of subtlety, I am not.
Her look of shock morphs into one of anger. “Are you drunk?”
I shake my head. “Buzzed.”
“What are you even doing here? You’re supposed to be staying at the guesthouse.”
“I wanted to say hi.” I hold up my hand and wave like a complete loser.
She takes a deep breath. “Don’t move. Let me go put some shoes on before coming down there.”
“You got it, babe.” I salute her, which only earns me a death glare.
I’m not sure how long it takes her to get her sneakers on, but I stare at the wall, questioning how I ended up in this mess.
Lana. Cami. Graduation.
I smack my forehead. “Right. That’s how.”
“I can’t believe this right now.” Lana scowls as she walks down the stairs. It only deepens as she assesses the mess surrounding me.
I flinch. “I didn’t mean to break it.”
Her eyes glaze over, looking shiny underneath the chandelier. I hate the look on her face almost as much as the silence building between us as she analyzes the broken shards of glass.
“I’ll buy you a new one. I promise.”
“I don’t want a new one. I want this one,” she snaps.
“I’m sorry.” My bottom lip juts out. I saw Cami do it once and it automatically worked on Lana, so maybe I will get lucky too. “It was an accident.”
“Accidents happen, but getting drunk is a choice.”
“You’re right. A bad choice.”
“Yet you keep making it anyway. God, Cal. You’re thirty-three years old. Act like it.” She points at the spot I’m standing in. “Stay right there.”
She disappears around the corner before returning a minute later with a broom, a dustpan, and a trash bin. Her anger is like a fire, sucking all the oxygen out of the room as I stand there, useless and silent, while she begins sweeping the mess into a corner opposite of me.
“Who got you flowers?” I point at the mix of wildflowers strewn across the floor. “Was it a guy?”
Smooth, Cal. She will never suspect a single thing.
She shakes her head and keeps sweeping. “I’m not getting into this with you right now.”
“Why? Because it’s true?”
“Because you’re drunk and acting like a jealous idiot over someone who doesn’t even matter.”
“So what if I am jealous?”
“Why would you be?”
“Because…”
“Because what?” She shoots me a pointed look.
I bite down on my cheek to keep my last shred of dignity after throwing away most of it tonight. She gives up waiting and begins sweeping harder this time, making a few pieces of glass fly across the hardwood floor.
“Did you even bother going to rehab again?” she asks after the longest minute of silence. Her question comes off nonchalant, but there is a tightness in her shoulders as she sweeps.
I laugh. “Of course. Want to take a guess on how that turned out?” I try to bow but my coordination is severely lacking, so I nearly topple over. This time I don’t have a table to save me, so I flap my arms until I regain my balance.
Pathetic, Cal. Absolutely pathetic.
She stares at me with an expression I can’t make sense of given how much alcohol is pumping through my veins.
“I don’t want to pity you, but I do.”
“Exactly what every man wants to hear from the woman he loves.”
She blinks once. Twice. Three times before she strings a sentence together. “And that’s our cue to get you to bed.”
“Are you joining me?”
She grabs my arm and leads me up the stairs and toward my old room while grumbling to herself in Spanish. We walk in tandem to my bed. My center of gravity is thrown off when the tip of my sneaker catches on the floor, throwing Lana off-balance too.
“Whoops. My bad.” I laugh it off.
Her heavy sigh makes my chest hurt. She guides me toward the bed without any other incident. Once my ass safely lands on the foam mattress, she steps away, but not before I latch on to her wrist.
I tease the inside of it, earning the softest gasp. “I’m sorry.”
She tries to tug her hand free, but my grip holds. “Stop saying that.”
“Why?”
“Because words have meaning, and your actions cheapen them.”
My grip on her hand loosens, so she takes advantage and detaches herself from me. The crack in my chest expands, revealing the emptiness within.
“Sleep it off” is the last thing she says before my bedroom door clicks shut, leaving me alone with my demons to keep me company.
23
CAL
I wake up the next morning with a pounding headache and the urge to hide from Lana after last night. Unlike my father, I’m not a mean drunk, but I am a stupid one who can’t keep his mouth shut.
To make matters worse, I broke Lana’s vase and then made her clean it up afterward.
I throw a pillow over my head to muffle my frustrated groan.
You have no one to blame for your behavior but yourself.
The door to my room creaks open. I pop my head out from underneath the pillow, expecting to find Lana in the doorway.