Saving Ever After (Ever After #4) (23 page)

Mia

 When I woke
the next morning, it was only because I heard someone move in the bed beside
me, cursing under their breath.

“Fuck!”

And then, “Oh
shit . . . . fuck!”

I tried to
sit up, but my head spun and I dropped back down to the pillow. My eyelids felt
like sandpaper when I started to open them. I needed to do a quick evaluation
of my surroundings because I had no idea what was going on. I blinked a few
times, finally prying my eyes open, but the pounding in my head was almost too
much. The sun was barely high enough in the sky to shine through the windows of
my room. A very naked Kris scrambled out of the bed, searching for his clothes
while he continued to curse under his breath, completely unaware that I was
awake and observing him.

Why the
hell was Kris naked in my bed?

At least
it is my bed and room this time,
I thought and then scolded myself for thinking
that. That was completely irrelevant. The big issue was Kris’ nakedness, and my
own. Yup I was completely naked too. I guess the question wasn’t so much why,
that part was embarrassingly obvious, but how? How the hell had this happened?

Nevermind,
the awful headache and nausea I was feeling, as well as the sight of empty bottles
across the room, were all the reminder I needed.

“Ugh,” I
groaned, announcing to Kris that I was awake. He’d managed to pull on his jeans
and t-shirt and was wobbling on one leg trying to tug a black sock on. He
quickly whipped around to face me, wearing a look of total distress. I didn’t
quite understand it. “Are you okay?” I asked groggily.

He let out a
sharp, humorless laugh. “Am I okay? What do you think Mia?” He snapped at me
and my head throbbed. He made quick work of getting into his socks and shoes.

“So that’s a
no, but could you keep it down a little. It’s quite possible that I died last
night and I haven’t completely returned to life yet.” At least that was how I
felt.

“Fuck, Mia.
How can you be joking about this?”

“Because I’m
too tired to freak out like you are. I haven’t really processed everything. Can
you just calm down for a minute and we’ll talk about it?”

“I’m sorry,
I can’t be calm about this. We fucked everything up,” he said angrily. I
squeezed my eyes shut and breathed past the sting that his words caused. I
wasn’t exactly happy about the situation either, but we couldn’t undo it. We
couldn’t just rewind the night and not get completely trashed and have drunk,
passionate sex, as much as he might wish we could. He didn’t need to take it
out on me though.

“I’m sorry.
It probably wasn’t the best decision either of us ever made, but –” I never got
to say my but, because he started in, yelling at me.

“No, it
wasn’t! It was the worst fucking thing we could have done. Dammit! Why the fuck
did you have to start kissing all over me?”

I was taken
aback by the venom in his words. It was such a contrast to the way he’d
whispered in my ear last night. The details might be a little fuzzy, but I
remembered the overall experience. He’d been sweet and attentive, and just as
consumed as I had been. The regret and disdain that were directed toward me now
hurt, and pissed me off. I couldn’t afford to dwell on the hurt right now, so I
went with pissed off. I glared at him.

“Why the
hell did you pull me on top of you Kris? Why the hell did you take my shirt
off? You were fucking there too, so don’t put this all on me. We both messed up
last night.”

His face
fell. He lost some of the anger that had been burning in his gaze just a minute
ago, and he looked tortured. “Fuck, you’re right. I know, I just . . .  fuck. I
don’t know how . . . why I . . . Dammit, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Mia. I need to
go.” He didn’t even look back at me as he made his escape from my room. I was
left naked and tangled in a set of sheets for the second time feeling utterly
rejected and stupid.

This time it
was so much worse, because not only did I remember the night before, but it
meant something to me. Kris was my best friend, even if I agreed that it
shouldn’t have happened, I could never look at him like a horrible mistake. We
cared about each other, we’d been consenting adults, it happened, but now I was
wondering if maybe I had it wrong and he didn’t really care. At least not
enough. Why was I always the one to care more? Why couldn’t I just turn that
off and stop caring so much?

I felt the
hurt trying to choke my insides, but I couldn’t let it. I wasn’t going to fall
apart over this. I laid my head back down on my pillow, trying so hard to
forget how it had felt to be held by someone who meant so much to me, who I’d
trusted. Was there something wrong with me? Why did waking up and finding me in
bed next to them send guys running like they couldn’t get away from me fast
enough?

I pulled the
blanket around me tighter, grabbing my turtle, curling my body around it and
hugging it to my chest. I closed my eyes, squeezing it tighter, hoping
something would make the ache in my chest lessen. It didn’t work, and I felt
the first tear slip out and run down my cheek to my pillow. Another followed
until they were flowing in a steady stream and my pillow was damp under my
face. The harder I tried to hold them in, the harder my body shook, but still
they didn’t stop. It wasn’t until I fell back asleep that they finally did.

It was
several hours later that I woke up the second time, feeling only slightly less
like the walking dead. Foolishly, I checked my phone, hoping that with a little
bit of time, Kris might have cleared his head and tried to reach out to me.
That wasn’t the case. Zero unread messages awaited me, and when I couldn’t stop
myself from texting him, begging him to talk to me, I received no response. I
tried again all day, and every time it was the same. Silence. No ding or buzz of
vibration alerting me to a new message.

Each time,
it was like being rejected all over again. It felt like he was dismissing me
and our friendship, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. So I cried, I got
mad, I screamed in frustration, I threw things and then I cried some more. Just
once, I wanted to be enough for someone to stay. Instead, everything I did
pushed people away. My Mom. My Dad. My sisters. My friends.

This was one
of those moments where you pick up your phone and you call your best friend to
bring the chocolate and the chick flicks, but I could scroll through all six
hundred and some contacts in my phone and not find one who was that friend for
me. The closest thing I had to that friend was the one who left me like this. I
almost called Sadie, but I didn’t know how to tell her that I’d screwed up
again, that I wasn’t really the little sister she wanted to be so proud of. For
half a second I even considered calling Jaxyn, but she was Sadie’s best friend,
not mine.

I had no
one, and it was my own fault.

It was
difficult to focus on anything else, so my attempts at distracting myself with
studying and homework failed. Nothing could keep my mind from replaying the
night over and over in my head. How had our celebration turned into this? How
could we go from laughing and dancing together, to making love, to not even
speaking? How could I have been so stupid to think that he really cared? Why
had I trusted him enough to let him in? How could I have thought he really
wanted me last night? How could I have ruined everything, driving away the only
real friend I had? Why did I do it last night, when I knew in my heart I didn’t
truly feel that way about Kris? There were just too many
why did I
and
how
could I’s.

Every time I
got something good, every time I thought I was on the right path, I did
something stupid and blew it. Why did I bother trying? My life was nothing but
a series of mistakes and bad choices and no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t
seem to be able to turn it around.

I wasn’t creative,
smart and savvy like the twins. I wasn’t strong, independent and talented like
Sadie. The only thing I had a talent for was sucking down alcohol and
destroying shit. I was like a bomb, just waiting to detonate and hurt someone
else.

I threw my
literature text across the room. Thomas Hardy was an asshole. Why couldn’t he
ever just give someone a damn happy ending? I didn’t want to read that shit.
Life was brutal enough already.

The few
bottles Kris and I hadn’t drained last night sat on top of the mini fridge. I
craved just a moment of peace, of escape, the chance to forget for just a
little while, but I knew I wouldn’t really find what I needed at the bottom of
those bottles. I wanted to be stronger than that.

If I could
beat the pain just one time without a bottle, maybe I wasn’t completely
hopeless. The only other place I thought I could lose myself was online. I
logged into my League account, not at all expecting to see Chris online, but he
was, and it didn’t take but a few seconds for him to invite me to join a match
with him and Ace’s brother Marcus who also played regularly. I hesitated to
accept. Could I handle this with him right now, in my state?

In the end I
did accept, because if there was anything or anyone that could make me feel
better, it was him. I shot him a message as the match loaded.

Shouldn’t you be on a
beach or sipping Coronas poolside in Mexico?

Came back early.

The match started and it
was a few minutes before I responded.

Why did you guys come
back?

His reply didn’t come
right away. On the map I could see that he was engaged with one enemy from the
other team while Marcus battled another in their lane.  It was another several
minutes before his reply came, and when it did, I think I re-read it three
times before the words sank in.

Long story. I came
back, but she didn’t. Don’t really want to talk about it. Just want to kill
things.

He came back without
her.

He came back without
her.

I was having a hard time
concentrating on the game and the other team was able to take me out, but I
couldn’t make myself care. Too many questions were running through my head.

Why did he come back
without her?

Did they break up?

Why else wouldn’t he
want to talk about it? I couldn’t help myself from pushing him for more.

Are you guys okay?

. . .

. . .

It felt like hours
before he answered me.

I can’t talk about
this with you, Mia. Can we just play?

Right. Of course he
wouldn’t want to talk to me. I felt stupid for thinking he would. I felt stupid
for allowing myself to consider this could mean anything for the two of us.

What would he think if
he knew about last night?

A knot formed in my
stomach.

I remembered thinking of
him last night, and ugly, ugly shame crept up on me. How much more screwed up
could I get than falling into bed with guys that I didn’t even want, while
everything in me was wishing for someone I would never be good enough for? It
was humiliating to know that twice now I’d given a guy everything because I was
so desperate to feel something and be wanted, but it was a joke, a big fat lie,
because they didn’t really want me.

What was I even doing
here with Chris?

Thinking this game was
something special we shared was ridiculous. It was a game. A stupid game. One I
was currently getting my ass handed to me at. I slammed my laptop closed.

A minute later my phone
buzzed.

Chris.

What happened? You left
the game.

Computer went
offline,
was all I
texted back, and then for some stupid reason I sat there staring at the screen,
waiting for him to say something else, willing him to call me on my bullshit.
He didn’t text back. Why would he? I don’t even know what I expected him to
say, but I just wanted someone to make sense of why I felt this way. I wanted
him to see through my excuse, I wanted him to know that it was a lie. I wanted
him to make me tell him why. I wanted to be able to tell someone everything. I
wanted the chance to tell him how I felt about him, but I was too coward.

I stared at my inbox.
The message thread of all the unanswered texts I sent to Kris was just below my
last message to Chris. Screw all the Chrises, with a ‘C’ or a ‘K’.

I hate you.

I typed it out and my
finger hovered over the send button a second before I pressed it, adding one
more message in a long thread of messages Kris wouldn’t bother to respond to.
Then I tossed my phone away on my bed before I sent any more angry and immature
texts. I wasn’t even drunk and I was resorting to emotional hate texting. It
would be better if I was drunk.

The bottles still sat on
my fridge. Until they were in my hand and I was emptying them into a cup.