by Hart, Rebel
I hadn’t once considered the idea of being with anyone but her.
But she had apparently considered it.
You didn’t give her enough romance.
I slammed the beer bottle down and found the girl staring at me.
“Took you long enough, handsome.”
You didn’t give her enough space when she needed it.
She handed me a shot and I threw it back.
“Looks like he enjoys his tequila!”
Maybe your cock isn’t good enough anymore.
She placed a snack in my hand and I threw it back.
“Ready for round two?”
Maybe she just doesn’t love you anymore because you're a pathetic loser with no future and no college degree and no aspirations like she has.
I hiccupped as I reached for another drink. Any drink. Whatever drink someone had for me.
“Five, four, three, two, one!”
Just drink until you don’t care anymore. It’ll happen. It always did before.
And as I tipped the disgusting wine cooler up to my lips, the voice in my head finally got drowned out. I stumbled backward, my hand catching me against the bar as I opened my throat. I let it slide down, mingling with the chips and the cheese and the crackers. Trying to find anything else to focus on.
Like the churning force inside my stomach reach to protest my actions.
23
Raelynn
I didn’t like the realization. I didn’t like the idea of Clint not loving me. Of him never having loved me. I pushed myself off the couch and tore through the crowd, stumbling against people that cursed me out.
“Fucking hell, bitch. Get out of the way.”
“That’s my man. Go get your own.”
“The fuck!?”
“Rae!”
I sighed. “Leave me alone, Allison.”
I heard her hot on my heels and all I wanted was for her to leave me alone. I wanted to go back to the hotel. I wanted to go home. And I didn’t even know where home was! It sure as hell wasn’t with my mother. She couldn't care less about me and what I wanted. All she gave a shit about was money. What I could give her. What bills I could pay so she could be a lazy bitch. I had no home. Not with Clint. Not with Allison and Michael while they sucked each other’s faces off.
I have to get out of here.
“Rae!”
“Leave me alone!” I shrieked.
I pushed through the kitchen and it felt as if the walls were closing in around me. Everyone multiplied and it felt like I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't take a step without knocking into someone. My chest rose and fell quicker than normal. My heart leapt into my throat. My palms started sweating and my back started aching and my muscles locked up.
“Rae? Where are you?”
Allison’s voice sounded so far away.
I need quiet.
I felt my body careening to the side as someone shoved into me. I felt pairs of hands on me as the room knocked me around like a damn pinball in a machine. I couldn't get my bearings. Everyone had turned into blurs. I couldn’t focus. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see straight.
Space. I need space.
My back fell against the wall and a door burst open beside me. I yelped, watching as a guy came out of the bathroom. The most horrendous smell followed behind him. The smell of shit and puke. But the safe haven of the bathroom called to me. And I sucked it up enough to slip inside and lock myself in.
“Rae!”
Allison pounded on the door as I drew in quick breaths through my mouth.
“Rae! Open up, please!”
She pounded again as I looked around the small bathroom.
It wasn’t any bigger than a half bath. Just enough room for a sink and a toilet. It smelled like death in here. But I was alone. I closed the toilet and sat down before reaching for the air freshener. I sprayed it around me. All over the floor. All over my clothes. All around in the air. Trying to mask that god-awful smell as Allison kept shaking the fucking door on its hinges.
“Will you stop it!?” I screamed.
The knocking ceased and I sighed with relief.
“Please let me in, Rae. Let someone in.”
The pleading of her voice made me sigh.
“Just leave me alone. I just want to be alone.”
“I know that’s not true, Rae. I know you think that’s what you want, but I know it’s not what you actually want.”
I scoffed. “And what do I actually want, genius?”
“Someone you don’t always have to take care of.”
I sniffled. “Please, go away.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Not until you let me in.”
“Then you’ll stand out there all night.”
“Can you get her out of there? I have to take a piss.”
Allison hissed behind the door. “Go upstairs, asshole. I’m talking right now.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Did you just say ‘asshole’?”
“Well, if you weren’t acting like one I wouldn't have already made the connection.”
I snickered. “Thanks.”
“What in the world is going on right now? Do you not want to be with Clint anymore?”
“I’m not talking about this through the door.”
“It’s either that, or you let me in. There’s no other option. So take the help.”
I laughed bitterly. “You think this is helping?”
“Well, getting high and drunk isn’t helping. So let’s try another route.”
I sat there, staring at myself in the mirror. My skin had grown pale. My eyes had become sunken in. The bags underneath them were beginning to become a problem as the world tilted around me. I closed my eyes. I drew in deep breaths. I didn’t know what I wanted. But I knew I didn’t want this.
“Don’t shut me out now. Please,” Allison begged.
I sighed as I reached over. I unlocked the door and heard her quickly slip in. Her flats slid along the floor as she closed the door. But I didn’t hear her lock it.
“You’re going to have to--”
“Here we are. All right,” Michael said.
I rolled my eyes. “Of course he’s with you.”
He closed the door, then locked it. “Yeah, because that’s what good partners do. They look after those they love.”
I snickered. “Glad you're an expert in love now.”
Allison pulled me up onto my feet. “You want to tell us what’s going on now?”
“And why aren’t you with Clint, Michael?”
He shrugged. “He stormed off. Seems you two have that in common.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course he did. Because it always has to be about him.”
Allison shook her head. “No it doesn’t. You feel like that because you met him during a time when he needed help. And a lot of it. Now you need some but, for some reason, you’re not letting him help.”
Michael sighed. “You’re not letting any of us help.”
My face fell. “Because I don’t need it.”
Allison waved her hand in the air. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. Look, I don’t care what you’ve got going on right now. I love you, but I don’t care. The only thing I care about is whether or not you’re happy. And you haven’t been happy for a while. So you can either talk to us, or you can keep it all inside until you explode and alienate everyone around you. Those are your two choices.”
I rolled my eyes. “Like you’re an expert.”
Michael groaned. “Come on. I’m going to go find Clint. We just need to get them out of here so they can sleep this shit off.”
I paused. “Wait, he’s not with you?”
Michael shook his head. “I told you less than a minute ago that he stormed off. You don’t remember that?”
I shook my head slowly. “No, I don’t.”
Allison sighed. “All right. Time to go back to the hotel. Michael, go find Clint. We can flag down a cab, or call an Uber, or something like that once we g
et out of this stupid house.”
I panicked. “Where’s Clint? I need to see Clint.”
Michael snickered. “Yeah, well. Don't kick him in the balls before storming off next time. A dude’s got feelings, too.”
My gut churned with guilt. He was right. I’d completely obliterated Clint before I stormed off. Wait a second, I was in a bathroom? How the hell did I--? People were standing too close to me. The walls were caving in again. They undulated and pulsed, like the blood rushing through my veins.
“Five minutes.”
“Rae, you okay?”
“Go get Clint. I’ve got her.”
“She’s going to puke.”
I nodded. “Yep. Yep, I am.”
The guilt turned my stomach. And the alcohol took over. I whipped around and opened the toilet back up with just enough time to erupt. I fell to my knees, shaking as tears streaked my cheeks. I felt someone gathering my hair back before blowing cool air against my sweating skin.
“Worst. Night. Ever,” Michael murmured.
Allison sighed. “Just go get Clint. Go. I’m serious. Get the hell out of here.”
Michael paused. “Did you just curse?”
I heaved. “Go, damn it!”
Feet scurried across the floor before someone groaned outside. The bathroom door closed and I heard someone flip the lock. It kept coming. And coming. And it hurt like hell. Now I realized why the bathroom smelled the way it had when I first came in. Because with every heave, my asshole opened up, letting out gas that could knock over a damn horse brigade.
“I’m sor--fuck.”
Allison sighed. “Just save it for the morning.”
“Please, I--oh.”
“Seriously. Stop talking. You’re going to aspirate if you keep it up.”
It felt like my stomach was tying itself in knots. And the entire time, tears dripped into the toilet. Every once in a while, Allison flushed. She picked up the air freshener and sprayed it right on my ass crack hanging out of my jeans. My shirt kept riding up. Why was my shirt riding up? And every time I pulled it down, my jeans fell lower.
“Oh, fuck.”
A knock came at the door and I heaved again. I heard Michael’s voice, but it sounded far away. I felt my body slipping into nothingness, into a dark expanse that I wanted to swallow me whole and never spit me back out. I’d never felt so miserable. So lost. So afraid before. Was this what a panic attack felt like?
Because I felt more panicked than I ever had in my life.
Allison’s voice sounded in my ear. “All right. How we doing down here?”
I heaved. “Oh, shit.”
“That good? Great. Well, Michael’s got Clint. They’re headed out front. Maybe we should try and wash you off long enough to get you out there.”
Another knock came at the door and I vomited again.
“Just kidding. Ten more minutes, and then we’re going to meet them out there at the Uber. All right?”
She rubbed my back and I started crying.
“Rae?”
Between the heaves, I sobbed. I pressed my cheek against the rim of the toilet and let it all hang out. With my ass crack halfway out of my jeans and my tits shoved up against the warm porcelain, I heard Allison murmur something about a disaster. I didn’t care, though. I felt more inclined to cry myself the river that almost swallowed Clint whole all those months ago than pick myself up.
I was tired of picking myself up.
“Why did he leave?” I asked.
Allison paused. “What was that, honey?”
“Why did Clint leave? Why didn’t he just stay?”
“From the sounds of it, he’s pretty--”
I sniffled. “Why didn’t he let me help him with things? Why couldn't I have stayed with him and Cecilia?”
She sighed. “Are you talking about last year?”
I drew in shuddering breaths. “I just wanted him to take me back so I could help, Allison.”
“I know. And he did take you back. You’re together, honey.”
“Not really. Not since them. He’s staying for her. For his stepmother. He doesn’t wanna come with me because she’s family and I’m not family and I’ll never see him again because he’ll find someone closer and he won’t be able to come see me because he doesn’t have a bike and he doesn’t want to move in with me because he hasn’t brought it up because he doesn’t love me, Allison.”
She snickered. “Oh, boy.”
I sniffled. “And all I wanted was for him to love me and for him to like me and for him to always be with me and then he left when things got hard. So how do I know he’s not going to leave when college gets hard? When I get stressed and frustrated and hard to be around?”
“I mean, he’s doing a good job of sticking around right now.”
“Yeah, until I leave to go to college and he’s free to do whatever because I’m not around to do anything with and he finds someone else. Maybe he’s using college as a way to distance us. Maybe if I stay with Mom, he’ll stay with me.”
She dropped next to me. “No, Rae. You have to get away from your mother. Even Clint knows that.”
“Then why won’t he come with me like Michael’s going with you?”
She rubbed my back. “Is that what this is about?”
I heaved. “I thought he’d want to come to college with me and move in with me and we could live our lives together and never look back but he’s staying for Cecilia so maybe I should stay with Mom until he’s ready to move away and make a life for himself.”
“Honey, you have got things so backwards it’s sickening.”
Snot dripped from my nose. “Yeah, I know I’m sick.”
And as I went back to dry-heaving into the toilet, I continued to cry. I cried and I cried. The bathroom filled with fumes from my ass, and still I cried. I cried until my voice was hoarse. Until my eyes were so swollen I couldn't see out of them.
Then I felt Allison pull me away from the toilet.
“All right. Come on. Time to go home.”
I sighed. “I don’t have a home.”
And there it was. The five words I’d been scared to utter for months. Clint was my home. And without him coming to college with me, I didn’t have a home.
I had nothing without him.
24
Clinton
“I don’t understand why she can’t just talk to me. I mean, am I hard to talk to? Do I seem hard to talk to?”
The girl in the bikini sat beside me, twirling a strand of her hair around her finger.
“I don’t think you’re hard to talk to at all… what did you say your name was?”
I hiccupped. “Clint. Clarke Cli--no. Clint Clarke.”
She giggled. “I’m Ashley.”
I nodded. “That’s right. The triplet.”
Her hand settled against my thigh. “Uh huh.”
“You know, I miss her. I miss what we used to be. All the good times and the laughs and the random pastry runs to our coffee house. I mean, we have our own coffee house. And now we have nothing. She’s just… we’re nothing, you know? At least, it feels that way.”
“That’s not really fair to you.”
“It’s not fair to her, either. I just want her to be happy, and she’s not. And I don’t know what to do. She tells me she needs space, then she’s knocking on my door at three in the morning. She tells me she needs time away, and then she’s hopping on my dick.”
“Oh, lucky girl.”
I snickered. “She changed me. I mean, for the better. Like, she’s awesome. You’d like Rae.”
“Mmm, I bet I would. Does she like girls?”
“Eh, I don’t know. She’s got Allison as a friend, but I don’t see her hanging out with so many--”
I hiccupped and it felt like the alcohol was talking back at me. I managed to not puke at the bar, but I knew I needed to get away from that drinking contest. I stumbled up the porch and flopped back down into the porch swing. Just swinging back and forth. Trying t
o figure out how the hell things got so far out of control.
And this awesome girl was willing to talk to me about it.
“Tell me more about you,” she said.
I snickered. “Me? Well, I’m not the same guy I was before Rae, you know? My father was a dick. I mean, just as absolute asshole. Left me with my stepmom and it’s the best thing he ever did for me.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
I grinned. “The color of Rae’s cheeks when she blushes.”
She giggled. “What’s your favorite vacation spot?”
“Anything with Rae in it. Maybe a nice field somewhere. With a cabin, and a lake. Me working on my book.”
I felt my head falling forward before it snapped back up.
“Oh, so you’re an author? I bet you make tons of money.”
I barked with laughter. “I wish. Maybe one day. Then I can get that cabin in the field with the lake and a great big bedroom to--”
The girl in the bikini--what was her name again?--snuggled tightly against me.
“--to what, handsome?”
I sighed. “To make love to the woman I love. Forever and ever. Until she smiles and all her worries fade away. That’s all I want. For my woman to be happy. With me. While we’re both succeeding. But what if she doesn’t want that?”
She leaned her head on my shoulder. “Oh, you are just so hurt and wounded, you know that? Sitting here, looking all pathetic.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s it. Maybe I’ve become too soft for her. Maybe I need to man up. Buck up. Take the reins back for a little while. Maybe that’s the issue. She feels like the man in this relationship and not the woman.”
She snickered. “You really are something, you know that? I think I know just how to heal you, too.”
My eyes widened as her hand fell against my cock. I jumped as she got up, crawling into my lap.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I’ve got a girl--”
She giggled. “Yeah, don’t worry. They all do, until they don’t.”
