It Was Me

by Anna Cruise

  “Well, the bathroom was kinda far away.”

  He fired the can at my head and I ducked. It clanked against the wall and fell next to me on the couch.

  “Alright,” he said, settling himself into the recliner. He adjusted the towel so he was covered up. “We need a plan.”

  I eyed him. “A plan for what?”

  “A plan to get you out of this funk, man.” He shook his head. “I don't know what went down and I don't know if you wanna tell me, but I'm a smart guy. Catatonic. I used that word. Remember?”

  “Uh...”

  “Shut the fuck up,” he said good-naturedly. “I might not know the deets but it's pretty obvious you and Abby split.”

  I tensed up immediately and he held out his hand. “Hold up, dude,” he said. “Not looking to make things harder for you. But this?” He waved his hand around the living room. “This shit's gotta stop. You need to get out, man. You can't just hole up in here forever.”

  “No?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Watch me.”

  Griffin shook his head. “Not a good idea.”

  I knew it wasn't a good idea. I knew sitting in my apartment, locked away from everything, was the absolute worst thing I could do. But it didn't matter. I didn't want to do what was good for me. Because I'd just lost the best thing in my life.

  “So here's what we're gonna do,” Griffin said. He ran his hand through his wet hair, studying me. “We're going out. Tonight.”

  “Nope.”

  “Yeah. We are.” He was smiling but there was something deadly serious in his eyes. “I'm your best friend, West. I'm getting you out. And I don't care if you drink yourself into oblivion tonight or fuck the first girl you see but you're getting out of this apartment.”

  I started to mouth off but he cut me off. “I'm bigger than you and I'm stronger than you, dude. And I'll haul your ass out of here slung over my shoulder if I have to.”

  “It's not going to help.”

  He was quiet for a minute. Then, “Things did go south? With Abby?”

  I nodded.

  “I'm sorry, man. That blows.”

  I nodded again. I didn't trust my voice.

  He stood up and readjusted the towel. He sighed. “Look. You wanna talk, I'll be in my room. I can be a girl for a night.” He raised his eyebrows. “Not that way. You know what I mean. Or if you wanna hit something, come find me. I'll be your punching bag. You wanna go somewhere on your own and drink until you pass out, you let me know where to find you. I'll come get your ass. You got it?”

  That weird lump was in my throat again. Griffin might not have been the most eloquent guy on the planet, but I knew what he was doing, what he was saying.

  He was my best friend. He was there for me.

  Even when Abby wasn't.

  Especially when Abby wasn't.

  TWENTY EIGHT

  “Seriously?” I asked Griffin.

  “What?”

  He'd managed to convince me to get dressed and forced me into my truck. Told me there was a party and we were going. I'd thought about arguing, standing my ground and staying home. But he postured in front of me at the apartment, letting me know he wasn't leaving without me. And I was too fucking tired to fight.

  So we were driving down Ingraham and he motioned for me to turn on to Riviera.

  And suddenly I was right back in the spot where I'd had my first date with Abby. I remembered it vividly. Standing against the railing, trying to be casual as I scanned the road for her car. Seeing her walk toward me on the sidewalk, butterflies knocking around in my gut as she approached. I remembered what she wore. Denim shorts that showed off her legs, a pink V-neck T-shirt that dipped just low enough. I remembered how she'd styled her hair and done her make-up. I remembered every detail about that date. The good and the bad.

  “The party's down here?” My voice was filled with disbelief.

  “Yeah. Luke's house. Small, I promise.”

  Luke. One of Griffin's friends. I didn't know him well, had surfed with him maybe a dozen times. He was a good guy, small and wiry, decent at best out on the water. I'd been to his place one time before and that had been to pick him up for a session up at Swamis.

  “Not on the beach?”

  Griffin shook his head. “Nope. House only. It's his birthday. Twenty-one, man. The alcohol will be flowing. They're hanging here for a bit and then heading down to Mission. We can go with or head home. Your call.”

  I wasn't twenty-one yet but it didn't matter at a lot of the bars in PB. If you knew who was working the door, you could get in. And I knew enough of the bouncers so that it was never an issue if I wanted to go. Hell, I'd surfed with half of them.

  But I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone out bar hopping. Not just because Abby wasn't old enough. It was more because I didn't have a reason to go anymore. I wasn't looking to hook up or get mindlessly shit-faced. I had better things to do with my time, things that mattered. School. Work. Spend time with my girlfriend.

  I shifted the truck into park, a little too hard, and we jerked to a stop. One of those three things had been permanently removed from the equation. The second—work—I'd put on the back burner by calling in sick. And school? Coach Childs had called a couple of times to discuss logistics. I'd let him roll over to voicemail and I hadn't bothered calling back.

  Griffin was already out of the car and halfway up the sidewalk that led to the house. “You coming?”

  I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be so close to a place that shared memories of Abby. I shook my head in disgust. Who the fuck was I kidding? Every place had memories of her. The apartment. My truck. Every single place in Pacific Beach. Because if I hadn't been with Abby at a particular place, I'd been thinking about her. Not in an obsessed, stalker kind of way, but in the way that a guy does when he's completely in love with the girl he's with. She wasn't front and center in my mind all the time but she was there, on the periphery. It could be something as simple as pulling through the drive-thru at the taco shop, thinking about what she'd order if she was with me. Picking up milk from the grocery store and seeing the bottled smoothies she always gravitated to. Getting gas and thinking that, if she'd been in the truck with me, I would have run in and grabbed her a Milky Way. Just because.

  So it didn't matter that I was back in the place where it had all started. Where we'd started. Where we'd transitioned from being two people who'd met at Mesa to two people who were pretty fucking sure there was something special between them.

  It didn't matter. Because every place had those memories. And it was suddenly crystal clear that I wasn't going to be able to avoid them. Not now. Not ever.

  “Yeah,” I finally said. “I'm coming.”

  The party was small. Half a dozen guys lounging in Luke's living room, beer bottles and cups scattered across every horizontal surface. Luke sat in the center of a faded blue couch, a bong cradled in his hands.

  “Yo,” he said, his eyes red and watery. “Long time, man.”

  I nodded. “Happy birthday.”

  He brought the mouthpiece to his lips and sucked hard. He swallowed and then exhaled a puff of smoke. Wordlessly, he handed it to me.

  I couldn't remember the last time I'd smoked. Not since I'd been with Abby, for sure. I reached for it but before I could connect, Griffin's hand shot out to stop me.

  “Me first,” he said, his tone joking, but his eyes locked on mine. He leaned close. “No way, man. They'll test you for this shit when you start playing again.”

  I tightened my grip on the glass bowl. “Who says I'll be playing?”

  His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

  I shrugged and lowered my head so it was level with the bowl. “You heard me.” I took the lighter Luke handed me and lit up.

  Griffin jostled me. Hard. The bong clattered to the floor and the glass bowl shattered.

  “Aw, shit,” Griffin said. He looked at Luke, his expression contrite. “Looks like I'll be buying you a new bong for your bi
rthday, bro.”

  Luke smiled and closed his eyes. “It's all good, man.”

  I shot a deadly look at my best friend. “I know what I'm doing.”

  “Bullshit you do,” he countered. He found an unopened bottle of beer and twisted off the cap. I thought he was going to take a swig but instead, he handed it to me. “Do yourself a favor and stick with this.”

  I rolled my eyes but took the bottle from him. It was cold and I drained it in two gulps.

  Four beers later and I was feeling good. Not great, but good. A few more people had shown up as the night progressed, all guys from the beach. No chicks. A couple of guys bitched about it but I was grateful. I'd found the one place—a living room that reeked of beer and pot—that didn't remind me of Abby. And I knew I'd be content to stay there all night.

  “Where's that woman of yours?”

  I looked up. Brady Pfeiffer, one of Grif's friends, was looking at me. There was no malice in his question, only curiosity, but I felt my muscles tense.

  Griffin stepped in. “She's not here, dude. This is a guy party, right? We'll find the chicas later.”

  Brady nodded and knocked back a drink from his cup. From the dozen bottles of half-full liquor on display on the kitchen counter, it could have been any number of things. “Just weird, seeing you without her. She'd come to watch you surf sometimes, right?”

  She had. I didn't spend a ton of time in the water but, living in San Diego, you were sort of an anomaly if you didn't know how to surf. Growing up, I spent more time playing baseball than riding waves but I'd always managed to sneak in a session. After my life went to shit and the scholarship to Stanford fell apart, I found myself heading out into the water more and more. Even after Abby and I started going out, I'd still take my board down once or twice a week and hit the waves for an hour or two. Sometimes she came with me, sometimes she didn't. She'd find a spot on the beach—in the warmer months, she'd lay out in some smoking hot bikini, her earbuds parked in her ears, a paperback in her lap. During the winter when I was pulling on a full wetsuit instead of just a rashguard, she'd wrap a blanket around herself and sit on the sand and watch me. Sitting out on the water, waiting for a set to come in, I'd look at her. Sometimes, she'd have her phone to her ear and, even from where I was, I could see her nodding and laughing and I knew she was talking to Tana. But, more often than not, her hand was up on her forehead, shielding her eyes so she could find me. Watch me.

  Brady was staring at me and I realized I never answered him. So I just said, “Yeah.”

  “You guys still going out?”

  It was an innocent question and I knew he was just saying it to make conversation. We weren't on the water, we weren't at the beach. There wasn't a shit ton for two guys who didn't really know each other to talk about.

  “We broke up.” The words felt funny coming out of my mouth, like I was speaking in a foreign language with a mouth full of marbles.

  I wondered if it sounded as weird as it felt saying it but if it did, Brady didn't let on. He just nodded his head and said, “Ah, okay.”

  I swallowed another mouthful of beer and kept my mouth shut. I had an insane urge to smash the bottle against his skull and scream, “It is NOT okay.”

  But it wasn't his fault and taking my anger and frustration out on him for asking a simple question would have been a shitty thing to do. A shitty and stupid thing to do.

  Because it wasn't anyone's fault, really.

  Actually, that wasn't true, I thought as I brought the bottle to my lips one last time, draining its contents.

  It was someone's fault.

  Mine.

  TWENTY NINE

  We didn't stay at Luke's. Eleven-thirty on the nose, he stood up and said we were hitting the bars.

  “I turn twenty-one in a half hour, man,” he announced, his words slurred. He grabbed an Angels hat from the closet and smashed it on top of his head. “Let's do this.”

  I turned to look at Griffin. I was buzzed—better than buzzed—and the last thing I needed to do was try to drive into downtown PB. Looking around at the crew of half-baked, drunk guys, I was pretty sure no one was in any condition to drive.

  “Think I'm gonna sit this one out,” I said.

  Griffin grinned. “No way, man. We're in it for the long haul tonight. No way I'm letting your mopey ass go home.”

  “I'm not driving,” I told him. “I've had six beers, dude.”

  He held up four fingers. “And I've only had four. So we're golden.” He extended his hand. “Hand over your keys.”

  “No.”

  He reached for me, wrapping his arm around my neck in a loose headlock. With his free hand, he fished around in the pocket of my cargo shorts.

  “Not much else in there to feel,” he said, smirking as he held up the keys to my truck.

  “Fuck off.”

  His grin widened. “Come on, man. You're already halfway to shitfaced. Let's go all the way. You need this.”

  I wasn't sure what I needed other than to take a piss and maybe pass out. But everyone was grabbing keys and draining the last of their cups and bottles as they made their way to the front door.

  The night air was cool and damp and sobered me up just a little as I followed Griffin back to the truck. A Suburban idled next to the curb and Luke flung open the back passenger seat, ushering his friends inside. Relief washed over me as I realized none of those boneheads would be driving.

  “Hey,” he called to us. “My sister is on her way. Two blocks away. She's got room for two more people in her car.”

  “We're good,” Griffin called back.

  “You sure?” I asked him. I'd already pulled myself into the passenger seat in the cab of my truck.

  He nodded as he climbed in and jammed the key into the ignition. “No worries, man. You know what it takes to get me wasted.”

  I knew. A six pack usually had him relaxed, not buzzed. Four beers to him and his freakishly large body was nothing.

  We followed the Suburban back to Ingraham and hooked a left on Garnet. A few minutes later, we pulled into a half-full parking lot in the alley behind Emerald City, a local joint on Emerald Street. It was a place I knew well. With any luck, Randy wouldn't be working the front door that night, which meant Griffin and I wouldn't stand a chance at getting in.

  My heart sank just a little when I spotted his shaved head and tatted biceps at the door. He grinned at us.

  “Long time no see, man,” Randy said to me, pumping my hand.

  I shook hands and then shoved my fists into my pockets. “Yeah.”

  Luke and his gang approached and Randy sniffed the air. “Looks like you guys have already been partying.”

  Luke pushed to the front of the group, waving his ID. “I'm legit tonight,” he announced.

  Randy glanced at the ID and then his watch. “Ten more minutes, dude.” He held his hand against Luke's chest and waved the rest of us through.

  “What the fuck?” Luke demanded, pawing at Randy's arm.

  “Ten minutes,” he said. He winked at the rest of us as we passed by him and into the bar. “He cut me off last week. Epic fucking wave. Told him I'd get him back.”

  Griffin burst out laughing and slapped Randy on the back. “Remind me to never piss you off out in the water.”

  “Consider this your reminder,” he shot back, jerking his head in the direction of one very pissed off Luke.

  The parking lot might have been half empty but the bar was full. Mostly locals, people I knew, but some sailors, too, on leave for the night. You could always pick them out in the crowd, even if they weren't in uniform. Not just by their close-cropped hair but the looks they wore as they scanned the crowds. Not nervous or scared or anything. Just very much not local.

  Griffin nudged my shoulder and motioned for me to follow him as he wound his way through the crowd and approached the bar. Two minutes later, we were both holding ice cold bottles of Corona.

  He drained his in two gulps and waited expectantly.
<
br />   I took a sip.

  “Pansy,” he muttered. “I'm buying the drinks tonight and you're just gonna sit there and nurse that like a fucking baby?”

  I ignored him. “I need to take a piss,” I said instead. I shoved my beer at his chest and he grabbed it.

  “If you're not gonna drink it, I am,” he warned.

  I'd already started in the direction of the bathroom so I just nodded my head. I didn't care. I didn't care about anything.

  The bathroom was empty and filthy and smelled like piss and sweat. I got out of there as quick as I could, rinsing my hands and wiping them on my shorts, not bothering to use the hand dryer mounted on the wall.

  I pulled open the door and a blond stumbling out of the women's bathroom greeted me with widened eyes and a smile.

  “West,” Kayla said, her voice slurring a little.

  I nodded at her. My ex-girlfriend was probably the last person I'd expected to see at the bar. Or wanted to see.

  She looked around. “Where's your little girlfriend?”

  I didn't answer.

  “What's her name again?” she asked, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear as she moved closer to me. Her tank top was cut low and I was pretty sure her bra was padded because her tits were spilling out of the top. “Amanda? Anna?”