Page 114 of Badd Baby

I leaned against the brick wall next to the door and held the bottle against my cheek, trying to quiet the chaos in my mind.

I'm ADHD, so that's a losing game, but right now, the crazed squirrel on a treadmill that is my brain is going a little haywire, and I needed a moment alone in the silence to bring down the noise in my head.

Which is when I heard it.

A sniffle.

A shuddery sob.

And damn me, but I recognized the voice, somehow.

I looked left and saw Lindsey in her baby blue bridesmaid dress, leaning against the wall a few feet away, head tipped back, weeping.

Fuck.

“Um, hey," I said. “Uh, you…you good, Lindsey?"

She snorted. “Yeah, Dane. I'm peachy. I’m out here bawling my eyes out for fucking fun."

"Jesus, dude, I was trying to be nice. Fuckin' shoot me for having the teensiest bit of compassion, even though you won't fucking tell me what the fuck I did wrong."

"NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU!" She shrieked, and collapsed to her hands and knees.

Stunned by the outburst, I stood frozen for a moment, and then went over to her and knelt beside her, recognizing an emotional breakdown when I saw one.

"Hey, whoa, Linz. Take a deep breath, okay?"

She shook her head, hyperventilating. "C-c-can't."

I rested a hand on the smooth warm skin of her back just above her shoulder blades. "Keep trying. Take a breath. Slow it down."

"Don't—d-don't…don't touch me," she hissed.

I removed my hand immediately and sank to my ass on the dirty ground beside her. "Okay, no touching."

"Go away."

"No."

"Dane. Fuck off."

"When you can stand up and breathe normally again, I'll leave you alone. Not until then."

"I d-d-didn't a-a-a-sk for your h-h-h-help."

"Too damn bad, Killer. You got me anyway."

So I sat next to her as she knelt in a quasi-fetal position on the dirty alley ground, her sobs and body-wracking shudders slowly subsiding.

Eventually, she stood up and began pacing back and forth. I remained on the ground, sipping my beer and watching her pace.

She came back to where I was, and leaned against the wall. Didn't look at me as she spoke. "I don't owe you any explanations."

"I disagree. I've spent the last several months trying to figure out what I did to make you freak out like that. And I’ve come up empty. I don't think it's too much to ask for you to tell me what I did."

She didn't answer for a very long time, and I waited in silence for her response, sipping beer and occasionally stealing glances at her long, smooth, tanned legs.

When it felt clear she wasn’t going to even respond, I stood up, tossed my empty bottle into the dumpster, and paused at the door to the kitchen. "Fuck me. Got it. Well, have a nice fucking life, Lindsey. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry for whatever it was I did. I mean that. I don’t expect you to give a fuck, but it's true."