Page 9

A shiver coursing through my body wakes me, and I open my eyes to the bright light of the morning sun, the cold breeze still floating through the open window. For a few blissful moments everything is quiet, my mind as still as the room around me, my thoughts only focused on how chilled I am. But as I wake up, pulling the duvet tightly around me to ward off the cold, the events of last night flash through my head, a slideshow I would much rather forget.

I take a shaky breath, pulling the covers up even higher, trying to create a cocoon I can hide in, a place that is safe from everything going on around me. The side of my hand brushes against my face as I bring the sheets around me and I wince in response, the sharp pain flashes through my body and makes me dizzy. I tentatively brush my fingers over my nose and cheeks, the skin hot under my touch. It’s definitely swollen and tender and I wonder if it’s broken from how badly it hurts.

This isn’t real. This cannot be real.

The bedroom door slams against the chair I placed in front of it last night and I jump at the noise, eerily similar to the sound of the door crashing into my face. My hands begin to tremble and I can’t think, can’t focus on anything except curling tighter into my cocoon.

“What the fuck?” I hear whatever-his-name-is mutter as he pushes against the door again, the chair slowly shifting across the wooden floor with a groan of resistance. I exhale, relieved that it’s not Tanner breaking into the room.

“Are you alive in here? It’s 2p.m.” His voice trails off from across the room, the sheets muffling his words.

I nod my head, not that he can see me, but I don’t trust my voice not to crack if I try to speak out loud.

I try to focus on what he’s saying, but I can’t bring myself back to reality, too lost in the hurricane of emotions that are swirling around in my head, flashbacks all that I can see. “Tanner just left…” He trails off as if waiting for me to speak.

I blanch at the sound of his name as the ringing in my ears threatens to drown out everything around me. I cover my ears with my hands and the sound of him talking fades to nothing. For a few blissful seconds all I can hear is my own breathing and the erratic beat of my heart.

“Why is there blood on the floor?” His voice rings loudly, and I sense he has moved out of the doorway and into the room.

Shame creeps in as I try to think of a response, think of something to say, but the words won’t form on my tongue, the sound of the crunch of my nose against the door the only thing I can hear as I think about the blood on the floor. I run my index finger over the side of my thumb, the bite of my nail bringing my focus back to now, calming me once again.

“It’s nothing,” I mutter quietly, my voice sounding strange even to me.

“Are you okay? It doesn’t look like nothing,” he starts.

Frustration and confusion join the mix of emotions churning inside of me, and my fists clench in response. For some reason his question sets me off, and I feel a wave of distrust as I wonder what his motives are, wonder why the person who helped bring me here, knocking me unconscious in the process, would care about a little bit of blood. At least Tanner showed me his true colors from the beginning and I always knew where I stood with him. The familiar taste of bile rises in the back of my throat in response to my thoughts. Did I really just think that?

His footsteps echo around the room and I try to slow my breathing, panic rising within me at the thought of facing anyone right now.

“What’s going on?” he says, his voice sounding from only a few feet away, and to my shock he pulls the sheets off me.

My eyes meet his briefly, and I see the shock on his own face as he looks at me. I can only imagine what I look like based on how I feel.

“What the fuck, Evi?” He swears quietly, running a hand nervously through his dark hair.

I get out of bed, bolting for the bathroom, unable to deal with feeling so exposed outside of the cocoon I had encased myself in.

The door slams shut and I rest my back against it, closing my eyes and trying to steady my breathing. I rub my hands over my head, the ringing in my ears incessant and the dull ache in my skull unrelenting. I look in the mirror that hangs on the other side of the room, and not for the first time in my life my reflection is startling. Dark circles under my eyes frame my nose, which is less swollen than it feels and peppered with dark bruises. I move my hand slowly to my face, tracing around the skin again, and a sharp sting meets my touch. I pull my hand away quickly before pulling the neckline of my sweater down slightly. The bruise on my neck is black and purple and a sickening feeling rolls through me as I touch it, the feel of Tanner’s hand imprinted in my memory.

I trail my eyes down my body, and besides a couple of light bruises on my legs, everything else looks fine. But I don’t feel fine. I don’t feel like myself, like anyone I recognize. I walk towards the mirror, trying to get a better look at what else could have possibly changed, why my appearance isn’t lining up with how I feel. Shameful. Disgusting. Dirty. My lip trembles and my nail bites into my thumb again, trying to hold the emotions at bay.

Keep it together, Evi , I tell myself silently.

This isn’t real. This cannot be real.

I take a deep breath and focus on the sharp ache in my thumb instead of the ache deep inside me that cannot be seen, the ache that makes me wonder if drowning would be better than trying to make sense of the wave of emotions inside of me. I look myself in the eyes, light green as always, but with a depth of sorrow that wasn’t there before. I’m unsure of how to pull myself out of this, feeling as though I’m fighting against a current pulling me out to sea, and I no longer have the fight left in me to try to keep my head above water anymore.

Shock blasts through me in response to the thought and I startle myself as I question whether or not it’s the truth, wondering if a piece of my soul died underneath Tanner’s last night, or if all of me did.

I take a deep breath, trying to bring myself back from the darkness in my mind. I count slowly, in sync with the motion of my finger moving up and down across my skin. One. Two. Three. Four. The skin under my nail becomes red. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. A thin layer peels off, and the sting brings my attention back to now. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. My nail bites harder into raw flesh, and I’m no longer stuck in my head.

I get to twenty before red speckles of blood rise to the surface, and I let out a heavy sigh, the pain the only thing that makes sense to me right now.

I turn on the tap and run my hands under the water, focusing on how it feels cold against my skin and stings against my cut. I try to shove everything that I’m feeling, everything I’ve experienced, into a box somewhere deep, deep inside of me. My body trembles at the effort to hold everything back, and I feel the weight of last night breaking something inside of me. I don’t even know which of these emotions I should be feeling as so many conflicting feelings build inside of me, but I know that I’m unable to feel them all without shattering.

I take a deep breath as I close the box inside of me, locking everything away, avoiding feeling anything at all. Numbness travels from my heart out to my extremities, and I can feel it as I slowly start to feel nothing at all, my body feeling so cold in response that I’m reminded of the night on my balcony with Rhett when he left me to die.

I turn off the sink, dry my hands on my shorts, and lock down everything I’m thinking, everything I’m feeling.

I turn away from the mirror, unable to look at myself anymore. I walk purposefully through my bedroom and out to the living room, not wanting to be alone with my thoughts, avoiding his gaze as I sit on the couch beside him. The sound of the TV is dull in my ears. He pushes a hot cup of tea towards me, but I just stare at the half-empty bottles of liquor Tanner left sitting on the table last night.

I can feel him staring at me silently as I reach my hands towards the drinks, and for a second, I think about picking up the tea he made for me. Instead I reach for a bottle, picking it up and bringing the amber liquid to my mouth, hoping it numbs everything inside of me. It burns my throat as I take sip after sip and my empty stomach rolls in protest, ignoring the words that Ryan spoke to me not long ago, my promise to deal with things instead of escaping them.

But I don’t stop drinking, I can’t stop.

Because if I do, then I’ll have to admit that this is real.

“I think that’s enough.” He speaks at last as I hold the glass bottle in my clutches, my eyes glazed over and staring at the TV.

I shift my eyes from the bright screen and onto his, slowly bringing the bottle to my lips again, taking a purposeful sip, refusing to break eye contact.

“Evi, come on, you’re going to make yourself sick.”

“Why do you care?” I bite back, the alcohol making me bold as everything else inside of me remains numb.

“I don’t,” he starts, shifting nervously on the couch. “I don’t not care, but I don’t care.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “And here I thought you were some fancy hot-shot who works with Rhett, but you can’t even string a proper sentence together.” I bark a laugh but it sounds all wrong, as if it’s not me speaking.

He takes a breath.

“What I meant to say is that I don’t care about what you do while you’re here, but whatever this is”—he gestures at my face and neck—“whatever happened after I left yesterday, and I think I have an idea, even I can admit that it’s unacceptable.”

I stare at him coolly, pressing the bottle to my lips and taking another swig. My throat burns as I swallow even though I barely taste what I’m drinking anymore.

“Don’t tell me you’re suddenly gaining a conscience,” I start. “After everything you’ve done, you’re just as involved as him .” I refuse to say his name out loud, swallowing it with another sip of rum.

He shakes his head slowly, shifting forward so his elbows are on his knees.

“I’m not, and I think you know that.”

“Then why am I still here? If you’re not like them, why did you help them bring me here, why are you not taking me home right now?” I challenge, my wall of numbness faltering as anger rises to the surface.

He rubs his face with his hands.

“Because I can’t , okay?”

“What do you mean you can’t ? You can , but you won’t ,” I hiss.

“It’s complicated, okay?”

“Complicated?” I huff a laugh, resisting the urge to roll my eyes as I lift the bottle to my lips again, focusing on the warmth that spreads through my body as I keep drinking.

“It is complicated,” he insists, rubbing his face with his hands. “You wouldn’t understand. Not that I owe you an explanation anyway.”

“I don’t think it’s complicated at all,” I say, my voice growing louder. “I think you’re just like them, getting some sick satisfaction from this whole situation, all because of what? Someone owes your friend money?”

“I’m not like them—”

“You’re exactly like them,” I cut him off. “If you weren’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you acting like some guard dog—”

“He has enough shit on me to make my life a living hell,” he fires back.

“Oh, I’m sure your life is just horrible,” I say, sarcasm coating my words.

“He buried evidence for me and he’s dating my sister.” He deflates slightly as the words spill from his lips.

“What?” I’m too shocked to process the information.

He sighs before continuing, “I got caught doing something that isn’t exactly legal—”

“Kind of like keeping me here?” I cut in, my words slurring together slightly.

“Nothing like this,” he says, taking a breath before continuing. “I may have learned how to hack into some servers I shouldn’t have been able to hack into. Rhett was the only one who was game enough to help me. He buried evidence that could have put me behind bars for years.”

“So now you do whatever he asks?”

“I do when he holds the dirt he’s got on me over my head,” he responds simply.

I nod, playing with the almost empty bottle in my hands.

“And what does your sister have to do with any of this?”

“He’s dating her… has been since he met her when he was helping me six months ago.”

I blanche, confusion sweeping over me as I look at him.

“They’ve been dating for six months? But we only stopped seeing each other…” I try to do the math in my head but it’s not adding up.

“He was never seeing you exclusively, Evi,” he says softly.

Oh.

“But I saw him every day for ages…” And then it hits me. After the first few weeks of us being together we never went anywhere where people from his social circle would see us. It was always my apartment, his penthouse, or Heat—which didn’t exactly scream ‘yacht club vibes.’

“So, the only people who knew about Rhett and I were…”

“Us guys,” he confirms.

“And how is him dating your sister impacting this situation at all?” I rub my eyes, too tired, too drained, and too drunk for this conversation.

“You know what he can be like, Evi, so just imagine for a second what will happen if I help you. Imagine all the ways Rhett could—would—get back at me. He could put me behind bars, he could use her to get to me…”

“And yet you’re letting him date your sister. You’re friends with him…” I trail off, shaking my head. “Why? How could you still be friends with someone like him?”

“Our parents are in business together, and our grandparents before that. We’ve been in the same social circle since we got into university together. We were in the same frat, attended the same classes, and worked at the same law firm. Trust me when I say I’m not happy about him dating my sister. But there’s no room for a fallout in our world, Evi.”

I know exactly what he’s talking about, the complexities that come with how we were raised, of the expectations we were meant to uphold and the family partnerships we were destined to strengthen.

“And now he’s got dirt on you… and is dating your sister.”

He nods before taking a deep breath, picking up his coffee, and taking a few sips.

“He’s not as aggressive as Tanner, but I saw what you were like around him.”

“You met me like one time,” I cut him off.

“I met you a few times at Heat,” he says, breaking eye contact with me. I freeze, the sound of my heart beating in my chest drowning out the TV in the background.

He keeps talking, his eyes searching mine. “We never talked much, if that’s what you’re wondering, but I saw how he can be.”

I nod, his unspoken words saying more than needed.

“So, you can’t help me.”

He has the decency to at least look ashamed as he continues talking. “He has way too much leverage against me to risk upsetting him now. Between the power his family has and the way he deals with being wronged”—he gestures to me—“I can’t risk him throwing me in jail or taking out his anger on my sister if I piss him off.”

I pick up the bottle, downing the rest of the liquor despite the nausea rising inside of me as I force the liquid down.

I don’t say anything in response, I don’t even know what there is left to say, how to respond to such a blatant refusal to help me. Surprisingly, I don’t feel disappointed in his response, and I can’t help but wonder if the alcohol has finished numbing me in ways that I couldn’t on my own, or if I had given up any hope of leaving before I asked him to help.

I turn my attention away from him and back onto the TV in front of me.

I don’t know how much time passes before I’m suddenly aware of being lifted off the couch. The alcohol has finally made me blissfully emotionless and I’m too drunk to protest being carried like a child.

A few moments later I’m placed gently on my bed.

“I’m sorry.” His voice is little more than a whisper in the dark room.

“You don’t have to pretend to care,” I say, my words slurring together. “It’s not like you’re my friend. I don’t even know your name.”

He doesn’t say anything, instead, draping the blanket over me as I close my eyes, my mind blissfully empty and my body blissfully numb.

I listen as his footsteps retreat from the room.

“My name’s Bryce,” he says quietly, before shutting the door behind him.