Page 40

I can’t tell if it’s the knee digging into my back or the pounding in my head that wakes me up first. Either way, I’m forced to blink my eyes open, which is a mistake because the bright light only intensifies the throbbing in my head.

A pained groan leaves me as I shift and spot a familiar head of brunette curls lying next to me.

How the hell did I end up here? And why the fuck am I sharing a bed with Mack?

Scratch that. It’s not a bed but a damn air mattress wedged between two twin beds. A pale white arm sticks out under one of the covers, and I instantly recognize Sam's Roman numeral tattoo.

I try to swallow, but my mouth feels like sandpaper, and my body feels like it’s been run over by a truck.

I rack my brain, trying to figure out how I got here with what feels like a hangover from hell. The last thing I remember is using the restroom. And then, nothing.

No, not nothing. More like quick bursts of memories: me being led to a dark room, a flash of blonde hair. That must have been Bear.

The images come and go too fast. No matter how hard I try, I can't hold on to them long enough to make sense of the whole picture. Trying only makes the pounding in my head worse.

But if I was with Bear, why am I here in Sam and Austin’s dorm room and not with my girlfriend?

Fuck, Bear!

We were supposed to meet at my apartment, but clearly, I never made it there.

I sit up too fast, and my head spins, causing a wave of nausea to pool in my stomach. Every muscle in my body protests as I shift, but I don’t care. I need to get ahold of Bear.

Except I don’t even know where my phone is. It's not on me, and it's not wrapped in the blanket on my side. Unless...

“Mack,” I hiss, shoving his shoulder.

He stirs but doesn’t wake up.

“Mack!” I shout louder and shove harder, ignoring the pain slicing through my head.

“What the fuck—ow!” He jerks upright, rubbing his shoulder.

The commotion wakes Austin, and Sam follows shortly after.

“What the hell is going on?” Austin mutters around a yawn, peering down at us from his bed.

“Ask Levi. He’s the one shoving people,” Mack grumbles.

“You weren’t waking up, dickhead.” I shoot back. “Check if my phone is on your side. I can’t find it.” I mumble, ducking my head under the blanket again in case I missed it the first time.

I feel Mack shift as he fights with the blanket wrapped around him. I try not to get too agitated when he says it’s not on his side.

The headache and lack of memories have me on edge. But more so is the fact that I’m not in my apartment. And my gut is telling me something is wrong. Really fucking wrong.

I take a deep breath, willing the headache away so I can think straight. “Well, can someone help me find it? I need to text Bear.”

Instead of jumping into action, they exchange shifty glances, and my stomach twists at the sight. Or maybe it’s the lingering nausea that’s been present ever since I woke up.

“For fuck’s sake! I need to find my phone.” I snap, frustration bleeding through my words.

That does it. Finally, they all start scrabbling out of bed.

“On it!”

“Sure thing, Levi.”

“Absolutely.”

Sam finds it halfway under the dresser, but when I take it from him, the damn thing won’t turn on. I pull the charging cable from his phone and plug it into mine. I’m shocked to see it’s already past one in the afternoon when his screen lights up.

“What the fuck happened last night, and how did we end up here?” I ask no one in particular.

Again, those shifty glances get thrown around. And my muscles tense when no one says anything.

Austin clears his throat, and I instantly know it’s not good. Since he rivals me in the maturity department, anything he's about to say must be serious, especially since neither Mack nor Sam are willing to speak up.

“Listen, man,” He glances at the guys before his eyes find mine again. “You had too much to drink last night and disappeared on everyone for a while. We found you, uh, shirtless, in a room.”

“Okay,” I nod slowly. That lines up with those half-ass memories I have. I still don’t know how the hell I had too much to drink, but we can come back to that later.

So, they caught me hooking up with my girlfriend.

No big deal. I only hope Bear wasn’t too embarrassed they walked in on us.

But it still doesn’t explain how I ended up here.

And why we were still at the party when I thought the plan was to leave right after I used the restroom?

Or maybe I wasn’t planning on using the restroom at all, and Bear and I were sneaking away?

I rub my temples, trying to ease the pressure all this overthinking is putting on my already tender head.

“I was with Bear, yet somehow ended up spending the night in the dorms with you three?”

Shit. Was she pissed they walked in and left?

Austin’s gaze shoots to Mack, who shifts beside me like he’s uncomfortable with whatever has to be said next. And someone better talk soon.

“Well, see, that’s the thing,” Mack says, rubbing his neck. “Bear asked me to find you because she and the girls had to leave, and you were MIA. So I rounded up the guys, we went looking for you, and… well, we found you.”

My brows furrow in confusion. “But Bear found me first, right?”

He shakes his head. “No, Bear had already left when we found you.”

I stare at him, my pulse spiking. I feel like they’re talking in circles. And then Sam speaks, and his words make my blood run cold.

“Levi, you were shirtless in a room without your girlfriend, at a party, and pretty drunk.”

No. No! They’re wrong. They have to be because there’s no way I would do what they're implying. Not to her. I would die before I did anything to jeopardize what I have with Bear. She’s the fucking sun in my world. I live for her.

“What the hell are you guys saying?” I seethe, curling my hands into fists as my body shakes.

“Nothing,” Austin says quickly, but it becomes clear when he says, “It’s just that you weren’t with Bear in the room, but you weren’t alone either.”

My eyes dart between my three friends, all wearing the same look of concern. “Don’t you dare say I cheated on her.”

“Levi, calm down.” Mack steps closer, clapping a hand on my shoulder, but I shrug him off.

“Calm down?” I shout. “You’re telling me I’m here because I ditched my girlfriend—the girl I love—for a drunk hookup?”

The words alone cause my chest to cave in.

No one says anything, but I can see it in their faces. That’s precisely what they think happened.

“No,” I shake my head frantically, but all it does is rattle my brain inside my head, and the pain is so intense I have to breathe through my nose to stop myself from throwing up. “I don’t know what happened last night, but it wasn’t that,” I say once I’m confident my stomach won’t fail me.

Because it couldn’t be that, but if it was…

No . I know myself. Drunk or sober, fucking up the best thing that’s happened to me isn’t a possibility. Bear’s the only girl I see in my present and future. The past isn’t even worth looking at, knowing she wouldn’t be there. Ever.

I grab my phone, which thankfully is charged enough to power on. The screen floods with texts from our group chat asking me where I am.

I see a missed call from Bear and two text messages. The first asks where I am, and the second tells me they’re leaving.

After that, nothing. Not a single text or call.

The lack of communication makes my heart sink.

I call her, but she doesn't pick up, and my texts go unanswered. I dial Macy’s number next, but she doesn’t answer either.

“Does anyone have Elsie or Pia’s number?” I ask, desperation bleeding from every word.

I rest my elbows on the dresser and drop my forehead into my hands, closing my eyes in an attempt to get a handle on my emotions. I’m not about to break down right now. There’s still a chance this is some fucked-up misunderstanding.

“Yeah,” Sam speaks up. “I’ll text Elsie.”

“Levi, are you sure you don’t remember anything?”

Taking a deep breath, I turn to Austin.

“Yes, everything is muddled up here,” I tap my temple. “I don’t even remember drinking to the point of getting drunk.”

“Sometimes they mix that shitty beer they use for beer pong with hard liquor to make it taste better,” Mack says. “Even I felt tipsy after four beers.”

He felt tipsy, yet I blacked out. Something isn’t adding up.

“What did I say when you found me?” I don’t even know if I want to hear it, but I need to know.

“Nothing that made sense. It was just a bunch of incoherent sentences. You fell asleep and stayed that way when we got in the car.”

When Sam’s phone pings, my eyes dart to his.

“Elsie says, and I’m paraphrasing because there’s a lot of cussing happening.” His eyes meet mine momentarily before dropping back to the phone. “Bear is upset over a video that was sent to her.”

I stop breathing long enough for my lungs to burn, and I’m forced to inhale. “What sort of video?”

“No idea, but I’ll ask.” He types again.

The minutes we wait for her response feel like torture. Any hope that this is a misunderstanding is slowly slipping through my fingers.

I excuse myself to the bathroom, needing to get away. The walls feel like they’re caving in on me.

When I return, I know by the way Mack and Austin are hovering over Sam that she’s responded.

Sam eyes me as I sit next to him on the bed. “We haven’t watched it yet.”

“Play it,” I say, swallowing thickly.

The camera focuses on me and some girl. It’s painfully obvious it isn’t Bear. She’s wearing a similar costume, but it’s not my girl.

“Oh, Fuck.”

“Shit, this is bad.”

“What the hell, Levi?”

I hear their voices, but they sound muffled, like they’re coming from underwater.

And as I watch myself make the biggest mistake of my life, I start to remember. Or at least remember the way things felt. Like how her hair wasn’t as silky as Bear’s. Or how her hand in mine felt wrong as she led me into an unfamiliar bedroom.

When the video cuts out, no one says anything.

My body remains frozen in shock and denial. Tears burn the backs of my eyes, and when the first one falls, it’s enough to shake some sense into me.

“I need to see her.” I stand, grabbing what little things I have.

“Levi, maybe you should—”

“No, Mack,” I cut him off, my voice harsher than intended. “I need to see her.”

I have to fix this. Knowing she was forced to watch that…I shake my head.

No, there has to be an explanation, other than the obvious, for what happened. Even if she slams the door in my face, I have to try. I love her too much to let this ruin us.

“And say what?” Mack says. “She saw the video, Levi. You can’t deny it wasn’t you.”

“You’re right, it was me, but you know me. All of you fucking know me, and I would never cheat on her. Or anyone.”

My eyes plead with them to be on my side. To not think the worst of me despite what they saw.

If I fucked up, I’ll own it. But something isn’t sitting right with me.

As a swimmer, you learn early on to be in tune with your body. To someone else, it might look like I was encouraging her, but I saw how my forearms tensed. I wasn’t pulling her toward me. I was stopping her from getting closer.

The only thing I don’t understand is how I got into that fucked up situation in the first place. But right now, it’s my words against visual proof. And the evidence is pretty damning.

A loud sigh leaves Mack, and he grabs his phone. “Alright, let me order us a ride. We’ll go there together.”

I nod, grateful I don’t have to do this alone.

The car ride from the dorms to my apartment is quick, but I ask the driver to stop once. It was either puke in the rain or risk messing up his backseat by emptying whatever shit I drank last night all over it.

Despite feeling like shit, I opt to bypass the elevator and take the stairs. It’s faster, and I’ve wasted enough time.

I need to see her.

I pound on the door, Mack right beside me. No one answers, and my pounding gets more frantic with every passing second.

Finally, the door opens just wide enough for me to see three sets of eyes staring back at me, each with varying degrees of judgment.

Macy is the first to break the tense silence. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m here to see her.”

She scoffs. “Yeah, right. That’s not going to happen.”

“Macy, just let him do this, yeah?” Mack says, his tone surprisingly soft.

She glares at him, but surprisingly, she holds the door open wider. All three girls step aside, letting me pass as I head straight for Bear's room.

I slowly open the bedroom door, careful not to startle her. The bed is empty, but the covers are rumpled like she just got up.

Stepping further inside, I see her standing by the window, her back to me. I quietly close the door behind me, noticing her tense up at the sound of the click.

When she finally turns around, her ocean-blue eyes—the same ones I’ve only ever seen my future in—are empty. And it’s impossible not to notice how red-rimmed and puffy they are.

The sight knocks the air from my lungs.

Each inhale after is a struggle as I fight the anxiety threatening to suffocate me.

I’d rather have her yelling or screaming at me: anything but this…this nothingness.

I step toward her, but she immediately takes a step back. Actually, takes a step back, like she can’t stand the thought of being near me.

It's a gut-wrenching feeling, especially considering that less than twenty-four hours ago, she was begging for my touch.

The silence stretches on, and fear seeps into every pore, causing my muscles to lock up tight.

I’m so afraid.

That I’m losing her.

That I’ve already lost her.