Page 50 of The Wrong Game

“I’m fine,” I said hurriedly. I was okay when she sympathized with my nap of the dead, but not with this. “Seriously. It’s all good, I just feel a little weird now.”

“What happened in it this time?”

I shrugged, refilling my glass of water. “Just reliving the first time I saw him kiss her, and then her being at the church the day of his funeral. Only this time, when I looked at him, he was alive in the casket.”

“Jesus, Gemma.”

“He said he was sorry,” I whispered. “But, it wasn’t the kind of apology where you knew the person actually was sorry. It was like… I don’t know, like he pitied me.”

She was silent for a long moment, and I sipped my water, nausea settling in my stomach to join my headache in kicking my ass.

“Anyway,” I said, brushing it off. “It was just a dream. But I woke up with a headache and I’m just not feeling too hot.”

“Why don’t I come down,” she offered. “I’ll bring some ice cream, we can watch the game on your couch.”

“I kind of want to be alone right now, Belle.”

She laughed.

“Oh, no you don’t. You’re not going to sit in that empty condo and be all up in your sads thinking about your shitty, cheating ex-husband.” She paused. “May he rest in peace.”

“But—”

“Nope. Get your ass up and put on something presentable. We’re going to watch the game.”

“Belle,” I whined.

“Hey, listen to me.” I could almost imagine her leveling her little blue eyes with mine. “I know it sucks sometimes, and it hurts. Honestly, if it were me, I’d be the hottest of hot messes. What I really want to do is come down there, hug you, rock you, pet your hair and make you tell me everything that hurts that you’ve never talked about. But how does that make you feel when you picture that?”

I grimaced. “Like crawling out of my own skin.”

“Well,” Belle conceded. “Beer and avoiding it is, then. Meet you downstairs in thirty.”

There was no arguing with her at that point, so I let her go with a sigh, glancing at myself in the reflection of my now-black phone screen.

I needed dry shampoo. And concealer. Stat.

- Change of plans. Save me a seat at the bar. -

I shot off the text to Zach, who had sent me four pouty emojis in a row in response to my last text. He responded to my affirmative one with a little purple devil smiley face and then an angel.

I tried to find comfort in Belle’s words, in the fact that she was speaking my own love language to me. She knew I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to sit around and mope. No, my personal brand of therapy came in the form of avoidance — and she was willing to support that.

Sometimes I swore my best friend knew me a littletoowell.

I couldn’t pull any of my excuses with her, not without her reading right through them. And as much as I did want to lie around and feel sorry for myself, I knew I’d have fun at the bar. I knew I’d want to watch the game. And I knew being around her, and being around Zach, would help me feel better.

Still, something felt off as I applied my mascara, slipping on my Bears hoodie and a fitted pair of ripped jeans before I walked out the door. My head was foggy, my heart still beating too rapidly or not at all — depending on the minute. I just wanted to sit inside in my pajamas, but then again, I also didn’t want to be alone.

It was the first little sign that I didn’t feel in control.

Maybe it was because no matter how much control I had in my life — what I did each day, who I spent time with, how I coped with Carlo’s passing — I couldn’t control my brain. When I went to sleep, it had the power to completely mess me up. All it had to do was show me a memory, or his face, orherface, and every ounce of control I had was gone.

That dream had thrown me, and now I was spinning in space, trying to find orbit again.

I hoped a beer and the game was the answer.

I think I knew even before I left my house that it wasn’t.