Colton tugs on my hand, forcing me to sit in the chair beside him, and swear, it’s like an out-of-body experience watching Holden lift Brianna out of her seat so he can sit down and settle her across his lap. She giggles at this, and I can’t blame her. I would’ve too. And then his mouth is on her neck, his large hand gliding up her thigh, beneath her skirt, until it disappears completely, and I know... I know I should look away. That watching them like this is just adding more pain to my already torturous existence here. He’s told me he’s moved on, and now he’s proving it.
I awaken from my nightmare when Colton says my name and taps my leg. I look down at the joint in his hand—and I now realize what that unfamiliar smell was. “No, thank you,” I say, shaking my head.
“You don’t smoke?” Jasmine asks me.
“No, but I don’t have a problem with it.” Holden and I had gone to a total of two parties together our senior year, and I had watched him smoke weed, laughed with and at his shenanigans.
“You drink?” Mason asks. “I can grab you a beer.”
I glance across from me at Brianna’s hands on Holden’s jaw as their mouths lock, tongues meeting. I look back at Mason. “A beer would be great, thank you.”
Only when I say this does Holden pull away, his eyes finding mine through the floating embers crackling between us. We watch each other—adding additional time to our once-favorite Staring Game. Only the minutes don’t count, because the sirens already sounded, and the game’s been over for a while now.
Colton returns with three beers, hands me one, and sets the other two beside my chair. “In case you need them,” he says.
I crack open the first beer, down it within minutes. Then I glance up at Holden, who’s still watching me while his girlfriend runs her hand through his hair, kisses his neck, his jaw. And while I could drown in my sorrows, my regrets, I choose to grab another beer and drown in alcohol instead.
22
Holden
Thank fuck I didn’t stay home because Jamie is approximately three seconds away from intoxication. I can tell by how her eyes are drooping and her body is swaying. They’ve been here an hour already, and every time a joint or beer is offered to me, I pass. I need to be coherent in case she can’t be.
The small gathering I was expecting has turned into a full-blown party, and there are at least thirty people here, but I haven’t moved once because they haven’t moved, either.
With every sip she takes, Colton inches closer and closer.
He knows I’m watching, and he’s doing it to fuck with me.
It’s working.
Because I want nothing more than to march over there and punch him right in the dick. And then his face. And then his dick again just to bring home why I’m punching him in the first place.
I have questions. So many of them. Mainly when it was Jamie decided that alcohol wasn’t going to be her undoing like it was her mother’s. Or maybe it is her undoing—and this is the choice that she’s making. Because we all have those—choices—even when making one seems impossible at the time. And, good or bad, right or wrong, you have to be accountable for those decisions you make.
That’s the mantra I’ve lived by for the past five years.
She chose to run away.
And for the first year of that, I chose to wait for her.
I guess we all make shitty decisions.
Colton moves in again, his mouth right to Jamie’s ear as he says something that makes her laugh.
Fuck this guy.
“What’s wrong?” Bri asks, her fingertips on my jaw, forcing me to face her.
“Nothing.”
“You’re all tense.”
Colton’s kissing her now, or at least attempting to, and I almost shove Bri off my lap, but Jamie… Jamie pushes him away and shakes her head, and I can read her lips when she says, “Sorry.”
Don’t be sorry, Jamie.
She stands for the first time, and I watch her—unsteady on her feet—as she dodges people in the yard and enters the house through the back door.
I count to three before I tap Bri on the knee, telling her I’m grabbing a beer. She lets me go, no questions asked.
When I step into the small house, the only door closed is the bathroom. I press my ear to the door, hear the tap running. Leaning against the frame, I wait not so patiently for Jamie to appear, and when she does, I step forward, pushing her back. Eyes wide, she mumbles, “What the fuck?”
I close the door behind me, lock it, and take her in from head to toe. Her dress is gray with thin straps and ends just above her knees. It’s loose around the top, tight around her ass, clinging to her like a second skin. Fuck, she looks good enough to eat. I’m almost tempted to just that if she wasn’t so unsteady on her feet. “Maybe you should lay off the alcohol.”
She tilts her head, her bloodshot eyes squinting. “Nah.”
“Jamie…”
“No!” she yells, but she’s laughing, and I don’t know why. Nothing is funny about this situation. Nothing. “You know why?”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. “Why?”
“Because drinking makes the images of you sucking face with your perfect girlfriend less clear!” Her eyes widen on a gasp, and she takes a step forward until we’re almost touching. “I can get blackout fucking drunk, and that way, I don’t have to see anything!”
My eyes drift shut as I pinch the bridge of my nose, try to remain calm. “Jesus, Jamie. You’re wasted, and when did you even start—”
“Oh my God!” she cuts in, and my eyes snap to hers again. “Drinking is like drawing when I was locked in the closet!” My shoulders slump, my head doing the same. “I get to choose what I see! Get it, Holden?” She fists my t-shirt, shaking me gently. “I get to be the birds!” Releasing me, she extends her arms, uses them as wings as she spins around the small space. “I get to flyyyy! I get to soar.” She stops suddenly, eyes flicking between mine, and there’s so much pain, so much sadness behind her stare, and it’s only now I realize that the redness in her eyes isn’t from the alcohol. She’s been crying. “And I never, ever, have to see you with anyone else again…”
I heave out a sigh, trying to focus on my truths regardless of her feelings because anything else would drag us both under. “What? Are you jealous?
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Of course I am, Holden.”
“You have no right to be.”
She takes a single calming breath, then says, “I know.”
“We had plans, Jamie, and you just—”
“I know this, Holden,” she says through gritted teeth. “Would you fucking stop already? Every fucking time…” She reaches around me to open the door, but I block her path. I don’t know why I do it. Maybe I’m not ready to go out there yet. Or maybe I’m not ready for her to leave. The top of her head is right under my nose, and it takes everything in me not to lean down a few inches and inhale her scent like I want to. Even this close, her scent lingers—flowers and citrus.
Sunshine and Solace.
She sniffs once as she takes a step back, neck craned to look up at me. The tears she’d been holding on to are right fucking there, right on the edge of release. “You know what the worst part is?” she cries, her chest heaving. “You care so fucking little about me that you’re forcing me to see it… because you want to hurt me.”