“Yeah.” I reflect his laugh “Ignore me.”
“Okay. Take care of yourself.”
The line dies, and I don’t feel any less confused. Surely we would know about a brother. Was this person lying?
Gavin returns with a mug of coffee, which he offers me, and I gratefully devour it. “Any luck sorting out what’s bothering you?”
“Not really. Do you think someone can keep a secret from everyone they care about and never slip up or want to tell them?”
“Is this about what Fin thinks about Gaby and me?” His brow dips low.
“No. No, sorry.”
“We’re not, you know?” He pins me with his eyes. “It was horrible hearing that and having your whole world turn on its axis. Who just blurts shit like that out? Do you know how long he thought that?”
My mind is scrambling for answers for him, but I can hardly reflect on what he’s saying because I’m still too consumed with my own troubles.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t put you on the spot like that.” He leaves my space and takes a seat at his desk. “It’s just frustrating as hell when Fin won’t talk about it, and Gaby is avoiding me, him, and the whole fucking situation.”
“She will need time. Just give her the space she needs and she will find her way back to you either way.” I shrug.
“We’re not fucking related. My dad diddled Fin’s mom, but it was way before she had kids.”
“I need to get home and shower,” I tell him, halting the entire conversation. I don’t know what to say to him. If it is all a mix up then it’s one that has cost them all.
“I’ll take you home.”
EVERYTHING IS SORE. I drank too much and ruined everything again. I’m a cunt, and I don’t know how to stop myself from being this destructive fucking mess that causes chaos with the people I love the most.
Last night after leaving Antonia is a blurry mess, and I don’t want to sort through it. Drool lines my lip and a chill tracks my entire naked body that’s sprawled out on the floor in the middle of the living space. The apartment looks like someone ransacked it. Everything from the dining table is on the floor like it’s been swiped there and left. There are two Jack bottles discarded on the couch. I’m lucky I didn’t drink myself to death. Getting to my feet, I squint from the intrusion of light setting me on display.
My cell is lit up with messages, and it’s the one from my mom that has me pausing.
“Meet your sister and me at Antonia’s at noon.”
Checking my watch, I growl at the numbers staring back at me. 10:58. I need to shower. I can’t go down there smelling of stale alcohol. Why she can’t come here I don’t know, unless she assumes I’ll be with Antonia, because I should be. Instead we’re sleeping apart. Suffering apart.
The hot water burns my skin, rinsing last night’s heavy drinking from my pores.
The door is unlocked when I get down there. My guilt and anger for leaving her on her own last night tightens my fists. Did she leave this unlocked the entire night or is everyone already here? Do I knock or walk straight in? The fact I have to even think about these questions irritates me further. How did we get to this point?
Pushing the door open, I call out, “It’s me.”
“In here,” Gavin’s voice calls back.
Walking with purpose, I round the divide and find him alone, sitting on her couch, playing around with an iPhone.
He can see the question on my face before it has a chance to leave my lips.
“She’s my friend. I can be here if she wants me here.”
He sounds agitated, and maybe he has a right to be. I’ve been a shit friend, and he’s right; she can have whoever she wants here. But it doesn’t mean I have to like it. But showing my emotions and macho shit right now can do no good to anyone.
“Am I the first one here?” I ask him, looking around the apartment for signs of other people.
He looks up at me from the device, his brow quirked. “Are others coming?”
“My mom told me she and Gaby were meeting me here.”
His body shifts. It’s slight, but he stiffens at the mention of Gaby.
“Oh, well. We just got here, so maybe they came and we missed them.”
“We?” I ask, confused, not seeing anyone else here. “And where’s Antonia?”
“She’s just getting a shower. I took her to get a new phone. We just got back.”
I take the seat opposite him and relax back against the fabric. I’m still hung over and could do with hitting the bottle again so I can bypass this stage.
Thoughts of Antonia in the shower cloud my mind. Memories of her soft skin, wet and flush with mine, cause a stir in balls.
“Why didn’t she shower before going for the phone? What time did you get here?”
Did she call him to ask him to take her so she didn’t have to ask me?
It takes me a moment to realize he hasn’t answered. Instead, he’s giving me a look I can’t decipher, but it makes me prepare myself for what he’s going to say.
My body is stiff and on the edge of sanity.
“Don’t go fucking crazy, but she came to the club last night, late. She was cold, Fin. She’d walked there at 2 a.m., with that cast on her foot.”
My insides swirl and collide with my need to run to her and make sure she’s okay, despite already knowing she’s safely in the shower only meters away.
“What was she doing there?”
I stand and pace the floor, wanting to peel the skin from my bones and throw myself at her feet so she will see how fucking wounded I am and hope she has pity on me and lets me back in.
I should never have left last night.
Images of all the different scenarios that could have happened to her walking around at that time of night alone pour into my skull like lava.
“What did she want at the club?”
It didn’t make any sense.
“She was looking for a number for one of those band members from her ex’s band. She was exhausted, and I got her to lie down. She crashed, so I let her sleep.”
So many questions run rampant in my head, and before I can voice them, the bedroom door opens and Antonia stands there, towel drying her hair and not paying attention to us.
“So the SIM card will work?” she says, before looking up and coming to an abrupt stop, holding her hair in the towel before dropping her hands and letting the wet strands slide over her smooth shoulders. She’s lost weight, and it shows in her petite frame.
“Have you sobered up?” she asks, tossing the towel into the bedroom behind her and then folding her arms, which pushes her tits together and shows me a sliver of her cleavage peeking from the top of her T-shirt.
“I was an asshole,” I state, not knowing what else to say, and treading carefully, knowing she could tell me to leave at any second.
She nods to the wall across from me. “Clean up your mess.”
Looking over to what she’s referring to, I cringe, disgusted with my actions from last night. She must have just left the mess because glass and drips of dried liquor are in plain sight.
Gavin’s glare catches the corner of my eye, and I don’t bother defending my actions because there is no excuse for it.