“Thank you so much.” I take the slightly greasy bag from the delivery boy. He smiles in return and bids me a good night. I scurry into the elevator, punch in Grey’s apartment code, and walk in a few moments later. I walk into the kitchen. I put the bag on the counter and grab two cups, one for me and the other for Mason.
We are cram-studying for the rest of our finals. I know just about everything on each exam for every class, but that doesn’t mean I can’t polish my brain.
I fill our cups with fruit punch, noting to myself to go grocery shopping. They barely have anything in here. Well, Grey barely has anything. David’s already moved in with Holly, so it’s just Grey here. And apparently he is the only human alive that can survive on beer and cheese.
“Back with our saviors,” I joke as I enter the living room. More like tornado-affected area. Papers and books litter the entire ground; I can barely see the hardwood beneath them. I plop down on the floor and push some papers out of the way before setting the bag down and handing Mason his drink.
“Thank you, kind lady.” He playfully bows his head, and I play along and lift my invisible skirt to curtsey. He chuckles and leans against the couch after taking out one of his tacos. I follow suit, and we both moan in delight, savoring the greasy but fulfilling meal. “I’ll pay you back, promise.”
I wave a hand, snapping back into reality after that marvelous bite. “No problem. It’s just nice to take a break. I feel like my brain is going to implode.” I groan and let my head fall onto his shoulder. “I just want Christmas, so I can sit back, relax, and sleep until summer.”
He laughs and I join him, my head bouncing up and down as his shoulders do too. “Speaking of which, what do you have planned for both?”
“I…don’t even know.” I sigh.
I actually haven’t thought about it. Christmas, I mean. I know I’m spending summer in Miami at my family’s—more like Mother’s—beach house. Maybe I could bring Grey and Mason along? I’ll figure that out later. But Christmas is next week. The time has flown by so quickly, it’s insane.
I know I should go to my parents’ to celebrate…but I just can’t. My mother is still pissed at me for choosing Grey, and I know it’d just end up tragically, like Thanksgiving. And I just don’t feel like hearing her tell me how I’m ruining my life the entire time.
I’d rather spend it with the people I love, like Grey. Now that I think about it, I really want to spend the holiday with him. It’d be our first of, I hope, many more together, and I can actually see that going well.
“What about you?” I put the light on him, and he looks at me and plays into it, like the great friend he is.
“I might just spend it with my grandparents.” He shrugs.
I assess his frown. He looks so sad…I feel terrible for how harsh his family has been treating him. I can’t even imagine how wrecked he must have felt, to be denied so openly by the people he expected to love him for who he is. I just wish I could go back in time and be there for him.
“When’s the last time you spoke to your parents and sister?” I blurt out. I sit up, and he raises a brow at me. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that.” I nervously look away and take a bite of my taco.
“It’s okay.” He laughs. He sucks in and lets out a big breath. “I haven’t spoken to my sister in three years, and my parents haven’t once contacted me after shutting me out four years ago, after the surgery.” Sister…it takes me a moment, but it clicks when I realize something.
“Rose told me to tell you she missed you.” How could I have forgotten to tell him that? Maybe because of all that was happening with Grey and me. I hate myself for forgetting that one important thing. Then again, Grey is enough to distract me from anything.
He snaps his head to me and falters with his words. “Seriously?” I can’t tell if he’s mad or shocked. Maybe both? I nod, still unsure of how to identify his expression and what he’s feeling right now. With the way he’s staring blankly at the TV screen, his face slightly paled, I’ll go with the latter—shocked. Most definitely shocked. “I have to go.” He begins piling his papers in his hand and shoves them in his backpack.
I watch, blind-sided. Why does he suddenly need to leave? Is he going to go talk with her? Is he mad, sad—what?
“Are you okay?” I ask as he shoves his expensive textbooks in his backpack. How is he able to lug those around on his back all day? His back muscles must be extraordinarily built.
“Yeah, I just have to go,” he says.
I stand as he does. I follow him to the elevator as he hastily zips the bag closed, nearly letting the contents spill, but he fortunately has a grip on the strap. He’s acting flustered and out of his normal element. I’m afraid mentioning her will send him over the edge somehow. I would if my sister, who didn’t defend me against my strict parents and stopped communicating with me, said she supposedly misses me.
He walks over to the elevator and punches the button.
“But how are you taking this? I mean, you just told me you guys haven’t talked in three years, and—”
“I’m fine, I promise. I just remembered I have something to do,” he lies, and I raise my eyebrows in question. Yeah right…“I’m serious.” He pecks my cheek and enters the open elevator. “I’ll talk to you later.” The elevator door shuts before I can even say a word.
“I’m worried about you,” I whisper to myself and shake my head, turning from the elevator.
The grinding of metal and the swooshing sound of the elevator door opening stops me from getting far. I turn around, expecting Mason to come back to talk, but am met with Grey literally falling into my arms. And he reeks of liquor.
Oh, Grey.
“Now it’s you I’m worried about.” I drag his body in and press the button, closing the doors. “What happened? Why do you smell like you bathed in whiskey? And why—”
“Shhh.” He jams a finger against my lips and whispers, “You talk too much, and—my head hurts.”
“Because you were drinking, genius,” I snap, turning on my feet and struggling to get him to the bedroom.
“Why thank you, princesa,” he coos with a drunken smile as he plays with my hair.
I hate how much he turns into a child when drunk, meaning I have to babysit him. But I guess it’s better than him being a mean, violent drunk. I wouldn’t be able to deal with him if he were to ever even breathe a whisper of hurting me. I’d ruin him before he could lay a pinky on me. However, I get this Grey. The Grey that giggles and coos at me.
I lay him on the bed and walk over to the wall, flipping the light switch on. “I don’t understand why you’re drunk at five in the evening. Happy hour hasn’t even started.” I turn around and walk over to him, clenching the end of his black shirt. He squirms beneath my touch. “Can you even hear me?”
He groans as he leans up and sweeps his nose against mine; I push him away. I am not in the mood for this.
“I can hear your bitching perfectly clear.”
“Fuck you.” I push him back, and he closes his eyes and chuckles. I’m going to curse him out further for lying to me, but my eyes land on his face and I shut up. There is a semi-deep cut on his left cheek and blood staining his lips. “You got in a fight at the bar?”
“Maybe,” he grumbles, giving a mere shrug.
“Stay still,” I demand.
He slowly lays back, unmoving.
Great, so I know I have a motherly voice, though I may never be one…
Ignoring that little dig I took toward myself, I examine the cut. It isn’t so deep that he needs stitches, but it does need a bandage and a good scrub before it can become infected.
“Don’t move. I’ll be right back,” I tell him in that same motherly voice and, groaning, he rolls his head to the side.
I leave for the bathroom. I grab the pain killers, a large Band-Aid, and alcohol wipes. When I return, he’s hunched over on the other side of the bed—his side, the left. And he doesn’t look as drunk as I left him. He looks…harder somehow, aware. Is he not drunk, or is he? Even possibly intoxicated, he can’t make up his damned mind.
“Grey? Are you okay?” I ask calmly, walking over to him. He doesn’t reply, and I sigh, getting on my knees in front of him. His gaze pins to me like glue, but I fight it off as I lay the items in my hand on the ground.
I rip open the alcohol wipes and look up at him. He stares at me with an odd look I can’t pin down; it makes me nervous something is really wrong. And he won’t tell me. Ugh! It hurts that he still won’t talk to me.
“Grey?”
“Shut up,” he snaps, removing his hands from his face.
“Excuse me?”
He rolls his eyes and runs his hands over his hair but doesn’t say anything. I don’t—how am I the bad guy here? I’m just trying to help, and all he wants is to scream at me and push me away. But doesn’t he know that I won’t leave him? Obviously my telling him that I love him more than a million times hasn’t reach his ears yet.
“Grey, what’s wrong?”
“Your insufferable need to nag me,” he snaps again, and this time, I return his glare and slap his knee. His face only hardens, but I don’t care. He can’t talk to me like that.
“I’m just trying to help you,” I tell him through gritted teeth. “Now, you can either help me understand and tell me where you went and why you came back smelling like you drank an entire bar or sulk in pain like the bastard you are.”
He guffaws and nods sarcastically. “I don’t need to tell you everything, you know. I didn’t know you’d become my mother when I agreed to be with you.”
“How do I suddenly become your mother when all I’m asking is where you were?” I can never, in a million years, understand what goes on in that mind of his.
He doesn’t say anything.
“Grey, please,” I beg and tilt his chin down to look at me, but he pulls away, and I slump my shoulders. “Was it that ‘D’ person you got in a fight with? Or that mean, old guy at the bar a few blocks over? And what did David have to do with it?”
“Will you just stop it?” he screams, his veins throbbing against his throat.
I stay silent as he and I have a deadly staring match. What I can’t understand is, why is he acting this way? Before he left with David, we were on a good path. I should have known the blissful state we were in wouldn’t last.
“Tell me what’s wrong, Grey.” I try again, but he just laughs coldly and pushes away from me. I stand up and watch him dig through his scalp before facing me with a wicked smile.
“Why should I? Am I not allowed to do anything on my own without getting hounded?”
“You’re allowed to do whatever you want. I’m not your mother. But I would like to know what’s going on.”
“As usual.” He laughs so loud, I nearly flinch, but I keep my ground before this transforming beast. A beast I thought I slayed a long time ago. Or at least sedated. But I guess he’s coming back out to play. “You just have to know everything. Every single thing about me. Why is that, huh? Is your life so fucking boring that you have to invade mine?” he screams in my face.
For a moment, I’m scared and confused…but then I realize he’s an asshole, and I do not have to stand here and get attacked for fucking caring!
“I’m done,” I say in a calm voice as I walk around him.
“With what? Me?” he asks incredulously.
“Yeah, maybe I am,” I say with a shrug. “Or maybe I’m just tired of jumping back a hundred spaces in our relationship.”
“Relationship?” he scoffs as his eyebrows jump to the ceiling. “You call us fucking and fighting constantly a relationship? If so, we have a pretty pathetic one, don’t you think?”
“No, what I think is that you’re an asshole and I’m dumb enough to stick around this long.” I storm out of the room and push him like I usually do for answers. But I don’t have the energy to do so. What I can do though is get away from here until he’s come down from his drunk state and is ready to speak like normal adults.
“Where the fuck are you going?” he screams after me.
I ignore him and let the elevator door close.