I meant what I said. I could definitely get used to this—it barely even registered that I’d just met these girls an hour ago. They were just like Derek, laid-back and easy to talk to. Their voices weren’t going up several octaves when they talked to me; they weren’t throwing themselves at every guy they saw—or any guy really. Two things I couldn’t stand when I went bar hopping. No, these girls were just hanging out and having fun.
When I’d followed Derek earlier and we arrived at the table, I hadn’t even realized it was the same table I was staring at earlier until I moved around him and my eyes landed on her light-green ones. She was still sitting, so all I could make out was her minimally made-up face and simple, dark-floral tank top.
Thankfully, since Naomi’s return, Alara seemed to be less nervous. Even though it was probably nothing personal, I hated it when women felt uncomfortable around me. Naomi was giving Alara updates on the friends she ran into while I searched the room. Derek and Sherry still hadn’t returned to the table, and I had yet to see them even re-enter to the bar.
“So no girls caught your eye tonight?” Naomi asked, bringing my attention back to the table.
Alara’s eyes seemed to widen in warning, but Naomi purposefully kept her stare on me.
“Maybe,” I said casually as I took a drink of beer.
“And yet here you sit.” Naomi gestured up and down at me.
“College bars have never really been my thing, even when I was in college. The girls are just…” At their equally high eyebrows, I frowned. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded… I mean, you guys are obviously different…” I trailed off as they continued to sit silently with their arms crossed over their chests. Just as I began rubbing the back of my neck, they started laughing.
“Relax. We’ve already established I’m not the biggest fan of bars,” Alara said before gesturing to Naomi. “And she doesn’t really get offended by anything.”
“It’s true.” Naomi nodded as she wrapped her lips around the straw in her drink.
“But I don’t understand. Why’d you get a job at a bar that exclusively serves college students?” Alara asked.
I shrugged and waved my hand at the crowd before us. “I don’t hate it. I just know I’ll get enough of the obnoxiousness at work. I don’t want to spend my free time around it, too.” At my pause, Alara lifted her eyebrows and pinned Naomi with a look that said, See? “I usually don’t come out unless someone else suggests it and I have nothing better to do.”
“What’s so obnoxious about it?” Naomi asked.
I gave her a wry look. “You can’t deny that people who visit bars regularly are definitely in a separate group from those who don’t. And the group that goes is usually more obnoxious.”
“So it’s about the people,” Naomi concluded, and I got the distinct impression she was gearing up for a fight.
“Yeah, I guess.” I shrugged.
“She,” Naomi paused and pointed to Alara, “was forced, too. Maybe half the people in this bar were forced, and you could be missing out on meeting some really great people because you think everyone in here is the same. And I’m going to assume the traits you’re assigning aren’t very nice.”
“You’re right. But in reality, most people in here live up to those traits.” I saw the protest in Naomi eyes as her mouth opened. “Ah-ah-ah, before you say anything, let me finish. I’m not saying every person in here is like that. I don’t assume that. But a majority of them are—bars have a reputation for a reason, and people go to them, men and women alike, because of that reputation. I’m not trying to be an ass. Sometimes I don’t mind the college bar scene, like tonight,” I said with a glance in Alara’s direction, “but most of the time, it’s a lot of the same.”
“Hmm… I guess I can accept that answer,” Naomi replied with a thoughtful, if not slightly reluctant, look on her face.
“Oh, thank God,” I deadpanned with a hand over my heart. “How would I go to sleep tonight?”
“Wow, I never thought I’d see the day where Naomi admitted defeat so easily.”
“My turn?” I asked. Naomi and Alara looked at each other before they gave me a questioning glance. “It seems a little hypocritical of you to be grilling me about finding a girl when neither of you are off looking for someone. So… what about you two?” I asked, settling more on Alara.
“Nope, no girls caught my eye tonight,” Alara answered through a smile before taking a sip of her drink.
I smiled, only half relieved. “And what about guys?”
Before Alara could answer, Naomi interrupted with her own response. “I have a boyfriend who I don’t think would approve of me hitting on guys… or girls.”
I nodded and looked back at Alara. “Okay, she gets a pass,” I said as I tipped my head toward Naomi. “But what about you? Even if you didn’t want to come out tonight, surely you could still look?”
“She doesn’t usually date,” Naomi said.
Alara shot her an exasperated and slightly mortified look before quickly schooling her expression and offering me a tight smile.
My brow furrowed as I looked back and forth between them. “What does that mean? You—”
I was cut off as Sherry came back to the table and squeezed in next to Naomi. “Hey, what are we talking about?”
I was ready to finish my question when Naomi started bouncing in her seat and shooing Sherry back out. “I have to pee! Move. Move. Move.” Sherry shrugged and left for the bar again while Naomi grabbed Alara’s hand and yanked her along, leaving me with an empty table and a head full of questions.
…
The lack of other voices allowed my mind to circle back to all the things I didn’t want to think about. I let out a sigh as I stood and walked toward the bar. After ten minutes of waiting, I grabbed my third beer and turned to walk to the table when I caught sight of Alara coming out of the bathroom at the other end of the bar. The crowd was thick, but somehow I had a direct view of her, and now that she was standing, I could see the full extent of her figure.
She had to be just a few inches shorter than me, and while she was in no way petite, she wasn’t what I would consider overweight either. Her broad shoulders and short waist provided a perfect frame for her large breasts, and the dark-floral tank top she wore showcased it all perfectly. Her black jeans hugged her legs in all the right places; her hips flared out slightly farther than her breasts before tapering to slightly smaller thighs and slim calves. It was the perfect hourglass shape. When she turned and I saw her profile, I had to actively work to keep my mouth closed. I’d never considered myself a boob or ass man, but looking at her now, I couldn’t imagine ever having to choose between them.
Her eyes traveled back to our table that had since been occupied by other bar hoppers in my absence, and a frown formed on her full pink lips. She shuffled on her feet, and her eyes scanned the crowd before they settled on something in the far corner. I followed her stare and found Sherry talking to some guy. When I turned my eyes back to Alara, someone had blocked her path, and body language alone told me he was trying to pick her up. She smiled and stayed put, seemingly receptive to his advances.
Dejected, I began walking away when Naomi’s words from earlier made me pause. She doesn’t date. I turned around in time to see him grab her arm and pull her toward him. I immediately started moving, setting my untouched beer on a waitress’s fast-moving tray. By the time I got there, Alara was struggling in his embrace and trying to move past him. I could see she was trying to stay calm, but the relief in her eyes was obvious when she saw me over his wide shoulder.
“It looks like she’s not interested.” I gripped his forearm, and when he turned around, I saw it was the same asshole from earlier. Connor? Carter?
“Fuck off,” he bit out, his eyes still roaming over Alara’s body.
God, I hoped I hadn’t looked that repulsive when I was checking her out.
“Let her go.”
“She your girl?” His speech had become more slurred, and when he turned toward me, he kept his hold on her, causing her to stumble forward. When he fully took in my face, his eyes flared with recognition. He smirked, and I watched as he gripped her harder, causing her to wince when he pulled her closer. “A date for a date. It’s only fair considering how you ran mine off earlier.” His words dripped with acidity.
“I said let her go,” I practically growled. When he made no move to do so, I stepped closer and spoke lower. “Hands. Off. Now.”
He ignored me and turned to Alara. “I promise to show you a much better time than him. Whadaya say?” Her discomfort turned to panic as he placed his other hand on her stomach and began lowering it toward her pants. Those light-green eyes shone brighter in the worst way as tears sprang up.
My hand shot out like lightning as I roughly grabbed his descending hand. “Touch her again and I’ll break your hand.”
He whistled long and low. “You must have one tight pussy if it’s worth assault,” he said as his eyes ran over her once more.
Grabbing him by the collar, I twisted his arm until he let her go, and we watched as she stumbled before righting herself. I towed him forward just as he spat in my face and began slurring barely intelligible insults.
It happened so fast, I barely had time to register it. One second, the three of us were standing there, and the next, my fist was throbbing at my side as I looked down at Alara and that asshole in a heap on the floor. While I was elated to see him crumpled on the floor, holding his nose, blood gushing between his fingers, I was equally horrified when I saw Alara half pinned under him, clutching her side and fighting to breathe.
“What the fuck happened?” Derek shouted as he pulled on my arm. Ignoring him, I raked my hands through my hair and turned back around to see his friends from earlier walking over, while Naomi and Sherry had arrived to pick Alara off the ground.
She glanced at me with wide eyes, confusion written all over her face. Then her face twisted in a grimace, and my eyes dropped to her midsection, which she was still holding. The floral shirt I was admiring moments ago was rising and falling with her erratic breaths as she tried to calm herself. I made my way back up to her eyes, hoping my guilt was plain to see, but I couldn’t discern her thoughts quickly enough before Derek walked around me and toward the drunk still bleeding on the floor.
“What the fuck?” he roared seconds before he gripped the guy’s shirt and hauled him up, only to punch him in the stomach. He dropped to the floor again, and the commotion began to draw the attention of bar employees.
“Hey!” Naomi screamed as she got between Derek and his target. “You two need to get the hell out of here.”
“No fucking way—” Derek began, only to be interrupted.
“You’re only making this worse. Look.” She paused to point out two bouncers who were separating the crowd and rapidly approaching. “They’ll come over here and take care of this asshole, but you two need to leave before any of this shit lands on you. Derek, I’m serious. You know you can’t afford an assault charge.” Naomi looked at him meaningfully as they had a silent conversation I couldn’t interpret.
“Fine,” he bit out before pulling me through the crowd toward the exit.
Only after he shoved me out the door did my mouth catch up with my brain. “We can’t just leave. We have to make sure she’s okay.” I moved to turn around, but he quickly blocked my advances.
“I’ll text Naomi later, but she’s right—we need to leave. I don’t think anyone saw you hit him, but they definitely saw me, so we’d better get out of here before anyone gets a good look at us.”
Glancing over his shoulder, I shifted my feet with indecision.
“Gabe, the last fucking thing on this fucking planet that I want to do right now is get in this fucking car and leave them in there, but Naomi was right. Sher and Naomi are with her, and they’ll take care of her. We’ll talk to them later, preferably without sirens in the background.”
Relenting, I nodded and followed him to the car. The drive was quiet, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Derek pulled into a spot in front of our apartment and killed the engine, but neither of us made a move to get out.
“Thanks,” he said quietly. When I looked over, he had a death grip on the steering wheel and was looking straight ahead.
“For what?” I asked in disgust as I turned to look out my window. “I’m the reason she was trapped underneath that asshole.”
He let out an exhausted breath, and I saw his grip loosen out of the corner of my eye. “I saw what happened. I was just too slow in getting over to you guys. He deserved what he got.”
“He did. But she got hurt in the process, and that’s on me.”
“No, it’s not. It was an accident.”
“An accident I caused,” I said forcefully.
Derek was quiet for several minutes, and when he finally opened his door, I thought he would remain that way, but he didn’t. “Consequence is not the same thing as fault,” he said right before he lifted himself out and shut the door.
I replayed every part of those five minutes for the rest of night. I wasn’t a violent or angry person by nature. Yeah, that guy was an asshole, but there were a lot of assholes in the world, and I didn’t go around punching every one of them.
I closed my eyes against the darkness and let myself actively think about the one thing I’d been trying to block out since I got back. My mother. Had it really only been days since I moved back home? Only days since the first anniversary of her death?
Despite trying to keep her far from my mind, it was useless. The fight tonight proved as much. It seemed even if my mind could forget, my body couldn’t. My mind had been blissfully ignorant tonight, but my body still remembered the helplessness, the sorrow, and the anger. I didn’t wonder why I punched that guy at the slightest provocation; I wondered why I hadn’t been walking around punching people for days.
I think I was still in shock as Sherry bombarded me with questions and Naomi apologized repeatedly for taking so long. The guy responsible for this whole mess glared at me as his friends finally got him up and mumbled halfhearted apologies. They quickly dragged him out the door Gabe and Derek left through five minutes ago. Within minutes, the bar returned to normal, but I definitely did not.
“Come on. Let’s get out of here.” Naomi wrapped her arm around my shoulder and led me toward the door.
“I can’t believe he punched him,” Sherry said as soon as we got in the cab.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just… can we please, please talk about something else?” I begged. My mind was pleasantly numb after being lost in a dozen conflicting emotions for the past ten minutes, and I wanted to enjoy the peace.
“Like what?” Naomi asked.
“Kevin asked me on a date.” Sherry shrugged casually before staring out the window.
“He did?” Naomi reached across me to slap Sherry’s arm, but in the process, she clipped my injured side, causing me to groan.
“Sorry, sorry.” Naomi winced and lifted her hands by her head.
“Yeah,” Sherry answered like nothing had happened.
“What’d you say? What’d you say?” Naomi asked in a flurry of excitement.
Sherry raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “What do you think I said? What do I always say?”
“No,” we responded in unison. I smiled, and it was only a little bit harder than usual, as Naomi chuckled. But when her eyes focused on me, the grin that had taken form quickly fell, and she looked troubled. She mouthed, You okay? The clouds in her eyes lifted a little when I gave her a small smile.
“It’d be stupid.”
“What would?” I asked Sherry.
“Going out on a date and pretending I’m long-term girlfriend material.”
“The only reason you’re not long-term girlfriend material is because you’ve never tried and you’ve never wanted to be. I’m in the same boat. It doesn’t mean we’re incapable of it,” I said.
A myriad of emotions flashed across her face. Sadness. Pain. Anger. Fear. Longing. Love. Hope. Joy. Each one left as quickly as it came, until she settled on very forced humor.
“We’re in the same boat?” she asked with a laugh.
Frowning, I looked over at Naomi, only to discover her laughing. Okay, maybe it didn’t look forced to everyone…
But I knew a forced smile. I had perfected the forced smile. However, as I continued to stare at Sherry, I saw a pleading in her eyes I didn’t even think she was aware of, so I let it go.
“Well, we’re at least docked in the same harbor.” I shrugged as the three of us started laughing. Naomi abruptly stopped and leaned over me again.
“Wait… when did this even happen? I thought you were off hooking up with my brother?”
“Nah, he bought me that drink, but then we went our separate ways. Believe it or not, I don’t like pissing you off. At least not all the time.”
“You could have fooled me,” Naomi said right as the cab pulled up to our complex.
We all filed out and silently made our way into the apartment. The threshold seemed to be a switch for our exhaustion, because within ten minutes, we were all in our pajamas with our makeup only haphazardly taken off and dragging our pillows and blankets into the living room. Sherry got her stuff out of the hall closet as we all made ourselves comfortable on the floor in the common area, just like we always did when Sherry stayed over.
“Hey, guys?” I asked tentatively.
“Yeah?” Sherry asked around a yawn.
“Thanks for making me go out tonight.” I paused, surprised by how much I meant it, especially since I ended the night bruised and on the floor, before shifting around to face them. “I think I had a good time,” I ended on a whisper.
“Well, of course you did,” Sherry said before she lightly started snoring.
Naomi simply looked at me with a smile that was sad, worried, hopeful, happy, and relieved all at once.
Minutes later, I drifted off to sleep.
…
I woke up to a bear dying right next to my ear. Okay, not really. But that’s what a snoring Sherry sounded like. God help her future husband.
When I turned my head, I felt a kink in my neck, and I groaned as I stretched it out, but as I moved, I became aware of the other physical pains I’d forgotten about. I lifted my shirt to reveal a decent-sized bruise on my hip from where it hit the floor last night. A few other parts were sore, but at least there were no other visible marks—
Oh.
I sighed as I looked down at the wrist pulling my shirt back down, and frowned at the finger-shaped bruises forming. I threw the blanket off me and padded to the kitchen, grabbing some water before glancing at the clock. It read just after 8:00 a.m.
“You’re up.” I turned around to see Naomi leaning against the entryway to the kitchen, a piece of paper in one hand and her glasses in the other.
“Yeah, how come we always forget how freaking loud she is?” I asked as I looked toward the wall that separated us from Sherry.
Naomi laughed as she entered the kitchen and leaned against the counter opposite me.
“I guess we just remember what we want to remember.” She gave me a sad smile that had my eyebrows bunching together.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Because if this is about last night, I’m fine.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but that only seemed to make her frown deepen.
She gripped the paper in her hand before holding it out to me. Cautiously, I took it, noting the jagged edge where it had been ripped out of a binder before smoothing it out. When I looked down, I was grateful I had put my water on the counter behind me, because if I hadn’t, I surely would have dropped it.
Scrawled in familiar black handwriting was:
There’s a crack in my mind,
That I don’t know how to heal.
There are demons in my head,
People tell me are not real.
The voices are my own,
Speaking words I don’t believe.
Convincing me I’m worthless,
And that everyone will leave.
You want me to be better,
Don’t you think I want the same?
But you’ve convinced yourself it’s nothing,
Or that I’m the one to blame.
So I’ll tell you that I’m “fine,”
Because that’s all you want to hear.
And I’ll conceal it with a smile,
While hiding all the fear.
I’ll bury all the feelings,
And I’ll cut out all the pain.
But that won’t mean I’m healed,
I’ve just chosen to not “complain.”
Because being sad was only half of it,
And it was not the half to kill.
The downfall began when I started to feel nothing,
When I slowly lost my will.
“Do you remember writing that?” Naomi asked softly.
I nodded, unable to find my voice as my eyes continued boring holes into the page. Of course I remembered writing it. It’s hard to forget any part of it when you’re constantly terrified of it coming back.
“When I found that in your room, I cried for like an hour after reading it.” I looked up to see her staring at the paper right before she gave a humorless laugh. “God, I felt like such a shit friend… that I couldn’t see it.”
I grabbed her hand. “I didn’t want you to.”
“I should have seen it anyway.” I opened my mouth, but she cut me off. “It just sucks is what I’m saying. We both could have done things differently, and it just sucks that this is something we have to deal with.”
I smiled at her use of we.
“I just want to make sure you’ll tell me if you’re not fine. Because I wasn’t worried when you were crying or when you had emptied half your closet out onto the floor. I worried when you were numb. When I came to see you and all you’d be doing was staring out the window or up at the ceiling. When I had to say your name four times before you responded.”
I laughed as a thought suddenly occurred to me. “Was that why we started doing random things like breaking plates and screaming underwater?”
Her eyes lost some of their sadness as she laughed with me. “Yeah. I wanted to make sure you knew it was okay to feel those things. Which is why every time you said ‘fine’ last night, I wanted to strangle you. Because I can’t tell if you’re really fine or if it’s a cover. I don’t want you to think—”
“I know. And I promise I was telling the truth.”
She looked at me for a long time before nodding. And even though there was probably more to say, we both tapered out into comfortable silence, content with how much was said.
But Naomi could never stay silent for long, and as she started up the coffee maker a few minutes later, she said, “So I talked to Derek last night.”
“Is he okay? How’s Gabe’s hand? How’s Derek?” I winced when I thought of how much worse it could have been.
Naomi waved away my concern. “He’s fine.” She turned around with a smirk firmly in place and mischief in her eyes. “But he did say Gabe was pretty upset.”
I rolled my eyes; I should have known where this was going. “Don’t start. I thought we decided he was off-limits, since he’s Derek’s roommate.”
“I don’t remember having that conversation.”
“Me neither,” Sherry said around a yawn as she came into the kitchen.
“Fine. I decided he’s off-limits and I’m sticking to it.” They must have heard something final in my tone, because after giving each other a cautious, we’ll-come-back-to-it look, they shrugged and began preparing their coffee. I turned around and started digging things out of the fridge to make breakfast.
He’s off-limits. Because he’s Derek’s roommate. Because I wasn’t serious when I said I was ready to start dating. Because I barely know him, so there’s no way I like him already. It’s definitely not because I’m a neurotic scaredy-cat with commitment and trust issues. Noooo, siree. That’s not what this is about at all. At. All.
I sighed.
Thank God I’m not an actress.