Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,51

pain through her knuckles, which

coincided with a fit of laughter at how satisfying it was to drunkenly

punch a wall in anger. She did it a second time, too in love with the

thought of it not to try again. The pain was too bad for a third attempt.

She hurled a bowl of chip crumbles across the yard, and it soared like

a broken Frisbee. She broke the chair Joey Planko had sat in against

the lawn, leaving wooden splinters sticking out of the scorched grass

at dangerous angles.

172 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

She pictured Dave—her Dave, the funniest guy she knew, her best

friend, the only person she could even imagine spending her days

with—side by side with cookie-cutter Gretchen and her perfect blond

waves and Julia broke into laughter so uncontrollable she had to lie

down and let it tear through her. She ripped out a patch of grass and

ripped the blades to shreds, throwing them in the air like confetti. As

the bits of green rained down on her, she thought about waking up the

guy on the couch and kissing him as an act of revenge, but she settled

on going to the kitchen and finding more beer. Whether to drink or

throw she hadn’t yet decided.

Julia loved Dave. And she would tear her house apart to prove it.

Julia woke up to the sound of the garage door rumbling open.

Sunlight streamed into her room. She’d forgotten to close the blinds

last night, and she hadn’t bothered to change out of her clothes. She

was on top of her bedding, sweating slightly from the heat, her head

pounding, a pain in her hand. In the far corner of her room, her

phone lay facedown on the carpet, she didn’t know why. It looked

like it’d been thrown against the wall, but she couldn’t remember

doing that. Ugh, alcohol.

The garage door rumbled shut, and she heard the muffled voices

of her dads getting out of the car. Julia wondered if her dads would

wait to ambush her downstairs or if they’d come barging in. Then, in a

flash, she remembered the love seat that she’d drunkenly dragged into

the bathroom. Looping this image into the memory of last night, she

JULIA 173

knew it had happened after Dave had left, though it felt like something

they would have done together. She laughed into her pillow, as pieces

of the night started coming back, knowing for a fact now that the

dads would be running in at any moment. She was so hungover that

laughing hurt; she felt like a desert floor with cracks running through

it. Looking over at her empty nightstand, she wished her drunken self

had been smart enough to get a glass of water for this exact moment.

The dads started stomping their way up the stairs. They knocked

twice, loud and hard, like a couple of gunshots. Tom came in first,

his face bright red, the way it looked when he had even a sip of wine.

Ethan, in poorer shape, lagged behind, huffing from the hurried climb

up the stairs.

“Julia,” Tom said, arms crossed in front of his chest, “care to explain

why the hell my house looks the way that it does?”

Julia decided she was going to lie in bed and take the yelling barrage

without comment for a while. She tried to remember getting into bed

last night, but all that came to her was a fuzzy memory of a bonfire,

which felt more like something out of a dream. Why did her hand

hurt? And why hadn’t Dave slept over, sprawled out next to her bed in

that musky sleeping bag like he usually did?

“There’s a hole in my wall, ash all over my carpet, and a crusty

puddle of puke on my suede couch,” Tom was yelling, that vein in his

neck starting to pop out. Ethan was standing by the door, biting his

thumb, looking like he was the one in trouble. “There’s trash all over

the place, and that doesn’t even come close to mattering compared to

174 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

the fact that you had underage kids drinking here. The whole school

judging by how many empty beer cans are around. Do you realize how

irresponsible that is?”

The memory of a fight with Dave appeared suddenly, her on the

verge of tears after he’d left. Wait. Had she drunkenly decided that she was in love with Dave? Julia almost laughed in the middle of her dad’s

tirade. Of all the stupid ideas people get when under the influence;

Julia shook her head at the thought. It couldn’t have actually happened.

And even if it did, Julia would plead temporary beer-induced insanity.

But it didn’t happen. “What if the cops had been called? What if

someone had been hurt?” Tom was leaning over her now,