Not So Far Away (Worlds Collide The Duets #1) - LL Meyer Page 0,59
mood. “Twelve bucks,” he says flatly when he places the drink down in front of me.
Twelve?! Twelve dollars for one drink? How did I not know that? I hand him my only twenty and wait for the change. My outrage dulls considerably as I raise the glass and get a whiff of the most glorious smell in the world; it’s good times, laughter, sex, joy, euphoria all rolled into one. I bring the glass to my mouth and the anticipation all but strangles me. There’s a short pause in the beat of the song that’s currently playing, and in that second, two things happen. One, the liquid heaven hits my taste buds, and two, I hear a high-pitched exclamation of excitement, a name, over the general din.
“Escotty!”
It’s pronounced in Spanish, but my brain easily pulls it apart and identifies it. It came from upstairs. My mouth still full of alcohol, I look up at the balcony. His height and his sandy blond hair make him easy to spot, right there against the railing.
My entire world screeches to a halt. I spit the mouthful of alcohol back into the glass. Every question imaginable crams its way into my mind as I watch him bend to receive a kiss on the cheek from one of his friends. He’s laughing with her, his profile relaxed, a beer in his hand, like he’s having the time of his life.
And I’m . . . holy shit . . . I . . .
With a trembling hand, I very carefully place the martini glass back on the bar.
Oh my god.
All the questions in my head become realizations, realizations that crush and choke and set my heartrate into a painful, body quaking, erratic thump. I clutch at my chest, light-headed for a moment. Then the burn of the alcohol registers on my tongue. It tastes like horror.
I almost took a drink.
I’m suddenly blind and deaf to everything except the mind-tearing truth of what I almost did.
I almost took a drink.
Heedless of the complaints, I push my way through the crowd toward the doors, stumbling out into the night air, struggling to control my panic and my quaking limbs. Chico, the bouncer, calls out to me, but I wave him off.
The walk to my car is a blur, but once I’m seated in the driver’s seat, how close I came to betraying myself swamps me. Horrified beyond all recognition, I take some deep breaths in an attempt to calm myself. I need to get home, but my hands are shaking so badly that I worry I won’t be able to drive. Forcing my shoulders down from around my ears, I hear myself whisper, “You’re okay. You didn’t do it. It’s fine. You didn’t do it.”
I turn the key in the ignition and take comfort in the familiar rumble of my car.
“You’re okay,” I repeat.
But I can feel it gathering inside of me like a dark tempest; the self-recrimination, the disgust, the soul-squeezing disappointment. I stare at the brightly lit, yellow check engine light on the dash in a daze.
A horn sounding brings me back to myself. “You leaving or what?” some guy hanging out the window of his car yells.
Right. Home.
I make the drive swiping away tears and swallowing back the bitter tastes of alcohol and reproach. At home, the first thing I do is rush into the bathroom. Slathering my toothbrush with toothpaste, I scrub my mouth out over and over again.
Oh my god, I almost took a drink.
When I’m finally satisfied, I force myself to look in the mirror.
“You almost fucked up, Ellie,” I say unsteadily to my reflection. “But you didn’t. You’re fine.”
Fine?! I’m not fine?!
I can’t stand the sight of myself. Shaking out my hands, I take deep breaths as I leave the bathroom to pace the living room. My attempts to calm down fail utterly when I notice that goddamned casserole sitting on the counter.
Wrenching open the cupboard under the sink, I chuck the entire thing into the garbage.
How dare he treat me like that?
But then, almost immediately, his betrayal is burned away by my own.
How dare I almost give up? How dare I almost fall back into that empty, life-sucking black hole?
Staring down at the casserole that’s oozing over the edges of the pan in the trash can, I can’t help but imagine how this mess could easily have resembled my new reality, how I could have gone back to being that self-disrespecting train wreck I’d come to loathe.