Page 61 of F*ck You

“You’re fucking insane!” she yelled at me through broken sobs before turning and running away.

“That’s right, bitch, run away and cry!” I taunted as she took off, and I couldn’t stop from snarling as I watched her retreat.

Whoever was holding me back placed his forearm over my chest, pinning me to him. Once she was out of sight, I stopped struggling and stood in place with a defeated huff.

“Man, let her go. She’s fine.” Larsen walked up to me and nodded at the guy behind me who dropped his arms and stepped away. I looked up at Larsen and the concern in his eyes. I knew he didn’t do anything wrong, it was only now registering that he pushed her away before I even got there, but I couldn’t stop my vision from tinging red.

“I need a fucking drink.” I grabbed the nearest bottle and walked away, picking up my bag as I did so.

“Starfish.” Larsen followed after me, trying to keep up. I uncapped the bottle and took a massive swig of the sweet liquid. Coconut rum, my favorite. I took several large gulps, downing at least a quarter of the bottle.

“Lee, hold up—”

“No, I need to be alone.” I put the bottle to my lips again as I walked, dripping some of the sticky substance down my chin in the process as I tried to drink the entire damn bottle in one go. At the rate I was going, I’d need to find another one soon. Why the fuck didn’t I grab two?

“We can talk about this,” Chase insisted, trying to reason with me as he caught up to my insanely long strides. “She isn’t worth it. But you are. No matter what she tries to do, she’ll never have anything on you.”

I swallowed the drink and pulled the bottle down with such force, the clear liquid sloshed from the bottle and all over the sand. What a fucking waste of perfectly good rum.

“No matter what happens, she’s always going to have something on me. History. You guys practically grew up with her. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve fucked her or at least dated her once.” The silence told me what I didn’t want to know, and I screamed my frustration to the sky. “Well, that’s fucking great.”

A strangled laugh escaped my throat before I took another swig and stomped my way to the edge of the beach. Lee’s fucked up life had a plot twist, who could have ever guessed things could get any worse?

“It was one time, long ago, before we even knew you existed,” Larsen confessed, as he hurried to keep pace with me. “Believe me when I say that if we’d met you before then, things would have been much different. It’s not fair to judge someone by their past.”

“No, it’s not,” I agreed. “You really should’ve judged me by mine, though, and avoided all the problems I keep bringing you into. Your lives were perfect before I blew in, and now here we are.”

Chase joined on my other side. “A pity party isn’t going to fix things.”

“No, but a bottle might.”

“Lee, can’t we just talk about this?” His usually calm voice was laced with fear. Normally, I’d want to calm that fear, but I was in no position to console anyone when I couldn’t even calm myself.

I reached my truck, the one thing that had always been there for me for as long as I could remember. The one and only constant in my life, where I could scream and cry and not be judged or told to shut up. Where I could drive anywhere I wanted, or even run away with no destination in mind.

Without thinking clearly since my brain was in overdrive with hatred for my entire situation, I unlocked the door and stepped in. A hand appeared as I started to close the door and threw it fully open, revealing Chase’s heated face. I gulped at the look in his eyes, the one that marred his otherwise beautiful blue orbs and turned them into something gruesome. I didn’t even recognize him in this moment, and I felt my own tinge of fear for the unknown of what was about to happen. Something entirely different rose to the surface as he stared daggers at me. He wasn’t only pissed off, there was a myriad of emotions swirling in his face.

His voice was so low, I could have been fooled into believing it wasn’t even him speaking. “You’re really going to do this, drink half a bottle of liquor and then fucking drive? You really think this shit is worth it, that your own life isn’t worth staying and fighting for, let alone us?”

“Do I really have a choice, Chase?” My voice rose with a hint of hysteria. I was a woman unchained with no fucking idea what I was doing. For all I knew, I was probably still passed out on the beach from that first night I’d arrived, and this was all nothing but a dream. Or the most fucked up nightmare I’d ever had. I almost wanted to pinch myself awake so I could go back to the other kind of hurt, because the one that was displayed in their faces churned my stomach.

“You always have a choice. You chose to leave your past behind and try out something new. And things were going pretty great. You no longer felt the need to find normalcy with the help of a bottle, instead you found joy outside of your comfort zone. And now you’ve picked it up again and are trying to make the worst mistake you possibly could. And I’m not talking about only drinking yourself unconscious, because that would be a safer mistake to make than this one.”

“What mistake is that?” My mouth kept working independently of my mind. I knew I should shut up and let him keep talking, because anything that came out of my mouth right now was fueled by buzzed hysteria and anger, but that link between my brain and mouth seemed to be severed. “Tell me, Chase, how could I possibly fuck things up even more than I’ve already been expertly doing?

“Drinking and driving.” The words came out through clenched teeth as though they were the most difficult words for him to say, but I heard them clear as day. He spat them out like glass to concrete.

I knew those words should have hit me harder than they did, but what could I do? I was prone to self-destruction, as was evident by the poor way I handled most of my stressful situations. If they didn’t realize by now that I was a lost cause, then I’d have to make it obvious.

Going against my better judgment of submitting to the glare in his eyes and admitting my action was wrong, I stared him down and put the bottle to my lips for another quick sip, not even blinking or breaking eye contact for a moment.

His nostrils flared as he gritted his jaw and thought about his next words. A fury that churned my stomach appeared in his gaze, darkening the color of his eyes like the worst tropical storm.

“You may think that’s cute, but it’s not.” His words were spoken with such coldness that they iced their way down my spine, freezing me to the torn, faux leather seat beneath my ass. “I know you saw the pictures in my house, and I know you saw her room. Her name was Chelsea.”

My full attention was hanging on his every word, and my ears perked up. I knew this was important, and I was about to get answers, but I also knew those answers would most likely cut me deeper than any knife in my kitchen.

Despite the word vomit about my past from all the open wounds I was still carrying around, he hadn’t talked too much about his own. He carried scars, but not in a way for the world to see. I hadn’t known what they were from, and now I realized that I never once cared enough to pry into something that I’d thought was healed.

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