Page 13 of Muddy Messy Love

In another few steps, I sigh. “Zoe and Slade.” My heart squeezes as their names dance together in the air.

Jen snorts. “They sound shit together, if you ask me.”

The good side of my face tugs into a smile, but Jen drops her gaze to the ground with a sharp inhale. “You know, I wanted to tell you her name. I wanted to blab everything Liam told me, but that’s not what you needed. It was hard enough already.”

I stare at her cherry-red boots, and they blur. “I know.”

I didn’t want details. I didn’t want any truth Jen delivered that day with sombre eyes and careful words as she sat there cradling my hands.

Riddle me this: What were the odds of Jen finding a boyfriend who knows mine? One who would recognise Slade’s name and swear he’s already taken? And tell me—what were the odds of being told this the day after losing my virginity?

Liam clears his throat, and his shoulders stiffen. I sense what’s coming, but it doesn’t matter now anyway. Pandora’s box has been ripped to shreds. “I don’t know Zoe well. We never hung out or nothing. Slade was a mate at school before he dropped out, but I only put up with him now ’cause of you. You get that, right?”

I look up at him, stunned. Guys are so strange. They can despise each other, and you’d never know until they tell you or fists fly. And even then, they can talk like nothing happened. “But…you let him drive your car.”

Liam shrugs. “I was hammered. He wasn’t.”

No, Slade wasn’t drunk; he was tripping balls. Beth wasn’t wrong on that front, but I won’t tell Liam that.

We make it out of Comet Park, and Liam’s car is safe, precisely where he left it—Zoe, nowhere to be seen.

“You take the front seat,” Jen says as Liam climbs behind the wheel.

Jen helps me in, but the second she shuts my door, I lower the sun visor and freeze. “Holy shit,” I whisper to the mirror. My heart pounds, and I slowly reach towards my face. My eye socket bulges like a pop-eyed fish’s, my lid sealed shut and stretched, and angry smears of purple and pink mar my right side. I’m a swollen, shiny mess. Unrecognisable, in fact. My throat closes, and tears spring. “Fuck.”

Liam’s a fountain of pity as he silently stares, and Jen squeezes my shoulder from the back. “It’s okay. You’ll heal. Let’s just get you to a doctor.”

I meet her reflection with a horrified expression, two seconds from losing my shit. I’m not sure what I expected, but Zoe reallyfucked me up. And as the gravity of the situation sinks in, I choke out the last decipherable words I can manage. “Please call Beth. I need my sister.”

Four

Some people are arseholestheir whole lives and never pay, yet I try it on for five minutes and get pummelled by the universe. How is that fair?

Perhaps I’m more awful than I know. Maybe Mum’s right about that. Perhaps I’m merely ungrateful—a glass-half-empty kind of girl. So many have it unimaginably worse, but I’ll use that knowledge to breed guilt, and that guilt to self-inflict further pain. Because no matter my awareness, I can’t seem to fucking stop. In any event, I don’t want to play anymore. I’ve fucked up my life seconds out the gate, and in three weeks I might be in jail.

Me.In jail.I won’t last a night.

With the untarnished side of my face buried in the pillow, I forage the bedside table for Advil, popping two from the blister pack before dragging myself upright and downing them dry. I press my bare feet into the carpet, watching as they sink into the grey plush pile, then drop my head into my hands.

It’s been three days, and Zoe’s fury still pulses inside my skull, snippets of that night replaying whenever I close my eyes. Then Beth’s question returns—the one that came after she rescued me again—circling like a whirlwind of rubbish in a grimy car park.

Are you done with him now?

It’s a question I don’t want to consider, but it plagues me regardless.

Beth wanted me to press charges too, but the prospect of more police, courts, and drama is one I can’t fathom. Everyone has a breaking point, and I’m walking the tightrope of mine as flames nip my heels. Pursuing a charge against Zoe would be akin to cutting the rope. Besides, I deserved it.

One day, someone will finally teach you a lesson, Avery Lee, and the angels will sing.

I stagger from my bed to the dresser, gaze firmly fixed on the floor. They warned me the bruising would get worse before better, and I have no desire to see it. Beth’s eyes tell me enough in the time they linger and the angle of her brows as they do.

“Good afternoon, sleepyhead.” Speak of the devil. Her chipper voice floats up from the kitchen as she hums a flowery tune. Time off seems to agree with her, even if it was by force. The doctor said I needed monitoring.

I lean against the balustrade. “What’s so good about it?”

She shrugs. “Well, it’s raining, for one.”

My gaze drifts to the wall of glass in the kitchen, eyeing the drops as they trickle down the pane. The deck is a vibrant glossy brown, the potted succulents plump from moisture. Thatisgood. If it were another sunny winter day, I’d scream at the sheer injustice. I need the sky to cry with me.

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