Page 34 of I Blame the Alcohol

I’ll be the first to admit, I cry over a lot of things, but boys? Relationships? Discussing and ending the theoretical idea of an us?

Let me put it to you this way: there wasn’t a single tear shed when my first serious boyfriend dumped me weeks after the accident.

I don’t cry over failed relationships. Never have and thought I never would.

And then I had to go and meet Cody freaking Ellsworth.

I think I hate him.

“You…” Cody trails off, annoyance seeping through his tone while his gaze searches my face for the answer he's looking for.

“Yes, Cody?” I beam back at him, adding another shot to the count.

I’ll have to tell Wes about this drinking game. Someone ought to enjoy my ingenious brand of revenge.

He sighs, looking up at the ceiling for the answers my face didn’t offer him.

“You always take the hard road, don’t you?”

“If you don’t challenge yourself, you don’t change yourself.” I quote the words without thinking, the O’Brien mantras rolling through my mind like a jukebox spitting out its favourite tunes.

Come on Stella, how can you expect to grow if you’re never put in uncomfortable situations? Do the circuit. Again.

Are you really going to settle for average? O’Brien’s aren’t average, Stella. We succeed. We set the example. It’s about time you played your part.

My father’s voice rings through my ears, the echoing tone sharpened with each passing month his beloved wife lay buried underground.

“That’s not the point, Stel.”

I blink back to present and find a frowning varsity captain looking in my direction. Guess it wasn’t the right time to break out the motivational pep talks.

“Then what is the point, Cody? What is your point?”

I feel like kicking a chair at his pigheadedness but there’s no chair in sight. I contemplate using his shin as a substitute but that probably wouldn’t help my cause.

“My point is I’m not in a position right now to pursue a relationship with you.” He presses his fingers against his nose as if a headache’s coming on, “And I don’t know if there ever will be a right time.”

“Right time? Oh, Cody.” I throw my head back and laugh until I’m wheezing. “Didn’t getting your head bashed in last semester teach you anything?”

He shoots me a look at the head bashing comment, but I continue, “There is no such thing as the right time. We’re always going to be too busy or too complicated for it to work. You can’t look at it from a rational point of view, Ellsworth. You’ve got to let it happen and see where it takes you.”

Cody shakes his head, choosing not to listen to a single thing I said, “Please don’t put me in this position, Stel. Where I have to choose between you or Mo.”

I can see in his eyes that his mind’s already made up.

Stupid boy.

“Fine, have it your way. But when you finally pull your head out of your ass, you’ll realize what a huge mistake you made.”

I look him dead in the eye, refusing to be the one to break contact, “And when that happens, I hope you remember one thing. I won’t be waiting.”

Chapter 11

Stella

“What am I going to do without you?” Lou sighs, tugging the ends of her baggy t-shirt past anything considered to be fashionable or flattering.

“Oh, Lou. It’s just three weeks, we will be back in this cramped living space before you know it.” I’m throwing the last of my clothes into the open suitcase lying on the ground, my other two already zipped up and ready to go by the door.

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