Page 81 of I Can't Even

“Very busy,” Courtney cooed with a throaty laugh.

The urge to punch her was swift and fierce. I even balled up my fist, but I thought better of it. I raised my hands in surrender and backed away.

I was halfway down the steps when Liam called after me, “Hey, I think we’ve said all we need to say, Blumer.” He huffed out a breath and added, “Don’t come around here anymore.”

I gave a curt nod to let him know I got it and then with my dignity trailing behind me like toilet paper stuck on my shoe, I walked home.

I spent the rest of the afternoon face down on my bed, crying. The only time I got up was when I heard Liam’s motorcycle fire up. I watched as he and Courtney drove off into the beautiful evening together with her sitting on the back of his bike and her arms wrapped around him, her head pressed to the middle of his back. This time when my heart shattered into a thousand pieces, I knew there would be no putting it back together.

Crash!

I woke up to the sound of something breaking. It took me a moment to realize it was completely dark outside and I had been asleep for several hours. Night had fallen and I was still in Em’s dress and my lips and tongue were pasty dry, probably from mouth breathing since my crying jag had clogged my nose. I pushed into a seated position, noting that Spag and Meat were curled up on my pillows just like they did at home.

Crash!

Again? What the hell was happening downstairs? I was up and moving, shoving my feet into my slippers, before I was fully operational. Accompanying the sound of something breaking was the muted tirade of a person muttering, swearing, and crash!

I ran the rest of the way down the steps to the kitchen. Em was already there, peering around the doorjamb as if afraid to enter. I slipped in beside her and she turned her head toward me. Her brown eyes were huge.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

She pointed to the kitchen and shifted so I could see.

Crash!

“Oh, I’m sooooo sorry,” Soph said to no one.

She was standing in the center of the kitchen, holding a stack of plates that I recognized as Babs’s wedding china. White plates with platinum edges that Babs had used for every corporate dinner party when Dad was alive and every holiday dinner as a family. It was the same set she had coerced Soph to register for when she got married so they could be matchy-matchy. Soph hated them.

“Wait, no I’m not!” Crash! Soph hurled another plate toward the floor. “I hate these fucking plates!”

My eyes went wide. Soph seldom if ever swore.

Crash! Crash! Crash!

My older sis hurled the plates at the floor and then reached onto the counter for a gravy boat and pitched that, too. Her bob was mussed, her mascara smudged, and her dress wrinkled. She looked like she’d been caught in a street fight and lost.

“Sixteen years of marriage,” Soph yelled. Crash! “Sixteen! And what do I find when I stop by your office? You with your pants down around your ankles while you plow your office manager on her desk from behind! Argh!”

Crash! Crash! Crash!

“Oh, Stantastic, you miserable prick,” I muttered.

Crash!

“You weren’t attached to those dishes, were you?” I asked.

“No, they’re awful,” Em said.

Crash!

“And as if that wasn’t enough, you son of a bitch, you actually wanted me to apologize for interrupting you by not calling or knocking first. Argh!” Soph let out a feral cry, reached for a stack of dessert plates, and hurled the whole lot of them at the ground. Em and I covered our ears.

“Apologize? Apologize? Do you know how many times I apologize in a single day? Seventy- eight! How do I know? Because I’ve counted. Seventy-eight times! Who does that?” Soph cried.

Her chest was heaving and her brown eyes were snapping with rage. I had never seen Soph this angry. It was as if her fury had cracked open the everything is awesome façade that she wore every single day like a Mardi Gras mask on Fat Tuesday.

“I’m getting scared. What do we do?” Em asked.

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