Page 55 of Limbo

Brock texts again.

When can I see you?

It’s the seventh one. The splinters of my weekend flash through my mind again, no more detailed than the last several times. Putting in my earbuds, I let the music drown out the noise in my head. I don’t think about how I’ve thrown my life into chaos. I stop worrying about why I woke up in Pete’s sweatshirt. What happened with Brock isn’t haunting me.

The reprieve only lasts for a moment. But right now, I need as many of them as I can get.

I must fall asleep, because the next time I open my eyes, darkness covers my room, except the light shining through the open door.

Felicia’s outline bends down over me. “Jordan’s here,” she says, sweeping my hair from my face. “He said he’s been calling you all day. What do you want me to do?”

I can’t imagine why he wants to see me. According to her, he was here when Trey hauled me in the door last night. Jordan volunteered to stay, and I kicked him out in the middle of the night. I vaguely remember ordering him to leave. A total Callista move, which guarantees the reasoning makes little-to-no sense.

“I’m not ready to talk to him yet.”

She squeezes my arm and leaves without pushing the subject.

Conscious of how my weight shifts, I crawl out of bed and switch on the lamp. A blackout of this magnitude normally takes a few days to recuperate from, both mentally and physically. But I hate dodging Jordan and need to know what happened. Ready or not.

A climb to the ceiling tiles is utterly out of the question with my hip, so I take advantage of Cam’s stash in her bottom desk drawer. Even though the thought of consuming anything with a higher alcohol content than fruit juice triggers my gag reflex, what I prepare to do requires, at the minimum, a buzz.

One bottle empties, the whiskey still biting when I tip back a second. I retreat to the safety of my bed and wait for the warmth of the alcohol to loan me courage before I send the message.

What happened the other night?

Brock answers right away.

You don’t remember? Way to insult a guy.

Cut the crap. Did we have sex?

The words on the screen look surreal. Like they’re from someone else’s life. I’m watching through an old, dirty window. The image distorted. The sound muffled. The girl on the other side of the glass lost in a mess of her own making. A place she’s been countless times.

No vibration or any other warning precedes his response. The pixels just appear, arranged in such a way that they shatter any illusion of being an onlooker, and my window transforms into a mirror.

Of course Callista.

I read it over and over, the heaviness in my chest increasing with each pass. On some level, I already knew. Regardless of how long I maintain control, my anger toward Graham eventually overpowers everything else. Each and every time, I end up back here. Empty. Alone. Miserable.

My phone lights up with another text.

All right, beautiful. I miss you. I’ll see you tomorrow.

As I read Jordan’s message, a wave of guilt crashes over me. The consequences of my actions stare me in the face, and I know what needs to happen next.

My parents have made a sport out of dragging other people down with them. Friends, family, each other. They don’t care who they hurt as long as they aren’t alone in their unhappiness. Brock and I tortured each other and those around us the same way, desperate not to suffer alone. Now I threaten to fall back into the cycle with Jordan. Except I promised to never do that to anyone again. Of all the rules I’ve made for myself, this has to be the one I don’t break. Not even for him.Especiallynot for him.

It’s clear I can’t escape the dysfunction and chaos. So, I need to let Jordan go. Otherwise, I’m afraid I’ll light us both on fire, and he’ll go up in flames along with me.

Can we talk?

An incredibly cliché line. But if I want to keep my black hole of a life from sucking Jordan in, I need to gather the damn courage to hit send on the three words I’ve tapped out and deleted eight times already. I pull the blanket over my head, leaving myself alone with the screen to cycle through another attempt.

A bang interrupts me, and I rip the blanket off. There he stands, just inside my doorway in a black band T-shirt and jeans and his hair a perfect disaster.

Absolutely furious.

Equally irate, Felicia shoulders her way past. She directs daggers at him while his death glare focuses on me. I remove an earbud as his attention shifts to her, ringing the bell for Gibson versus Waters.

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