Page 13 of The Road to Ruined

I roll my eyes and grab a paper towel.

"I know you're not real," I tell him. "You're not the first not-real person I've seen—or fucked for that matter—and I'm sure you won't be the last."

"Is that what you think?" his muffled voice asks.

"Yep," I say, pulling a paper towel from the dispenser. "Pretty sure the real masked assholes aren't allowed to talk, for one. And two, I was under the impression you all were a little stealthier than this. Chilling in a women's restroom? Really? Go fuck yourself, Bone Saw."

"I made you come. Hard."

"I wouldn't hallucinate sex that doesn't even get me off," I scoff. "I don't hate myself that much yet."

I toss the paper towel in the trash and leave the room, scolding myself for engaging with one of my delusions in public. If I want them to stop, this certainly isn't the way to do it. Maybe I should have specified that not only are hallucinations of my ex-lovers not to follow me home, but any and all hallucinations are unwelcome.

I slide into the booth across from Blakely and my mother. "Did I miss anything good?" I ask, taking a chip from the middle of the table and dipping it in the guacamole.

"You know what I just realized?" Mom asks. She and Blakely both have identical goofy-ass looks on their faces that weren't there before. I'm almost afraid to ask what I missed in the last five minutes.

"What?"

I reach for my margarita, but she pulls it away.

"This is your first drink!"

My eyes go wide. "I'm sorry—what?"

"Come on," she says. "Humor me. It's your firstlegaldrink since you turned twenty-one."

I mean, sure, I guess—if you don't count the half-fifth of whiskey I threw back and threw up last night.

"Okay, fine. It's my first drink—very thrilling. May I have it back now, please?"

"Not quite yet," she says. She and Blakely take out their phones just as a few restaurant employees gather around the table and one places a sombrero on my head.

God damn it.

As they sing "Feliz Cumpleaños," my mom slides the margarita back to my side of the table, recording on her phone as I take my "first legal drink," downing nearly half in one go in an attempt to drown the embarrassment.

They're doing this to make me feel included—to make me feel like I belong—but they don't know me at all. And if you have to try to make space for someone—if you have to go out of your way and even then you have no idea how to do it, then maybe they just don't fit.

That's what's happening here. I'll never fit.

It's nothing I didn't already know, but still, when I left Rancho San Flores, a part of me did believe I could make it work.I thought maybe I could twist and bend my pieces until they snapped, and I'd fit into this box marked "normal" and find a way to be happy there.

After all, people in the box marked "normal" don't get high and kill people. They don't get duped by some psychotic rockstar douchebag into joining a cult and believing they're in love only to end up face down in the dirt alone or in jail.

Now, the thought of fitting in that box makes my throat close up; I can't breathe. And in case I needed one more reminder of just how far from normal I am, the masked man leaning against the doorframe of the darkened hallway across the room salutes me like an asshole.

I think I'm having a panic attack.

They finally finish singing and leave the table, and I go for my drink again, but my airway is so closed up at this point that I choke on it and end up spitting it back onto the table. I drop my face into my hands and try to will myself to suck in air.

"Whoa," Blakely says. "It's been a while since you had a drink—maybe slow down a little bit. You're not partying with rockstars; this is lunch with your mom."

"Jesus, Blakely, do you have to bring them up?" Mom asks, shaking her head.

I need help. Can't they see I need help?

I look up at my mother, hoping my eyes will convey the message, and her jaw drops.

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