Page 98 of The Love of My Next Life
We don’t talk other than Sam directing me out of our town limits and to a town about thirty minutes away. I don’t ask her the specifics of where we’re going or what we’ll find. My nerves are shot, and I’m too anxious to consider any possibilities past my next immediate move. If I even think about what Macon could be doing right now, my stomach turns, and I might throw up.
I’d rather he be back in the passenger seat of Sam’s car with her straddling him than hanging out with Chase Harper.
He's bad news.
Sam directs me into a neighborhood without streetlights, and my grip on the steering wheel tightens. It’s dark and overcast with the impending storm, so I can’t make out much about the houses. They’re just looming, haunted figures that stiffen my shoulders and speed up my heart.
Macon is probably in one of these houses.
He could be drunk or high. He could be with a girl. He probably doesn’t want to see me. But I... I have to know. I have to know he’s okay. I need him to know I don’t hate him. I’m not angry. I don’t blame him for breaking his promise to Claire. In a way, I did, too. I can’t hold his actions against him if I’m guilty of the same ones.
What am I going to do if I walk in on him with a girl? Anger flares inside me. Jealousy. Hurt. I made the mistake once before assuming he wouldn’t do that to me.
He would.
I hate it.
I hate that it bothers me. That I can’t just let go. I hate knowing that I’ll let him back in after. He’ll apologize, and I’ll welcome his lips, even after they’ve been on another person.
I turn down the next street and prepare myself for what I might see. I breathe slowly. As long as he’s okay. I just need him to know how I feel, and then I will leave.
“It’s the fourth house on the right,” Sam says, and I nod. I count, and just as I get to the fourth house, Macon’s Charger comes into view.
“He’s here,” I say quickly, pulling to the side of the road and jumping out of the car without turning off the engine. I run across the street, forgetting all about Sam as the low music from the house grows louder as I get closer. My breath comes out in puffs of white, but I barely register the cold.
“Wait,” Sam calls from behind me. “You can’t just barge in there,” she says, but I’m already turning the knob. It’s locked, so I run to the back, thankful there’s not another fence to climb in my dress and Uggs.
I find the back door unlocked, and a cloud of marijuana and cigarette smoke blankets me as soon as I step inside. There are people standing all around with drinks in their hands. Some give me a curious, side-eyed glance, and others ignore me entirely. I turn to a girl leaning on the wall.
“Is Macon Davis here?” I ask, and she pops a brow and drags her eyes down my disheveled body. I bounce on the balls of my feet and bite my tongue against the urge to snap at her. I feel someone step up behind me and look over my shoulder to find Sam. The crease in her brow and the frown on her face stresses me out more as she types something on her phone.
“Yeah, somewhere,” the girl says finally, then turns back to her friends.
I push past her into the living room. There’s a girl on the couch on top of someone and I hold my breath as I close the distance. I put my hand on her shoulder and pull her back. She yelps and swats at me, but I let her go only when I see the guy she’s straddling isn’t Macon.
I shove my way down a crowded hallway, asking a few more people if they know where “my friend Macon” is. No one helps. No one has seen him recently. I find an empty bathroom, then a primary bedroom suite with a couple having sex. I release a breath when I see two blond heads on the bed. Not chocolate brown curls.
“The basement,” Sam says from behind me. I didn’t realize she’d been following me, but I don’t say anything as I rush down the hall and open the door she’s pointing at.
I feel sick the moment I step into the stairwell.
It’s quieter down here. The music is lower and slower than what’s playing on the main level, and it’s colder. Like the heating doesn’t work. Goosebumps explode on my skin, my heart racing faster the farther I descend into the dark, cold basement.
When my feet hit the landing, I feel like I’m moving through mud and wearing cement shoes. Like those dream sequences where you want to run, need to run, but can’t. My eyes don’t want to adjust to the darkness. My legs don’t want to work. I worry that if I need to yell, I won’t have vocal cords.
I find myself in an open room with two couches and a television. I scan over the people, bending until I’m inches from their faces. They mumble, stare at me. One guy offers me his joint. I shake my head. None of them is Macon, and I’m too frightened to ask if they know where his is. I’m close. I know it. I can feel him, and I’m scared.
I reach in my jacket pocket for my phone, so I can use the flashlight, but it’s not there. I turn around and find Sam.
“Can you turn on your phone flashlight?”
She nods and pulls it out. There’s a collective groan from the people in the room when she turns on the flashlight, but we ignore them. She pans the room with the beam of light.
No Macon.
I follow her as she walks toward a door. She opens it, and we find an empty bathroom. I turn around and scan the basement, once more, and my eyes fall on another door. The only other option down here.
I run. Flashes of Sam on Macon’s lap mix with streaks of mascara on cold, gray cheeks. The memory of the scent of weed blends with the scent of old vomit. I hear rain on the windows. I hear my own sobs. I hear the music blasting from Sam’s car. I try like hell to ignore it all as my hand hits the cold doorknob and twists it.
