Still Jaded (10 page)

She threw her hands in the air. "I'm not saying that you don't like me now, but sometimes I feel that you feel guilty because you couldn't help Mena. And I think that you know I was a better friend to Mena so you befriending me is almost like you're supporting Mena in a way. Do you know what I mean?"

"Hell no!"
I frowned. "You're my friend. Deal with it."

"It's not…"
She sighed with a happy smile. "I was asked to be part of a sorority. Can you believe it?!"

I saw everything in her that I wasn't. Grace was pure. She was hopeful. She wasn't discarded. She wasn't abused. She wasn't numb. She was the light. "I can believe it."

Those girls would be lucky to have Grace as their sister, even if they didn't know it.

"I'm going to be in a sorority. I always felt I'd never be good enough to do that. I should pinch myself. I can't believe it."

I took another sip of wine. "I can believe it, Grace. I can believe it."

She glowed. She sat there and actually glowed. It was like she'd been inducted into a higher level of heaven. I hated it. I sincerely hated it. Those girls weren't true. They were the ones not good enough for Grace, but the world didn't work that way. She needed friends. She needed protection. She needed to learn things. And they could give all that. I couldn't. I could barely handle myself sometimes.

As I finished my fifth glass of wine, I felt the world start to melt away.

"…so there are all those reporters talking about this Guadalupe person. Are you okay with that? They say she's here for Bryce. Where is Bryce, now that we're talking about him? I haven't seen him yet."

I checked back into the conversation. I had slipped away for a heartbeat. Then it all flooded back. "Bryce is busy. Soccer."

"I know, but what's with this girl? Who is she? Did you meet her?"

I uncorked the second bottle.

Grace continued, "It's all over the media. Who's this Guadalupe person? You must know her."

I took a sip and sighed. "She's a model, Grace."

"Oh."

"And she wants to fuck him."

"Oh?!" Grace was aghast now.

"What do you think I should do, Grace? You must know about this situation. What should I do?"

Grace squirmed in her chair and looked at my wine bottles with alarm. "How much have you had to drink?"

"Does it matter?" Because I didn't think it did.

"It doesn't help." She folded her arms over her chest. "I'm concerned."

"Are you? I thought we were talking about how you're a celebrity. You weren't concerned then."

Now fully aware and all too alarmed, Grace stood up and edged towards the door. I stayed in my chair with my bottle in hand. I didn't give a damn what anyone else thought. I didn't care that my one female friend was scared of me. She should've been. She was smart.

"I'm, uh, going to get Corrigan." Then she made a mad dash for the exit.

She
should
run.

I sat alone for the rest of the night and must've dozed at some point because when I woke later, I was on my bed with a blanket laid over me. The sound of the party had diminished, but I still heard laughter and conversation. I felt groggy but pushed myself up.

My stomach dipped as the wine shot back up. I stumbled from the bed and crossed to the bathroom. No vomit came up, but, as I wiped my eyes and looked in the mirror, I wasn't sure whom I stared at. She looked hollow and haunted. Used.

"Sheldon?"

I ignored the pain that pierced me as I looked at Bryce in the doorway. He was dressed in his soccer workout gear. It gave his body a lean trimmed look. With his black Mohawk cut short and his chiseled cheekbones, Bryce looked edgy, almost dangerous, but his eyes were guarded as he observed me.

"I told you not to come." My voice was hoarse, but I pushed past him and headed for the door. The party was still going on. I should be there, anywhere except in that bedroom.

Bryce caught my arm and yanked me back. "We need to talk, Sheldon."

"No. You need to leave." I twisted my arm from his grasp and swept through the door, heading down the hallway to the stairs. I didn't care who I shoved, hit, or stepped on. A large group had congregated in the kitchen where the kegs were.

"Hey, Sheldon!" Raz held the keg's spout in his hand. He held out a plastic cup. "Want a beer?"

"Where's the hard stuff?"

He gestured behind me. "Corrigan took it out to the courtyard. You've got an awesome bar!"

Leah stood next to Corrigan and his fraternity brothers with a few of her friends. Cadence was with two of her sisters, and Grace was not far from them.

"Sheldon." Corrigan straightened. I flinched when I heard his tone, like all the emotion and fun had been stripped away. Grace froze when she heard my name.

A part of me withered up because I had this effect on my friends.

"Give me a drink, Cor."

With a rum bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, he looked the role of an everyday fraternity party boy. He even had on a trendy polo shirt and designer jeans. His dark blonde hair had been trimmed so the curls were tight. But he wasn't a carefree frat brother; he looked very sober as he weighed his decision.

He never stopped me in high school. Why would he start now? Then his eyes trailed past my shoulders and widened. He nodded. "Bottoms up, Sheldon." And with that, he tossed the rum to me.

I caught it with one swoop and tipped my head back to down what I could.

It was yanked out of my hands a second later. Before I even looked, I knew. Bryce seethed at me as he threw the bottle into the foliage.

All eyes were trained on us in that instant. It was surreal how clear certain people were to me right then. Corrigan was cautious but waiting. Grace frowned, nervous and fearful. Cadence was enraptured. Leah was scornful. Then I caught sight of someone else in the corner of my eye
and turned. Dorothy looked out of place in her Sparky's uniform as she held a platter of sandwiches, her red hair done up in two ponytails. She watched with no emotion and maybe that's why something snapped inside of me.

"If this scene hadn't been played before, I'd laugh."

"Sheldon, don't." Bryce grabbed my arm and tried to haul me behind him.

But I dug my heels in. I wasn't going anywhere. "So did Donadeli's keep the business in the family? Are you related to him? Are you going to turn psycho and stalk me too? Do I need to kill you too?"

"Sheldon," Corrigan spoke up now. "Stop."

I swung around. "What do you care, Corrigan? All this mumbo jumbo about 'being okay' with each other. We are the farthest from okay that we've ever been." I doubled over in hysterics. If I was going to do a scene, I was going to win an Oscar.

"Sheldon, private. Please." Bryce tugged at my arm.

I whirled on him next. "And you—where do I start with you?"

"I agree with Bryce. Let's go somewhere private." Corrigan was at my elbow now. Both reached for me, but I hit them back.

"Privacy. That's what you want now, but you guys don't get it. We have no privacy. Everyone wants to know what's going on with us. They want to break us up or destroy us. Little
do they know that we're already destroyed. We haven't been together since—" I glanced where Dorothy still stood. "Since him. Everything unraveled after him and after..." Europe.

"This is enough." Bryce took my arm.

I yanked it away and stumbled. Corrigan tried to catch me, but I threw myself away from both of them. Then I floundered. In slow motion the ground came up at me, but then I felt a shove from behind. I turned my head to see where I was falling now. A sense of horror overcame me for a brief second before I crashed into a glass table. As I heard it shatter, I closed my eyes.

"She's bleeding everywhere!" someone screamed.

"Oh my God."

I was aware of it all. Panic. Chaos. People ran and shouted. I felt gentle hands as they lifted me in the air and carried me inside. A moment later, I was laid down on my bed. All the while, those hands held mine and pressed against me in comfort. I yearned for those hands—they meant something that I couldn't feel at that moment, but I wasn't sure what it was…

Then I began to feel the pain. It started slow, a tingling in the back of my spine. It filtered throughout my body, and then it slammed into me. A scream ripped from my throat as I arched my back off the bed. I had never felt anything worse.

"Sheldon, Sheldon, Sheldon…" Bryce soothed as he tucked strands of my hair behind my ear. He kissed my forehead and rested his against mine. It was such an intimate touch that my stomach fluttered.

"We called an ambulance. It should be here soon."

I wanted to curse at Cadence. How dare she be here, much less be calm, when I'm bleeding everywhere?

Someone pressed a towel against my skin and I screamed again. The pain was so fierce. I closed my eyes and saw white, not black. The pain brought me to another universe—not really, but I wished for it. I tightened my grip on Bryce's hand and whimpered, "Make it stop. Please, make it stop."

"I'm trying, baby. I'm trying." He clamped onto my hand harder, and I started to feel some of that pain. I wanted that pain. It distracted from the other…

"Holy shit. Is this what it was like with me?" Corrigan whispered.

My eyes were closed, but I heard the stricken note underneath. I cried against the piercing headache that doubled when I opened my eyes, but I needed to see him. I needed to know he was okay, reassure him that I'd be fine. As I managed to focus on my surroundings, Bryce's shoulders were almost trembling, but he was holding my hand and kissing my forehead. Corrigan sat on the couch across from us, pale and shaken. He seemed to be in shock.

I caught his gaze and knew that neither of us was really in that room, not at that time. We both remembered a different time, when it was his blood on the floor.

"I'm fine, Cor. I'm fine. I'll be fine…"My voice was so hoarse.

He took a deep breath and then folded over to press his forehead against his knees. Then I looked at Bryce. "Help him."

He didn't look at Corrigan but narrowed his eyes and studied me more closely.

"What?"

Someone applied pressure on my body, and I choked out a scream. The pain blinded me and then everything started to fade. Finally, the pain dulled and it wasn't long before it stopped completely.

"You say that she fell face-first into the table?"

I heard a voice and groaned at the pain. I didn't want to be interrogated and that voice sounded angry. I couldn't handle that right now, not when I was so sleepy and so…achy. Groaning again, I lifted a hand to my face and squinted to see where I was. The light hurt my head so I closed my eyes again.

"Sheldon?" Grace touched my hand gently. "Are you awake?"

"No. She just groaned because she's having sex dreams," Corrigan snapped.

Bryce cursed under his breath.

With another groan, I opened my eyes and forced them to stay open this time. That damn light didn't help. "Can someone please shut off the lights? Migraine."

Corrigan chuckled, "I think it's the twenty-six stitches
that are causing your migraine."

"Corrigan," Grace shushed.

"It's the truth."

"You're not helping." Bryce's hand rested on my arm.

I moved closer to that touch. I needed more of it.

"Sheldon? Are you awake enough to answer some questions? Can you do that?"

I recognized Officer Patterson's voice and grinned, or tried to grin anyway. "If it isn't Officer Sheila. Long time no see, Officer."

I heard the amusement in her voice. "Can you answer some questions? We were called because your blood alcohol level was high and you're a minor. You want to tell me about your injury?"

She was right. I winced against the pain and struggled to lift myself in bed. Holy hell. It sucked to be in the hospital, at least that was where I figured I was. Simple single bed. Plain gown that tied behind my neck with my bare ass hanging out. Pathetic television set mounted on the wall. A table beside me with a basin and a dull pink throw-up kidney shaped bucket. Yep. I was in the hospital.

"Go ahead. Ask away," I croaked. When I lifted a hand to my hair, Grace shot forward and swept my hair into a ponytail.

Officer Sheila was dressed in jeans and a white blazer. Her blondish brown hair was pulled back into a loose braid and she looked tired. The wrinkles around her eyes told me she'd been up for awhile. "How are you feeling, first?"

"I have twenty-six stitches. I've been better."

"Do you remember what happened?"

"I started to fall, but someone pushed me to the side. I was shoved into that glass table."

I held my breath. I expected someone to say I was crazy. They all thought I fell, but no one said a word. Bryce barely held his anger in check as he glared at a wall with his hands clenched into fists, tucked underneath his arms. Corrigan cast a wary look over him before looking back to me.