Going Long (14 page)

“That sounds awesome. Maybe I’ll
see you there,” he said, and thankfully, my face turned away from him, he
couldn’t see the pained look in my eyes, willing him to stay home. 

As I expected, Sarah started
dismantling my outfit, hair and face the moment I walked through her door. I
think to cheer me up a little, Sienna had brought me some of her handmade
earrings, which Sarah quickly put through my ears and built a look and outfit
around. They were colorful earth-toned beads and feathers, beautiful and
normally a gift I would treasure. But they seemed too happy next to my face as
I stared at them in the mirror. Sienna looked concerned when I caught her
reflection, so I reached for her hand and squeezed it a bit to reassure her
that I liked them, not wanting my friend to think I didn’t appreciate her
thought, because I did.

Shopping was tolerable, or at
least as tolerable as it ever was for me. I gave complete control to Sarah. It
was easier that way, and afforded me the opportunity to slip away to the empty
place in my mind. She’d picked out a sheer black-and-white top and tight black
pants for me along with a new pair of knee-high boots. The look was actually
one I liked, a little sexy, sure, but sturdy and moveable.

Lunch was quiet, or at least, I
was quiet during lunch. I listened to Sarah talk about the guy she met at the
club last weekend, and how they had been texting, or rather
sexting
one
another. She was excited to see him tonight, which I had discovered was the
real reason we were going to the club. I wanted to bail,
in the worst way
,
but Sienna was going, and Micah was out of town at his grandparents, so I
couldn’t leave her to wingman Sarah alone.

We got to the club a little
early, which was good, because I was going to have to take in quite a few shots
if Sarah wanted to get me on the dance floor tonight. Plus, I was constantly
scanning the crowd, praying I wouldn’t find Gavin. I hadn’t been drunk since
the night of the
incident
, and was a little wary about getting myself
into more trouble. But the thought of numbing myself a bit tonight sounded
appealing, too. I was tired of feeling sick—sick about losing a baby,
sick about losing Reed and sick about losing my scholarships. And when the
vibrating music hit my chest as we entered the club, I thought the faster I
could wipe my memories clean, the better.

Sarah ordered shots for each of
us as soon as we got to the bar. Sienna was more of a lightweight than I was,
so she actually nursed hers a bit while Sarah and I tossed two of them back
each, squeezing our eyes shut, and shaking our heads from the sharp bitterness
that burned down our throats. I was feeling the effects almost instantly, which
is what made me willing to head out to the dance floor with the girls.

Apparently, some big local DJ
was at the club tonight, which made things a little more crowded than normal.
To be honest, I liked the anonymity the crowds were giving me. We were packed
in, body to body, and there was no room for strangers to notice me on the dance
floor. I was starting to get comfortable, thinking there was no way Gavin would
show up and hit on me, when I spotted his head several bodies away from me,
swaying in the crowd. He had a few friends with him, some of them girls, and
appeared to be distracted, so I moved to the opposite side of the floor and
surrounded myself with more strangers.

I felt safe here. There was no
way I would be tempted to let down my guard with someone else. It was just
me—smashed between sweaty arms, legs, backs and torsos—all to the rhythm
of the music. I didn’t even need to know how to dance well, just push my arms
in the air and move. Sienna seemed to like the lack of pressure, too, because
she actually finished both of her shots and was now jumping to the music in the
center of the floor with me. Somehow, Sarah managed to squeeze in with us, and
gave me another shot, which I consumed quickly. Sienna refused hers, so I took
that one, too, and let my eyes lose focus on the flashing colorful lights all
around us.

We had been on the floor for
more than an hour, and I had taken every shot Sarah pushed my way. That was her
way of medicating, and tonight, I let her play doctor. My body was wet with
perspiration, my thin shirt sticking to my chest and back, and my feet aching
from the tall arch of my new boots, but I didn’t care. I kept dancing, moving
and staring at the lights. Sarah had found the guy she’d hooked up with last
week and was in her own world, and Sienna had made her way back to the tables,
wanting to slow things down. But I powered on.

As the night wore on, the music
got sexier, more suggestive. I had completely left myself by this point, my
body powered by the alcohol far more than by my brain. I felt strange hands
brush the damp hair from my neck, and then watched them reach for me and run
over my back, arms and breasts. And I just put my hands in the air and let
them. I felt a freedom that I hadn’t known ever and was comforted by the
anonymous sea of drunken men and women. I was in the mix, ignoring life and my
problems, and just letting the vodka, or whatever Sarah had fed me, power my
limbs.

I don’t know how long I swayed
like this, dancing with my stranger, but my safe haven was rocked when I turned
into the body that the arms belonged to, and found my face square into Gavin’s
chest. I was drunk, more so than I was the night I’d kissed him, but somehow my
wits were with me. I pushed from him and threw his arms from my sides.

“Don’t do that!” I said in an
angry slur. I giggled a little at how it came out, giving Gavin the wrong
impression, because he moved back toward me and wrapped me up again in his
arms, moving his lips to my neck where he started to taste me. His touch felt
disgusting, and I pushed him away again.

“I said don’t do that!” I was
more forceful now, and Gavin seemed to get it. His brow furrowed as he looked
down, and then back up into my eyes, confused and upset. Leaning in, so I could
hear him, he got close to my ear, his lips touching it a little, making me
nervous.

“I don’t get you. One minute
you’re kissing me, and don’t deny it. You kissed me. Just as much as I kissed
you,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “The next, you’re telling me you aren’t
attracted to me, don’t see me as anything other then a friend. Then you let me
dance with you…
like this!
for an hour before you flip out on me again.
What’s with you? Are you really
NOT
into me? Because I’ve gotta tell
you, Nolan, you’re body is giving me an entirely different story!”

My words were definitely
unfiltered, the alcohol working its black magic as I pushed a hand heavily into
Gavin’s chest, biting my lip a little, and moving close to him, my teeth
gritting. “I had a miscarriage, you asshole! And Reed hates me for it! And the
whole thing fucking ruined me—and you just made it worse! So just leave.
Me. The. Fuck. Alone!” I stormed away from him and headed to the other side of
the club, not even looking back to check his reaction.

I holed up in the women’s
bathroom for more than a few minutes after my scene with Gavin, my emotions
bouncing between tears and anger. I finally gathered myself enough to touch up
my makeup and storm back onto the dance floor where I continued on my journey
to forget everything…again.

I vaguely remembered Sarah
telling me to go home with Sienna. And I even less recalled arguing with Sienna
and refusing to leave until she left me there alone. However it happened, I
found myself wandering out the back door after midnight, digging through my
purse for my phone, and completely unsure of where I lived.

Panic started to hit a little,
and every face that passed me was unfamiliar. I started calling out for Sienna,
but my words were slurred. I giggled a little at how I sounded. But inevitably,
I would start to panic and begin the cycle again. After bumping into a few
strangers, and stumbling to my knees more than once, I sat with my legs in the
gutter of the main road, and zipped my boots off, setting them down next to me.
I pulled my phone from my tiny purse with a force that sent my credit card and
driver’s license flying into the road. Instantly, I was irrationally terrified
that someone would find my license and realize I wasn’t yet 21, so I crawled
into the roadway on my knees and grabbed my cards. Cars honked and swerved
around me, and I remember the lines left behind as the headlights passed my
face.

I think a few people asked if
they could help me, but I always smiled, or at least I thought I was smiling,
and told them I was fine. Fine. I was so fucking far from fine. I was turning
into a train wreck, and I was beyond anyone’s reach. So I did what I always did
when I was in trouble, what I’d done every other time I needed help over the
last two years. I called Reed.

Reed

“Dude, you just shot me, you
asshole!” Trig yelled over the sound of gunfire blasting from our television. A
bunch of the guys had come over to our place, and we’d been playing video games
for a couple of hours now. I was starting to get tired of it, so I just started
shooting all of my teammates to try to end the game faster.

It was nice to have the
distraction, but I was tired. When I found out that Pops had invited Nolan and
her parents over for Thanksgiving, I flipped my lid. I knew it was my fault for
not telling him about the problems Nolan and I were having, but I didn’t think
I’d be forced to out our
up-in-flames
relationship at the dinner table
in front of our family and friends, while we all said grace and thanks for
everything wonderful in our lives.

I talked it over with Sean and
had come up with a plan that he said he was pretty sure Nolan would actually go
along with. I just had to talk to her about it. And that’s where the big hang
up was…we weren’t really
talking.
And I wasn’t sure I could look at her
anymore. The more time passed, the more I thought about that smug asshole Gavin
and the way he looked when I saw him. I couldn’t believe Nolan would be into a
guy like that, but I was starting to think that she had changed into an
entirely different person, someone I didn’t really know at all.

I heard my phone buzzing in my
pocket, but just let it go to voicemail, and kept shooting random targets on
the screen. When it buzzed a second time about two minutes later, I got
annoyed. I ignored it then, too, but the third round of buzzing made me panic,
and immediately think that something was wrong with my dad. I paused my game
player and tossed my controller to one of the other guys. Pulling my phone from
my pocket, I walked out to the hall so I could hear. When I saw the face and
name staring back at me on the screen, my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach.
Why was Nolan calling me? Why now, after all this time? At 1 a.m.? On a
Saturday?

I almost missed the third call
when something forced me to answer.

“Noles?” I was confused. I could
hear traffic in the background, and people laughing. It sounded almost as if
she had dialed me accidentally, a misfire from her purse. And the hurt I felt
at that thought surprised me a little. I was about to hang up when I caught the
unmistakable sound of her breathing.

“Reed?” she sounded upset, like
she’d been crying. “Reed? I can’t hear you. Are you there?”

“Noles, I’m here. I hear you.
What’s wrong?” I said, pulling keys from my pocket and flying down my hallway
out of instinct. Then she started giggling. It was an off sounding laugh,
though. Like she was…
drunk?
I put my hand on my forehead and pinched the
bridge of my nose. Jesus, this was not happening.

“Nolan, are you drunk?” I waited
while she finished a giggling fit, and then it turned into panicked breaths,
and near crying again. Nolan, I’m hanging up.”

That did something to her,
because she started talking more clearly now. “No! Wait. No, no, no, no…” she
was fighting to make sense. It was irritating me, and scaring me at the same
time. I instantly regretted the times I’d put her through having to deal with
me like this. “Reed? Don’t go. I…I need help.”

That was it; I was out the door
now. I hated how weak I was, and half of my brain admonished the other half for
giving into her, letting her run my actions still after breaking me in half.
But I wasn’t over her. I wasn’t even remotely close to the start of getting
over her. And she needed help, so I’d come.

“What’s wrong, where are you?” I
said forcefully, trying to get her to concentrate. She giggled a little again,
and then stopped.

“I’m…at a bar,” she burst into
laughter again. I leaned my forehead on my steering wheel and banged it a
little. This was not going well. And if I was going to drive 100 miles to come
get her, I was going to need a whole lot more to go on.

“Yeah, I get that. But
what
bar?”
I said, sarcasm winning out.

“I…I don’t know, Reed. I’m
scared. I don’t know where I am,” she was starting to cry harder now.
Fuck!
I was already pulling onto the main road for the highway.

“Nolan, you need to find out
where you are. Can you tell me what you see?” I asked, grasping for anything.

“I see…people,” she was giggling
again.

Realizing I wasn’t going to get
anywhere this way, I tried to figure out where her friends were. “Where’s
Sarah? Nolan, I need to talk to Sarah. Is she with you?” I was crossing my
fingers like hell that Sarah would be on the phone soon.

“Sarah left,” she was giggling
again.

“Okay, how about Sienna?” I
asked, knowing it was less likely Sienna was with her. When I thought about who
she could be out with if it wasn’t her girlfriends, I wanted to scream.

“She’s mad at me,” she started
giggling, but less than before. “I mean…she left. I didn’t want to go home.”

I knew there was no way Sienna
would leave her somewhere alone, not when she was like this. “Okay, Noles. I
need you to do something for me, okay?” It was like reasoning with a
4-year-old.

“Okay,” she was almost
listening.

“I’m going to call someone, find
out where you are, but I need to call you back. Hold your phone in front of you,
and I want you to watch it for when I call, okay?” I was trying to keep things
simple.

“Okay, answer the phone. Got
it,” she was crying a little again. She was a mess.

I hung up with Nolan and called
Sienna. I was counting each ring, hoping like hell it wouldn’t go right to
voicemail. When I heard her pick up, and heard the crowds and music in the
background I felt relieved. I knew she wasn’t far.

“Reed?” she was yelling a little
into the phone. “Hang on, I can’t hear shit in here. I’m going to the ladies’
room.”

I couldn’t tell where they were,
but I knew it was crowded, the techno music thumping in the background, and the
constant stream of voices filling in the gaps.

“Okay, that’s better. I can hear
you. What’s up?” she said, not even a hint of panic to her voice.

“Sienna, where’s Nolan?” I asked
urgently, just wanting an answer at this point.

“She’s out on the dance floor
somewhere. I don’t know. I keep trying to make her come home, but she
won’t…why?” she clearly had no idea what had happened.

“She just called me,” I sighed,
pulling off at the next exit and pulling into a nearby gas station so I could
talk.

“Wha?...Wait, where is she,
Reed?” Sienna asked, now a little worried herself.

“I’m not sure. She just called
me. She’s all freaked out, said you two had a fight, and you left her at some
club,” I just killed the engine and tossed my hat on the dashboard, rubbing my
face out of frustration. “What the hell, Sienna? She’s fucking wasted. I can
hardly understand her.”

“Yeah, I know. She did
shots—a lot of them. I’ve been trying to get her to go home for the last
hour,” Sienna said.

“Well, you have to find her. I
think she might just be outside, somewhere close,” I said, hearing the sounds
of the music kick in again. Sienna was on the move.

“Hang on, I’m going out front.
I’ll find her Reed,” she was just as frustrated as I was. When the music died
off again in the background, I knew she was outside. I heard a few voices and
the sounds of cars roaring by on the road. “Wait…I see her. She’s sitting in
the gutter…with her freakin’ shoes off, ohhhhhh.”

I heard Nolan’s voice in the
background, and laid my head on the steering wheel, exhausted by the whole
thing. “What happened?” I asked, wanting answers but knowing Sienna really
didn’t have the time to give them to me. “Where’s Gavin?” I asked, my mouth
repulsing at saying his name.

“Gavin?! Why the hell would
Gavin be here?” Sienna said, her voice a little muffled from laying the phone
on her shoulder. “I got you. Come on girl…really, this time. It’s time to go
home, okay?”

I heard Nolan, “Mmmmm.” She
sounded sleepy. I knew this stage of a hard night out. She was near passed out.
I couldn’t even imagine what she looked like.

“Reed? Look, I gotta go. Thanks
for calling me. I’m sorry you had to,” she was a little short with me before
she just hung up.

“What the fuck?”
For the
next 20 minutes, I sat there just thinking about what had just happened. I
hadn’t heard her voice in weeks, not that she sounded like herself at all tonight.
But when I asked about Gavin, Sienna sounded like I was crazy. Maybe she didn’t
know that they had hooked up? Clearly they weren’t dating or anything. My head
was spinning, not sure what was right anymore, and I was just left missing
everything that I’d finally started to come to terms with losing.