With a wicked grin on his face, he says, “I don’t know what you could possibly be referring to. I didn’t let you take rapid shots and then get on the mechanical bull, you did that all by yourself, buddy.”
I roll my eyes and collapse onto his couch. Why am I friends with him again? “I’m not talking about that, bozo. What happened to friends not letting friends dial drunk?” I shoot him an accusatory look, and watch the wheels in his head spin until it finally clicks.
“Wait, you drunk dialed someone? Was it Maggie? Because Sarah told me that her pregnancy test came back negative so you don’t even need to worry about that anymore.”
Maggie, that was her name. “No, this isn’t about Maggie.” I drop my head into my hands and sigh. “I called Eleanor.”
He’s quiet for a beat, then lets out a low whistle. He looks genuinely sympathetic when he asks, “What’d she say, dude?”
“She didn’t say anything. She didn’t answer.” Right? Using every single brain cell that wasn’t drowned in alcohol last night, I try to remember how that call went. I pull my phone out to check the duration of the call, and when I see that it was under 90 seconds, my stomach unclenches a bit.
Until I remember the voicemail.
Uh, hey darlin’....
….Uh, basically I fucked up and I don’t know what to do.
And things always make more sense when I talk to you.
Or maybe they don’t anymore. I don’t know.
I drag my hand down my face, then bite my knuckle hard enough to leave a mark. Regret and shame crawl up my spine with the same determination to make a reappearance as the Crunchwrap Supremes apparently have.
Maybe I’m imagining it, I think to myself hopefully. Maybe I didn’t actually make a complete ass of myself after working so hard to shut out every thought of her for the last two years.
My phone dings with a text notification, and that hope is gone even faster than it came.
Ellie: Hope everything is okay. You know I’ll always be here if you need me, Griffin.
I lurch myself to the trashcan just in time to empty last night’s contents from my stomach. But I don’t think it’s the hangover making me feel sick now.
Chapter 41
Ellie
May, Age 20
“Thank God you’re home,” Abby sighs, taking a drag from her milkshake like it’s a drunk cigarette. “I’ve been losing my mind.”
“You only got home two days before me,” I say, pointing my french fry in her face before popping it in my mouth. “I thought I was supposed to be the dramatic one.”
“I had to take up your mantle in your absence.”
“My forty eight hour absence.”
“Forty eight hours too many.”
After somehow surviving sophomore year, I’ve made it home to Larkspur for the summer. I always dread coming home, but after Griffin’s drunken voicemail and subsequent radio silence earlier this year, my stomach is in particularly painful knots. I didn’t see hide nor hair of him last summer, but I doubt I’ll be that lucky again.
The knots in my stomach tighten even further at the thought of my well-kept secret–I’m not going back to school in the fall. Well, I’m not going back to campus atleast. I’ve accepted an internship program with an architectural firm in Boston, and plan to take my next year online (maybe my last two years if my internship goes well). I haven’t shared it with anyone yet, including my parents. I have this horrible feeling that everyone is going to be mad at me for going even further away, and I can’t handle that. Even worse, I couldn’t handle someone accusing me of running away from my feelings. Again.
Because they’d be right. I thought Austin would be far enough, but after that missed call, I immediately started researching internships–the farther away, the better. When I stumbled upon this one, I applied on a whim, and was shocked when I got the acceptance email three days later.
All it took was one voicemail and a short text to send me into a spiral, desperate to flee with my tail between my legs. When I think about Griffin, and the way I left things, it feels like my lungs might collapse. My chest caves in even further when I remember that I have no right to feel this way. I did this to myself–and worse, I did it to him. I don’t get to wallow in self pity when I’m suffering the consequences of my own actions. I’ve been selfish enough.
The worst part of me wants to be selfish. It hopes that I run into Griffin, and I can beg him to forgive me and tell him I changed my mind, and he’ll kiss me and sweepme off my feet, and I can have him back without having to make any sacrifices. And I think he would let me do that to him–which makes it that much more awful, and that much more tempting to give into the fucked up life we’d have if I let him drop everything he’s ever wanted to be with me.
Selfish. Awful. Mean. You never deserved him.
