Page 17 of Blueline Baby

He pulls back and looks at me like he’s just done something wonderful.

“I LOVE YOU, BACKCHECK GIRL!” he yells over the music.

And then, still holding my face in his hands, his eyes slide past me to a girl standing right next to us.

“I don’t remember you at all,” he tells her.

He lets go of my face, leans over, and kisses her too.

Right there. Six inches away from where I’m standing.

I don’t feel it physically, but everything suddenly goes very quiet and very still inside my head. The girl laughs. Somebody whoops. Jack has already forgotten I was standing here, the exact same way he forgets everyone else.

And now there’s nothing left in me that thought I had him wrong.

I gently set my plastic cup on the counter. It feels like every movement I make is happening underwater. I don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say, and he’s not worth saying anything to.

Britt finds me as I’m walking toward the front door. She takes one look at my face and starts to follow, but I wave her back off. One of us should get to enjoy tonight, and it should be the one who didn’t come up here dumb enough to hope.

Nobody else notices me go. Least of all him.

My phone vibrates on my nightstand at two in the morning. And again at two fifteen. And almost every five minutes after that until I finally get out of bed, open my bedroom door, and throw the phone into the living room.

I know it’s him. I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s saying.

I don’t cry. I don’t have anything to cry about. I knew exactly what he was the night he fell through my front door and I let myself forget it for a car ride and twenty minutes in a kitchen. A drunk hockey player kissed me, and then immediately kissed a stranger just to remind me.

I won’t forget again.

9

JACK

THE KISSING-YOU PART MEANT SOMETHING

For one brief, beautiful moment when I wake up, I have no idea where I am. Then I realize I’m face-down on my own living room floor. I’ll admit it’s not the first time this has happened. Somebody was decent enough to slide a couch cushion under me. I completely reek of alcohol.

I raise my head just enough to look around. My apartment is a crime scene. Red solo cups are everywhere. Something sticky is pooling under my hand. My head feels like a massive bell being repeatedly rung from the inside.

I pick up my phone from the floor and look through the messages, ending on a text thread with Chloe, my stomach dropping violently on every single line, because they’re all from me, all from last night, and all unanswered.

2:03: hey

2:19: HEY

2:24: i think you left. did you leave

2:32: you looked so pretty tonight i mean it

2:46: im sorry i think. i dont know why im sorry but i can feel that i should be

I don’t remember typing a single one of them. I remember her showing up. I remember kissing her. That part I remember with my whole body—her hands coming up between us.

And then nothing. Everything after is entirely black. Like somebody literally pulled the plug on the night.

Smitty’s asleep across the living room. I throw the cushion at him and he wakes up with a jerk.

“What happened.”