Page 33 of Fueled Hate

I go straight to the house but find it empty. Dialing Levi, my call goes unanswered again.

Me: Answer your phone now.

I waste no time pulling up the contact for Colton, dialing it as I walk out of the house.

Colton doesn’t answer so I go through every contact in my phone who might know where Levi is. My guess is they’re all either in class or somewhere together but not one of them answers their phone.

Thinking about all the places he could be, I start at the spots he usually goes. The good thing about a small town is everyone knows where everyone lives, so it doesn’t take but the second stop to locate Levi’s truck at Clay’s house.

Rushing to the door, I bang my fist on it twice before I throw the door open. Walking through the house, I call out to Clay and Levi, hoping to get a response. Every second that ticks by, every second I’m met with silence, my heart thumps a little faster against my chest. The house is neat and tidy but my head is in chaos as I imagine what I could find when I do finally locate Levi. There’s always the fear he’ll have had one too many drinks or take something and not wake up. I find most of the rooms empty until my stomach turns when I see Levi in a bedroom, lying facedown across the bed. Seemingly asleep, a closer look at the bottles littered around him tells me he’d had some help falling asleep. I’m glad he is okay, but then my fear morphs and I radiate anger now as I approach him.

“Levi.” I nudge his arm, shaking him, but he just groans. His clammy skin looks paler than I’ve ever seen. His eyes open, blinking in disbelief as he looks to me. The redness in his eyes make mine water. “What are you doing?”

I’ve seen him binge in the past, drinking himself to the point where he didn’t know where he was, but I’d hoped it was over. I’d hoped he was enjoying senior year, playing football, loving life. But he’s not. He’s in a deeper hole than before from the looks of it. I guess I have no room to talk. I might not be drinking myself into a coma, but I’m not loving life either.

“Sadie, what are you doing here?” Clay asks, taking in the sight of my brother passed out on his bed.

“How long has he been like this?” I ask.

“It’s on and off, but he was fine when I left for school this morning. He said he wasn’t going to drink, that he just didn’t want to deal with your dad today.”

“What is there to deal with? My dad lets him do as he pleases.” I shake Levi again. “Wake up.”

“I really think you should talk to your dad. Levi hasn’t been himself for a long time, but he seems like he’s so far gone now that he might not snap out of it. I tried talking to Frank but he said that was just Levi’s way of coping.”

“You told my dad that Levi was drinking like this?”

Clay nods, looking over to Levi. “He’s my best friend. I tried to be his, but I can’t watch him self-destruct any longer. I know the signs. I watched my dad do it for years.”

“I’ll talk to my dad,” I say, trying to comprehend that Dad is fully aware of Levi’s problem and still allowing him to do this. To be out all night. To skip school. Before, I’d thought he was simply overlooking normal teenager behavior. But now I see Levi is a ticking time bomb. “Levi, wake up now.”

“Why are you here?” His words are slurred as he sluggishly sits up on the bed.

“I’ve been trying to find you.”

“You found me. Now you can leave.” His eyes close as he shifts on the bed, causing the bottles around him to clank together.

“Come on. You’re coming home with me to sober up.” I grab his arm but he jerks it away.

He slowly rises into a standing position, swaying a bit. “I’m not going anywhere with you. Go back to your life before you fuck someone else’s up.”

“What are you talking about? I’m here for you. I came to check on you, and you’re obviously not okay.”

“Because of you.”

My breath hitches at the harshness of his tone. His words slowly registering in my mind. “What?”

“She’s dead because of you.”

“No. No she’s not.” My voice cracks as I shake my head. He’s drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. It can’t be true. Even if the thought has crossed my mind, it can’t be how he feels.

“Little Miss Perfect needed her special ice cream because nothing else would do for her birthday. She was only there because of you.”

“Why would you say that?” A tear falls down my cheek as I stare into cold, dark eyes that I don’t recognize. The thought he spoke out loud is one that has crossed my mind more times than I care to admit. She was there because I only eat mint chocolate chip ice cream. She thought we had some but ran out at the last minute to get it before we cut my birthday cake. Instead of celebrating my eighteenth birthday with her that night, we received the call that she had been shot in the parking lot. A robbery gone wrong. It was shocking enough in a town the size of Staffordsville, but nothing about it made sense. How someone could take her life in a split second, forever changing the world I knew, was unfathomable. All for money. They gunned her down in broad daylight to steal her purse. Something that she probably would’ve handed over; something she wouldn’t have been put in the middle of if not for me.

“Because it’s true.”

“No, it’s not. It can’t be my fault.”