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Groaning, my head slumps to the side as Mali comes upstairs. “Fuck. Cam’s here, isn’t he?”
She smirks. “He is, and you’re in trouble. The bar was supposed to be open over an hour ago. There are some thirsty people on the beach.”
“It’s ten in the morning,” I grumble. “Their alcoholic asses can wait.”
“Funny you mention alcoholic asses…” She steps closer, and I instantly regret my words. “Are you doing okay?”
Surprisingly enough, Mali has become one of my closest friends since Laiken left. Don’t get any ideas. She’s like my sister. But we leaned on each other while Cam self-destructed. I don’t think any of us took her absence well, but Cam was hanging by a thread. And when Mali tried to rein him in, it didn’t go well.
“What are you getting at?” I ask tiredly.
She puts the glass of water and two Advil down beside me. “I’m just worried about you. That’s all. You’ve been drinking a little excessively and being as alcoholism runs in your family…” Her voice trails off and she sighs. “I’m just making sure you know what you’re doing.”
This is not a conversation I’m willing to have. Not now and not ever. I never understood why my father gave up his family to be drunk all the time. If I had a choice between the two, I’d pick Laiken without an ounce of hesitation. But I didn’t get the opportunity to do that like he did.
Grabbing the pills, I toss them into my mouth, swallow them quickly, and then push myself out of bed so I can get in the shower. But first, my gaze locks with Mali’s.
“The difference between him and me is that he left his family. Mine left me.”
She frowns, sympathy all over her face, but I turn away before acknowledging it. I’ve tried to hide my pain from everyone around me, other than my mom. Though Cam knows my mom is sick, no one really knowshowsick. And Mali doesn’t know anything at all. She worries about me enough. I didn’t want to give her another reason to watch me like it’s her job to take care of me.
It's not.
“Hayes,” she says sadly.
“Tell Cam I’ll be down in a minute,” I call back as I go into the bathroom.
It’s not the answer she wanted, but she’s not about to argue with me right now. “Yep.”
It’s not the first time we’ve had a conversation similar to this—where she tells me that my actions and ways of coping are unhealthy. But what’sunhealthyis being put through more shit in two years than some people deal with in a damn lifetime. And if drowning all my feelings in a bottle of vodka and a few beers manages to dull the pain of that a little, then thank fuck for whoever created alcohol.
I turn on the shower and direct the hot water to pour on my face as I let my mind wander back to when Laiken left. It’s not somewhere I go often, but maybe I should, because every time I do, I get a little angrier.
For six months, I tried looking for her. Cam and Mali helped at first, tracking down any lead I could find on where she may have gone. We even went back to the hacker and paid him to try tracking her phone, but there was no luck. Every attempt we made came back empty. And then the day came where Cam’s parents got a letter.
It was a few pages long, explaining that she had to leave to make something of herself and couldn’t do that here. Granted, she couldn’t tell them what had happened. That’s a secret we will all take to our graves. But she apologized for leaving so abruptly and not saying goodbye.
That’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever been jealous of her parents. They got a well written and fully thought-out letter, while I got three measly words scribbled onto the back of our wedding photo. It wasn’t fair. It still isn’t. I gave her everything, and all I got back was pain and a shitload of tainted memories.
After that letter, Cam stopped looking, and Mali followed suit shortly after. Their main concern was that someone took her and made it look like she left on her own accord. But knowing that she was safe—that was enough for them to let her live her life and move on from the nightmare that torments every one of us.
But I kept looking, at least until that phone call came.
It was six months after she left, and the number wasn’t one in my phone, but the feeling I got when I watched it ring it told me to answer it. And I did.
It was quiet at first, with just the sound of breathing, but I knew it was her. It filled my chest with hope for the first time in months.
“Laiken,” I said, my voice dripping with vulnerability.
But I was met by silence. I tried to make out the background noise, to maybe get some indication of where she might be, but I couldn’t.
After a few minutes of quiet, I tried again. “Baby, talk to me.”
I shouldn’t have done that, though, because the words that followed will always be as painful as they were in that moment.
“You have to stop looking for me,” she said, and then the call went dead.
Six months of searching tirelessly for her, and she never wanted to be found in the first place. And if I thought the three words scribbled in her handwriting hurt, they paled into comparison to the way those spoken seven made me feel. I thought I was going to die. Genuinely considered it, because a life without her wasn’t one that I had any interest in living. But somehow, I managed to push through.
