After Ever Happy (After 4)

“Where should I go?” Her voice is hoarse and she’s trying to stop sobbing, but she’s failing miserably.

“I don’t know . . . There aren’t many”—my eyes are heavy—“places here, it’s night and late . . . and there’s nothing open . . .”

I close my eyes and everything fades away.

THE SOUND OF SIRENS startles me awake. I jump at the loud noise, and my head slams against the roof of the car.

Car? Why the fuck am I in a car?

I look over and find Tessa sitting in the driver’s seat, her eyes closed and her legs curled up against her body. I’m instantly reminded of a sleepy kitten. My head is fucking killing me. I drank way too fucking much.

It’s daylight, the sun is hiding behind the clouds, leaving the sky gray and dreary. The clock on the dashboard informs me that it’s ten minutes until seven. I don’t recognize the parking lot we are parked in, and I try to remember how the hell I got in the car in the first place.

There are no police cars or sirens now . . . I must have been dreaming them in my sleep. My head is throbbing, and when I pull my shirt up to wipe my face, the thick smell of smoke invades my nostrils.

Flickers of a burning couch and Tessa crying play through my mind. I struggle to put them together; I’m still half-drunk.

Beside me, Tessa stirs and her eyes flutter before opening. I don’t know what she saw last night. I don’t know what I said or did, but I do know that the way she’s looking at me right now makes me wish I would have burned . . . with that house. Images of my mum’s house flash through my mind.

“Tessa, I—” I don’t know what to say to her; my mind isn’t working and neither is my fucking mouth.

Judy’s bleached hair and Christian pushing me out the back door of my mum’s house fill some of the gaps in my memory.

“Are you okay?” Tessa’s tone is soft and rough at the same time. I can tell she has nearly lost her voice.

She’s asking me if I’m okay?

I search her face, confused by her question. “Uhm, yeah? Are you?” I may not remember most of the night . . . hell, the day or night, but I know she should be upset with me.

She nods slowly, her eyes performing the same searching that mine are.

“I’m trying to remember . . . The cops came . . .” I sift through the memories as they come. “The house was burning . . . where are we?” I look out the window, trying to figure it out.

“We are . . . well, I’m not really sure where we are.” She clears her throat and looks straight ahead through the windshield. She must have been screaming a lot. Or crying, or both, because she can barely speak. “I didn’t know where to go, and you fell asleep, so I just kept driving, but I was so tired. I had to pull off the road eventually.” Her eyes are bloodshot and swollen; black makeup is smeared underneath them, and her lips are dry and cracked. She’s barely recognizable. Still beautiful, but I’ve drained her.

Looking at her right now, I can see the lack of warmth in her cheeks, the loss of hope from her eyes, the missing happiness from her full lips. I took a beautiful girl who lives her life for others, a girl who always found the good in everything, even me, and turned her into a shell whose void eyes are staring back at me now.

“I’m going to be sick,” I choke out and yank the passenger door open. All of the whiskey, all of the rum, and all of my mistakes splatter against the concrete, and I repeatedly vomit until I’m left with nothing but my guilt.

Chapter eight

HARDIN

Tessa’s voice comes through soft and raspy in the gaps between my harsh breathing: “Where should I go?”

“I don’t know.” Part of me wants to tell her to get on the next plane out of London, alone. But the selfish—and much stronger—part knows that if she did, I wouldn’t make it through the night without drinking myself sick. Again. My mouth tastes like vomit, and my throat burns from the brutal way my system expelled all that liquor.

Opening the center console between us, Tessa pulls out a napkin and begins to wipe the corners of my mouth with the rough paper. Her fingers barely touch my skin, and I flinch away at the icy cold.

“You’re freezing. Turn the car on.” But I don’t wait for her to oblige. Instead I lean across and turn the key myself, blasting the air from the vents. The air is cold at first, but this expensive-ass car has some trick to it, and warmth quickly spreads through the small space.

“We need to get gas. I don’t know how long I was driving, but the fuel light is on, and that screen says so, too.” She points to the lavish navigation screen on the dash.

The sound of her voice is killing me. “You’ve lost your voice,” I say, even though it’s incredibly obvious. She nods and turns her head away from me. My fingers wrap around her chin, and I turn her face back to me. “If you want to leave, I won’t blame you. I’ll take you to the airport right now.”

She gives me a puzzled look before opening her mouth. “You’re staying here? In London? Our flight is tonight, I thought—” The last word voice comes out as more of a squeak than anything else, and she breaks into a coughing fit.

I check the cup holders for some water or something, but they’re empty.

I rub her back until she stops coughing, then I change the subject. “Trade me places; I’ll drive over there.” I nod toward the filling station across the road. “You need water and something for your throat.”

I wait for her to move out of the driver’s seat, but she rakes her eyes over my face before shifting the car into drive and pulling out of the parking lot.