And I deserved it. Maybe I should’ve let it happen anyway.
My eyes scrunched up, and I tried to remember exactly how it had all fallen apart. My mind had shut down, going into survival mode. How fucked up was it that survival mode didn’t include saving the best person in my life?
What the fuck had I done?
All I knew was that I needed to apologize. Looking around the yard, I searched for a way to get to Ana since going through the front door was off-limits. I spotted the pebbles below her window in the side garden, and I picked up a few up before tossing them at the window. I was an eighties movie come to life.
Fifteen rocks in and there wasn’t a single bit of movement from her window. My shoulders fell and my heart dropped further knowing I wasn’t getting to her until tomorrow. I dragged my feet up to my room, stumbling on the last step dropping my phone in front of me. Of course, my phone. When I walked into my room, my eyes shot to her window to see if anything had changed, but it remained dark. So, I pulled out my phone and hoped she would at least read my messages.
Me: Pleas talk o me.
The letters blurred, but I persisted.
Me: Imm sory. I panickd.
Me: Please Ana. Youre my best friend.
I got nothing and eventually fell into bed wondering how the night had gone so wrong.
Because you’re a fucking idiot. Would it really have hurt your father’s career? Was it anyone’s business?
No. It rang through my head an hour too late. Prince fucked up many times before the video incident. Murmurs about me and gossip wouldn’t have made a difference. Hindsight was twenty-twenty and it was giving me a swift kick in the balls for being an idiot. Spinning around alternative responses I could’ve said, I eventually fell asleep trying to decide if the nausea wreaking havoc on my stomach was because of the alcohol or if my body knew I’d already lost before my mind was ready to give in to the inevitable.
The next time I opened my eyes, bright light spilled in from my window trying to crack my skull open. My head pounded as I lay there against my pillow, trying to put the pieces back from last night.
Ana.
I shot up and regretted the fast movement when the thudding increased tenfold. The clock said twelve seventeen and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept so late. Hoping I’d be able to talk to Ana, I stumbled from my bed and looked out the window. Maybe she was waiting for me. When I walked over, I froze at seeing her blinds pulled closed. Ana rarely closed her blinds and I couldn’t help but think it meant more than some privacy.
My heart thundered in my chest as all the implications of what it could mean. Maybe she was changing. Maybe she was blocking out the day because she was just as hungover as me. My lungs worked to catch up with my body moving faster than it should. I thundered down the stairs and ignored my parents calling to me from the living room. I flung the door open and didn’t look back to see if it closed before I jogged across the lawn and began banging on Ana’s door.
Mrs. Montgomery opened the door and leveled me with a glare that felt like it was going to set me on fire. “What?” she asked sharply. Not a ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’ or ‘let me get Ana.’ Just ‘What.’
“Is Ana home?” I choked out.
She stared at me, taking in the way I leaned against the siding for support as I sagged out of breath wearing clothes from yesterday. “I took her to the airport this morning. She left for Nashville where she will be attending Vanderbilt in the fall,” she delivered the words with a hollow voice like she wasn’t shattering my world.
“What?” It was all I could get out. It was the only thing crashing through my head. What? What? What? Over and over until ‘No’ took over. The vehement denial doing nothing to change the fact.
No. No. No. No.
She took in my shaking head and her eyes glossed over. Not in sympathy. No. Her pinched lips let me know how displeased she was with me, and I wondered how much Ana had told her. She knew Ana left because of me and she was hurt that she had lost her daughter because of the scum in front of her.
“I don’t know what you did to her,” she spat out beneath her breath. “But you better hope she’s okay. That she can recover from the way I saw her last night.”
And with that she slammed the door in my face. My jaw became unhinged as it hung open in shock. Fire burned the backs of my eyes and pooled. I tried to blink the moisture away, but a couple of tears leaked out. Jesus. I stood on Ana’s porch, having chased her away in a moment of complete and utter panicked idiocy, and cried.