What the…?
My other hand has “SUCKS” scrawled across it.
I hear a groan and glance over at Ruby.
“I didn’t do it,” she says from behind her arm. “Well, okay, I did, but you told me to.”
“You remember last night?”
“You don’t?”
“Not really.”
“Well, I ranted for a couple of hours about how much of a bastard Holt is, until you agreed with me. Then you did this to my face.”
She lifts her arm to reveal the most horrendous makeup job I’ve ever seen. Her eyebrows are thickened, and her jawline has been drawn in, all sharp angles and bad shading.
“You tried to make me look like Holt, because you wanted to punch him in the face for being so closed off.”
“Oh, God, Ruby, did I hit you?” It was hard to tell with all the makeup.
“No, but you did make a particularly yelly phone call to Holt at around two a.m.”
“What?! What did I say?!”
She sits up, then grabs her head and groans. “You said a lot of stuff. I may have been doing drunken cheers in the background. By the end, I felt sorry for him. You really bitched him out. Then you hung up and passed out.”
“Oh, God.” I feel sick, and not from the alcohol. I scramble around the floor and uproot debris as I try to find my phone. “Why didn’t you stop me?!”
“Honey, I was even drunker than you were. Plus, he totally deserved it. For a drunk chick, you were quite eloquent. Except for the part when you cried.”
I stop what I’m doing and look up at her. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Nope. About ten minutes into it, you sobbed something about how he’s your first boyfriend, your first lover, and you’re supposed to feel giddy and in love, but all you feel is confused and lonely, because even when he’s with you, he’s not totally there.”
“Oh, God.”
“Then you said something like, ‘Why don’t you just let yourself love me? Don’t you understand how good we could be?’ And, well, by that point, I was crying, too, so…”
I rub my eyes. “Oh, Ruby, this is bad. Bad, bad, bad.”
“Yeah, we need to never drink that much ever again.”
I shove stuff off the coffee table, desperate to find my phone. At last, I find it under a pizza box. It’s switched off and covered in grease.
When I turn it on, there are eight missed calls and two text messages.
“Crap, crap, crap…”
I read his first text message.
<Call me back. Now.>
I press the phone against my pounding head.
I don’t want to look at the next message, but I know I have to. He sent it an hour after the first one.
<I fucking hate that I made you cry. Call me when you get this. I don’t care how hungover you are. We need to talk.>
I stare at the screen for a long time as I reread his words.
“Cassie? Everything okay?”
“I don’t know. He said ‘we need to talk.’”
“Oh, shit.”
“That’s what I thought.”
I dial his number. It goes to voicemail. “Hey, this is Ethan. Leave a message. Or not. Whatever.”
I hang up.
“Dammit!”
“It’s only seven,” Ruby says, “and you did keep him awake with your drunken verbal abuse. Maybe let him sleep.”
“I need to borrow your car.”
“Uh … you don’t think you’re still too drunk to drive? I sure as hell am.”
“I need to get over there, Ruby.”
She rubs her eyes. “Fine. The keys are on my desk. But you might want to shower and get changed first. You have pepperoni stains on your boobs.”
I look down, and I’m not at all surprised to see she’s right. “Ruby, we are never drinking again.”
“Amen.”
Half an hour later, I knock on Holt’s door while nausea and panic fight it out to see which can make me vomit first. When he doesn’t answer right away, panic quickly takes the lead. I knock again.
After a few more seconds, I hear shuffling footsteps, then the door opens a crack to reveal Elissa’s squinting face.
“Cassie?”
“Hey, Lissa.”
“It’s seven thirty in the morning.”
“I know.”
“On a Saturday.”
“I’m sorry. Is your brother here?”
“No, or I’d freaking kill him. He bellowed something about going for a run about an hour ago. I hope he gets hit by a car. The hotheaded idiot banged around the apartment from like, three a.m. Swearing and slamming things around as he cleaned.”
“He … cleaned?”
“Yep. He only cleans when he’s beyond agitated. He started to vacuum around four. Did something happen between you two last night?”
“Uh, the thing is, I was drunk, and I … well, I think I verbally abused him.”
“You drunk-dialed him?”
I screw up my face. “Apparently.”
“Well, that explains a lot.” She yawns. “Do you want to come in and wait?”
“Sure. If that’s okay.”
“It’s fine.” She pulls the door open, then shuffles back toward her room. “He shouldn’t be long. Make yourself at home. I’m going back to bed. When he gets back, slap him over the head for me, would you?”