A Love Letter to Whiskey
Page 37

“What? Nothing to say now?”
“I said go away.”
“Oh come on,” he chided, his long legs letting him catch up to me easily. “You’ve been doing your damnedest to get my attention all night. Well, you’ve got it.”
I scoffed. “Contrary to your belief that the world revolves around you, Jamie, you were the last thing on my mind tonight.”
“Bullshit.”
I spun then, stopping us mid-stride, practically seething. “Just leave me alone! Go back to Jenna and give her the Tour De’ Jamie’s Bedroom. I’ve heard it’s quite the tourist spot on campus.”
Jamie’s lips flattened and he slammed his hand against a random truck. “Damnit, B!” I flinched, waiting for the alarm to sound, but it didn’t. “What the hell do you want from me? You give yourself to me after all this time and then treat me like scum the next fucking day, saying it was a mistake and didn’t matter to you. But then, you act like a goddamn fool when you see me with your best friend.” He stepped into my space and my breath caught in my chest. “You think I slept with Tina? I didn’t. She’s in my class, nothing more. You think that night didn’t matter to me? It did. It’s all I’ve thought about since. You think it doesn’t kill me to see Ethan’s hands on you?” He stepped closer, eyes wild. “It does. It fucking murders me. You think what happened between us wasn’t real? It was.” His chest was heaving as everything faded out around us and his eyes fell to my lips. “And it still is.”
He broke the space between us, crushing his mouth on mine. His lips sparked the fire and I sucked in a breath through my nose, head spinning, before my hands found the center of his chest and I shoved him back hard. He hit the truck and threw his hands up, eyes an inferno as we both panted.
I watched him, my conscience telling me to walk away while my body screamed for me to never let go. Nothing made sense. Everything made sense. The whiskey clouded my head and I stopped trying to fight the fog, launching myself at him and yanking his sweater until his mouth was on me again. He lifted me, spinning us and pinning me against the truck. His lips traveled down my neck to my collarbone, my chest, the swell of my breast. He sucked the skin hard, trying to brand me, but I wasn’t his to mark.
“Stop,” I breathed, and he groaned, taking it as a challenge as his hand slipped under my tank top. I moaned, breathing hard into his mouth as he slid his tongue inside mine. I was dizzy. I wanted to give in. I wanted him. Badly.
But this was wrong.
“Stop!” I said again, this time pushing him off and dropping my feet back to the ground. “We can’t do this.”
“Why not?” he panted.
“B?”
Jenna’s voice startled us both and I closed my eyes, leaning my head against the truck before turning to face her.
She crossed her arms, eyes bouncing between the two of us. “What the fuck is going on?”
Jamie forced a long exhale through his nose, and I couldn’t even look at him again. I didn’t want to see the pain, the resignation.
“Come on, Jenna. Let’s go.” I reached for her hand and she took it, eyes still wild under bent brows as I tugged her away from Jamie. To his credit, he didn’t follow this time.
When we were out of ear shot, Jenna pulled her hand free and picked up our pace. “You better have some fucking booze in your dorm room because you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”
I glanced back at Jamie, who hadn’t moved. He just stood there watching us leave, and I knew nothing would be the same after I told Jenna. She would make me choose. She would be the voice of reason I was running from.
“All I have is Whiskey,” I whispered, tearing my eyes from Jamie to the path we were walking. I meant that sentence in more ways than one, and I knew before telling Jenna anything that I couldn’t ever lose him.
But that meant I’d have to lose someone else.
THEY SAY TIMING IS EVERYTHING, and I was beginning to learn that timing was everything but kind to Jamie and me.
I woke up that next afternoon hungover as hell, but finally feeling relieved from the pressure that had been crushing my chest. The sun was shining hot through my dorm window and I kicked the covers off. Jenna grumbled, rolling away from the light as I stared up at my ceiling, going over my plan for the day.
After talking to Jenna until nearly five in the morning, spilling everything, I felt better. I expected her to judge, or hell — to maybe be mad, seeing as how she had dated Jamie in high school — but she didn’t, and she wasn’t. She listened to me sob and break down and she held me through all of it, and then she did what I knew she would.
She made me choose.
I thought it would be harder, I thought it would kill me to say out loud who I wanted, but after confessing everything and feeling the whiskey and beer leave my system gradually, it was like walking out of a foggy haze into the purest clarity. I knew what I had to do, and even though I knew it would hurt, I was ready to do it.
Crawling out of bed, I padded to the bathroom and popped two ibuprofen before attempting to wrangle my hair. As I did, I cringed at my reflection. I looked like absolute shit, and I knew I deserved it. Ethan shouldn’t have had to put up with my dramatics last night, and he shouldn’t have to be lied to, either. I hoped he would understand. I hoped he would forgive me. I hoped he would move on, finding a girl who could treat him better than I did.
More than anything, I hoped he’d be happy.
And then there was Jamie. My stomach lurched at the thought of him. After last night, I didn’t know if he would hear me out — if he would give me a chance to explain myself or if he’d give a shit after I did. But I had to try. One thing was certain after talking to Jenna all night — I wanted to be with him — needed it, really. I just hoped I wasn’t too late.
I remember the next sixty seconds like a slow motion car wreck.
Me, staring at my reflection in the mirror, planning out all the words I would say. Jenna, sprinting up behind me with my phone in her hand. Her voice, panicked. Her hair, wild. My mom’s cries on the other end, loud and jarring, pounding against my head that the ibuprofen had yet to help ease. It happened all at once — all of those things — but I remember them singularly, morphed, almost as if I’d dreamed them.
I had everything planned out — what I would say to Ethan, what I would say to Jamie — but I never got the chance.