Faded Perfection (Beautifully Flawed Book 2) (4 page)

I looked down from the book I was reading to my cell phone vibrating against my leg. Reading was my only reprieve from the violent and painful thoughts catapulting around my brain, and the number on the cell phone brought them all rolling back over me. My jaw clenched as I stared at the number.

“They’ve called me twenty times today,” I said, and it was not an over-exaggeration; proven by the fact the screen flicked to MISSED CALLS 25. “How many times have they called you?”

Adam looked up from his tablet, his finger hovering over the screen as he exhaled. “Enough times.”

His cell phone began buzzing across the coffee table and both our eyes went to it before he continued playing what I could only assume was Angry Birds from the sounds emitting from the device. “I guess she should’ve thought of what she was saying before she said it,” Adam said as his finger slid across the screen.

I leaned forward and kissed him. “I’m sorry.”

He looked up, and his jaw clenched before he replied,  “It’s not your fault they’d rather have me dead.”

My throat tightened. I wanted to deny his words and tell him it was all a misunderstanding, but I didn’t feel like it was. I heard what she said and the way she said it.

All we have is Adam.

“If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t be calling,” I said, running my fingers through his hair, so his eyes fluttered shut. They opened as his cell phone vibrated yet again, tittering on the edge of the coffee table it finally reached.

I looked at the ceiling before grabbing it and swiping my finger across the screen. “Hello?”

“River?” Vickie’s voice hammered into my skull and sent my skin prickling with unease. The anger built in my body, and I felt myself begin to tremble as Adam’s eyes raced over my face. It seemed he was as unsure of what I was going to say as I was.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Adam won’t return our calls,” she said.

“I’m sorry to hear that. We’re both not interested in talking to anyone right now.”

Especially you.

“Even your mothers?” Vickie asked, reminding me that several missed called were from Mom. Her voice was innocent as if never did anything wrong.

My fists curled causing my nails to bite into my palms. “Right now, we need space and time.”

“Why?”

My voice was shaky as I repeated her question, “Why?”

“Yes, darling,” she said, and my whole body tensed at the strange mix of soft word and hard tone. “Why?”

I swallowed as I looked straight ahead, and Adam leaned into my line of vision. He put his hand on my knee and squeezed, mouthing the words
hang up.

“We have our reasons, Mrs. Beckerson. We’d appreciate it if you gave us some space,” I replied, and I was shocked how I held my calm when I wanted to yell at her; to tell her what a shitty parent she always had been. But she was still Adam’s mother, no matter how cruel she was to us. I wondered how he dealt with it his whole life when I could barely manage to deal with his parents for more than a ten sentence conversation.

She heaved an exaggerated sigh. “How long do you need?”

“Adam will reach out to you when he’s ready. Until then, we’d appreciate our privacy. Goodbye, Mrs. Beckerson,” I said. I pressed the end button before she could reply and leaned back to look at the ceiling.

I watched Adam stand from the corner of my vision, and I closed my eyes as his bare feet padded against the hardwood. I held my breath as I heard the refrigerator open and a cap unscrew. My body tensed, and my nails went in my palms again, this time so hard my skin shifted beneath them.

Please don’t be that bottle
.

Adam didn’t drink before, well, not other than at special events. In the week and a half since that phone call, Adam consumed more Southern Comfort than all the years I knew him added together. I fought the rolling in my stomach as he sat down beside me.

“You okay?” he asked, and I realized my chest was heaving. “River?”

I breathed out slowly. “I don’t know.”

Adam put a bottle of water on the table, and my tensed muscles loosened. Maybe I was just overthinking his drinking. He put his hands on my neck, his thumbs tucking beneath the edge of my hair as he leaned forward.

“Me either,” he replied. “Sometimes I wish they were different people, and I didn’t feel this way about them. I mean, shouldn’t we all be supporting each other right now?”

I felt my shoulders rise beneath his hands as I licked my lower lip. “They don’t know how to support other people…” I swallowed before continuing; “They’d just drag us down.”

My body numbed as I watched a tear roll down his face, catching in his scar and splitting in two. As his eyes searched mine, I knew the answer to how he handled his parent’s abuse and even how I handled it. It was one in the same.

The thing tearing us apart was the very thing that held us together–Bobby.

Two weeks.

Two weeks had passed since Bobby left us, and although my life felt frozen, I continued moving forward. I visited Tara every day for an hour or two and read books to pass the remainder of the time, but I needed to return to real life. I took a deep breath as I picked my cell phone up off the charger. The voicemail now flashed full, and I wondered if there were any from Mom on there, or if they were all from Vickie. I grit my teeth at the thought as I stared down at Adam lying in the bed curled into a ball with his pillow pulled to his chest.

I wondered how he was comfortable.

I doubted he was.

I knelt down to pick up the empty bottle of SoCo from beside the bed, and walked to the door, picking up my stilettos as I did. I glanced behind me at Adam, my pulse rushing through my ears before going into the kitchen and dropping the bottle in the recycling. I gazed down at the handful of empty bottles of liquor and closed my eyes as I ran my hands through my hair. Adam was not dealing with the loss well, or at all really. I mentioned I was going back to work today, but I wasn’t sure he heard—or, what scared me the most, that he cared. I took a shaky breath as I slipped my shoes on and then headed to the door, grabbing my coat and slipping it on before looking back at the bedroom.

He’ll be okay
. 
It’s only been two weeks.

I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose before turning out the door. I kept my eyes on the red tips of my shoes as I walked down the hall and to the stairs. I hoped Adam would get out of bed and not just to go to the liquor store. I shook the thought from my head as it started pounding.

“You can do this,” I said to myself as I began walking forward.

I wasn’t sure I could. I was going back to work—the place I met Tara, and the place Bobby found an internship for me. My chest tightened as I opened the driver’s side door, slipping into the car and putting the key in the ignition. The car roared to life, but I found myself pressing my forehead against the steering wheel as my grip tightened and the leather squeaked. I couldn’t stop the memories from rushing in.

Bobby had come to my dorm room with a paper in his hand, and one of
those killer
sideways smiles. He had waved it in my face as I shook my head and nodded for him to come in. My dorm mate had bit her lip as she stared at him, and I had rolled my eyes.

“You know how you were saying you needed an internship?” Bobby had asked as he sat on my couch, throwing his arm around me as I sat down beside him.

I curled my legs under myself as I cocked my head at him. “Yeah, but they’re all full. If it’s this impossible to get an internship in Boston, how am I ever going to get a job?” I asked with a frown. I narrowed my eyes as a huge smile spread across his lips. “Why do you look so excited?”

“This,” he replied, pushing my knees down and placing the paper on my lap. There in the middle was an advertisement circled in red marker with three explanation points. I looked from the paper to him and furrowed my brow as he raised his and nodded at me. “Go ahead, read it! It’s perfect for you!”

I had read it as his fingertips ran over my shoulders. He had been right; it had been ideal for me. It had turned into the best thing that had happened to me. While my peers were struggling to find any job at all, I already had one lined up a year before I even had my degree. That had all been because of Bobby. He had been looking for months for an internship for me without me even knowing.

I still had the paper saved in a journal I kept during college. I looked across the city in front of me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make it through this day, but I had to. There was no point in getting lost at the bottom of a bottle with Adam. Then there would be no way to save either of us.

I needed to stop thinking.

I slipped a CD into the player and ratcheted up the volume, letting the screaming of Ollie Sykes sink in. I needed this. The heavy rhythms coursed through my body, thrumming through my chest and  I let go, piece by piece.

When I parked the car and turned it off the silence engulfing the car caught me off guard, and I found my fingers wrapping tightly around the steering wheel. I watched as my knuckles turned white before letting them drop to my side. My stomach fluttered; empty except for the coffee I consumed on the drive in. I took a deep breath as I tried to steady the dizziness coming over me.

I can do this.

I got out and walked to the door.

I can do this.

I yanked it open and slipped inside the office building, walking up the short set of steps and into the lobby before turning right and walking into the marketing firm I called home for four years now. The warm air of the building hit me, and I found I was sweating as I stuck my head in Jesse’s door.

“River!” my boss said, standing and coming around his desk.

I stepped forward, and his hands fell onto my shoulders.

“I’m glad to have you back,” he said with a weak but warm smile. “How are you doing?”

I looked up at the ceiling before letting my gaze return to him. I returned the smile, or at least I attempted to. “Okay, I guess.”

“Listen, you don’t have to work the whole day. If you need to ease back into it, I’m fine with that.” Jesse’s blue eyes darted over my face as he tried to judge if I was okay. His chest rose with a suppressed sigh before he let go and walked back to his desk.

“I appreciate the offer, but I think I’ll be fine,” I said, sitting down in the seat he nodded to.

“Alright, then I need you to work on the branding for Alexis’ Grove. It’s a new restaurant in town,” he said as he pushed a project folder in my direction.

I opened it and looked at the company’s profile briefly. “I think I can handle this.”

“That’s my girl. We need to have a shoot scheduled in the next two weeks for advertisements, and we need to develop a solid slogan and logo for them. Something that speaks to the rustic Italian feel they’re going for. You’ll also want to get in touch with their interior designers.”

I shut the folder and gave my first real smile in weeks. “I’ll get right on it.”

Jesse winked at me before turning back to his computer. “That’s my girl.”

I stood and turned, but froze as my eyes landed on a cubical overflowing with flowers.

Tara’s cubical.

I pressed my eyes shut and counted to three as the temperature of the room seemed to rise with my pulse.

“River?” Jesse’s voice yanked me out of another flashback as Tara’s smiling face flickered and changed into the battered and bruised one it was the last time I saw her. My eyes found the red tips of my shoes again. It seemed they were one of the only things that would get me through the day.

“I’m good,” I replied, but my voice cracked.

“You sure?”

I nodded but kept looking down as I moved towards my office. When I walked in I was greeted by the scent of the flowers that also sat on my desk. I picked up the vase and set it on the table near the window without bothering to open the card. They were all the same.
Our deepest sympathies for your loss
or
You are in our thoughts during this difficult time.
I set the project folder down before sitting and placing my elbows on my desk as I let my head sink into my hands.

I can do this.

Can’t I?

I looked up the stairs of the apartment building, my hand gripping the railing as my chest rose to my chin. Going back to work exhausted me. Between catching up on 1,000 plus emails and dealing with people again, my head was spinning. Too many people I didn’t know now knew me as the
girl who lost her best friend,
and their words, much like their cards, left me feeling as empty as the false sympathetic smiles they threw me. Not to mention the personal invasion of space with gentle squeezes of my shoulder. I thought about going to see Tara, but the day had been enough as it was. I hoped her mom would understand. I turned to the elevator instead of the stairs I used religiously. I was too tired to walk any further. The ride up felt too long as my mind moved from the stress of work to Adam. I rubbed my palms against each other as the elevator numbers changed from one to two and then the door slid open. I stepped out and looked between the two doors on either side of the hall before closing my eyes, breathing in deeply and turning to our door. As I reached into my purse for my keys the door swung open, and I stepped back, jaw slack as Adam smiled at me.

“Hey!” Adam said, stepping forward and kissing my forehead before heading to the stairs.

“Hey?” I replied as I blinked hard at his back. He looked cute in his black flannel button-up over a teal shirt and jeans. He was even clean shaven. “Where are you going?”

He didn’t stop or turn; instead, he held his keys over his head and jingled them. “Boy’s night out!” he replied, and before I could answer he turned the corner and disappeared down the second set of stairs.

I stared at the empty stairwell, rubbing my arms as I whispered, “It’s not Thursday yet.”

My eyes drifted to the door across the hall. The emptiness I somehow managed to forget at work began to fill me as I stared at the wood and imagined the happiness that once occurred behind it. I dropped my arms as my hands clenched at my sides. Adam left me to suffer in my silence, and I realized I had no friends aside from Adam, Bobby and Tara. I never thought I lacked in the friend department. Girls generally didn’t stay loyal to me because of my friendship with the Beckerson boys. Throughout high school, I became used to girls using me to get at them and eventually I just gave up on relationships with the same sex. Adam and Bobby were always enough, and Tara had been a pleasant surprise, although her motives had to do with Bobby too. She was just always clear what her intentions were, and I was all right with that since they didn’t involve Adam. I swallowed as I turned into the apartment, shutting the door behind me and putting my forehead against the wood door. I should have been happy at Adam’s abrupt return to the real world, yet the smile hadn’t met his eyes. I still saw the flat, emotionless glaze that settled in since that night. I turned, pulling my jacket off and staring at the mirror next to the empty coat rack. Beneath the mascara, silver eye shadow and cat eyeliner was the same gaze.

Empty. Emotionless. A hollow shell.

I wondered if Adam saw it too. I put my jacket on the coat rack. If he did, he didn’t care.

~~~

Even though I left work, I brought my laptop with me and continued to work until my eyes wouldn’t stay open any longer. I checked the time as I fell into bed –1:45 AM. The tension left my body as I pulled the crisp sheets into a cocoon around me. My dreams consisted mostly of pitch black since Bobby passed, and it was the only relief I felt from the same inky darkness overwhelming my soul.

Bang!

My eyes snapped open, and my chest heaved as I blinked several times and sat up on the bed.

There it was again; someone was slamming on the front door, and they were laughing. I grit my teeth as I glanced at the alarm clock—3:07 AM. I picked my sweatshirt up from the floor and yanked it over my head before grabbing my glasses and shoving them over my eyes.

“Let me in, River!” Adam said from behind the door he was still slamming on.

I pulled it open with so much force that the person holding Adam dropped him. “What the fuck?”

I pushed Adam off of me, and he latched onto the door frame.

“Sorry, Riv,” Mark said as his eyes widened. “We didn’t expect him to get
that
loaded.”

I glared at him, and his hand went to the back of his shaggy head of hair. “I should, err…get going.”

“Maybe next time you could stop him before he’s so cocked he can’t stand?” I asked, my heart pounding hard against my ribs.

Adam looked up at me, puppy-brown eyes making my stomach turn. “Don’t be mad at them, Riv.”

“Don’t you dare
Riv
me, Adam Beckerson!” I said as I yanked him into the apartment and slammed the door in Mark’s face. I knew Adam made the decision to get drunk, and I shouldn’t be mad at Mark. They couldn’t control him any more than I could. I was madder at myself for letting him go without warning them how alcohol was suddenly his crutch. Adam stumbled forward and faced planted on the couch, and I felt my body tremble as I sat down on the one stair leading into our living room. I put my head in my hands, chewing on my lip.

I should have taken the look in Adam’s eyes for what it was worth. It meant one thing—the bottle of SoCo wasn’t far behind. My hands moved over my face. Would Adam be able to get over this, or would SoCo be his only way out of his pain?

Time. That’s what he needed.

I stood and went to put him in a more comfortable position, remembering from classes in high school to put his head out so he wouldn’t swallow his vomit if his stomach revolted against the alcohol. I kissed his forehead before moving to the chair Bobby and Tara cuddled in on Christmas. I pulled the blanket off the back of it and wrapped it around myself as I watched Adam until I fell asleep again; until the darkness once again consumed me and quieted my soul. What was left of it, anyway?