“So I hardly saw you tonight. Everything okay?”
“Me?” I quickly glance over at her. “Yeah, fine. Just tired,” I lie.
“Yeah, me too. Ooh…let’s stay up, eat junk food and watch movies until we pass out.”
Her serious tone has me cracking up laughing. “I didn’t realize we were fourteen again.”
“Hey, don’t be a Debbie Downer.”
I reach for her hand and hold it in mine. “You’re a really good friend, Kendall.”
“I think maybe you misunderstood when I suggested we stay up and watch movies together…” she quips. She flashes a witty smile at me, and I lean my head on her shoulder, laughing and squeezing her hand.
“I can be a much better friend if I had some booze.”
“Well, you’re in luck. I just happen to know a place.”
Kendall and I stop at the bar Zoe works at, and since we didn’t change clothes, people stare at us like we have the plague. But we don’t let that stop us. I don’t tell them why I’m angry-drinking, but they don’t seem to notice anyway.
“All right, ladies. Blowjobs on me!” Zoe yells over the noise.
“Now we’re talking!”
She hands us each a shot with whip cream on top. “No using your hands!”
We both smile and accept the challenge, taking the shot glass in our mouths and swallowing it down. “Oh my God!” I laugh, wiping the cream off my face. I look at Kendall and laugh at how much cream is on her nose. “I think you missed your entire mouth.”
“Trust me…that’s the whole point.” She winks, licking the cream off her lips.
“I’d rather have it on my face than in my mouth,” Zoe blurts out with, making us all burst into a fit of giggles. Clearly, the alcohol has taken over.
I’m not a clingy girl by any means, but when a guy kisses me, gets me all hot and bothered, and then leaves with no explanation, I’m allowed to get pissed. So therefore, I drink.
And drinking usually leads to bringing a guy home with me.
“Dude, that guy has been staring at your ass from the moment you sat down.” Zoe directs my attention to a guy standing behind me.
“Well, I’m in a very sexy red gown…I’d be worried if guys weren’t staring.”
“You’re so humble,” Zoe mocks. “You two better be getting a cab. Give me the keys,” she orders.
“Yes, boss lady,” I say in a condescending voice as Kendall hands them to her. “But maybe I can get lucky and find a different ride home.” I wink and finish off the drink Zoe made for me earlier and very ungracefully slide off the stool.
“Call me later so I know you’re safe!” Kendall hollers, but I adjust my cleavage and walk away, letting the alcohol take over all my pain.
MORGAN
I slam the shot glass onto the table as the alcohol burns its way down my throat. I should really just go to bed, but with the way things ended tonight, it’s more than necessary.
Natalia is staying over at my parent’s house, so I’m left with just my thoughts and a bottle of whiskey, which is really never a good combination.
Jennifer. Aspen. Jennifer. Aspen.
How the hell did the evening go from kissing Aspen to walking away from Jen?
I have no fucking clue…hence the whiskey.
I want to call her, explain everything, but I know with the condition I’m currently in, that’s not really a smart idea. This whole situation has my head in such a mess. I don’t even want to think about it anymore.
But I can’t stop the thoughts from swarming in. Thoughts of Jen bring me to thoughts of Ryan and all the pain they both caused me. The guilt from never forgiving him or even talking it out hurts me the most. Jen shattered my heart, but Ryan was my brother. I should’ve at least mended things with him.
I pour another shot and throw my head back. I should’ve called him. I should’ve come back to visit. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have let the bitterness and anger consume me so much that I neglected my family for five years and waited until it was too late. He died before I could tell him I still loved him and that we could move on from this. But I was a coward.
The only closure I need is that he died a hero. I don’t deserve anything more than that.
I wake up sometime between the sun rising and the front door slamming shut. I’m not quite sure if I’m asleep or waking up from a bad dream.
Within seconds, I hear Natalia and my mother screaming at each other and then I know…
I’m in a real life nightmare.
Memories of the night before surface quickly as the alcohol left in my system spins the entire room around. I curse, feeling the effects of last night. My head pounds and my body aches.
I dress quickly and head out to the living room to see what all the fuss is about. Natalia runs to her room the moment she sees me.
“What the hell is going on?” I follow my mom to the kitchen. She immediately begins rummaging through my cupboards.
She grabs the bottle of bourbon and a glass. “I’d like to know that, too.”
“Mother, it’s not even noon. What are you doing?” I jerk my head toward the glass. She always drinks casually, but since Ryan’s death, she’s been in overdrive.
“There’s a reason God didn’t give me a daughter. I can’t take all this emotional crap.” She pours the bourbon in her glass and takes a sip.
That makes two of us.
“What’s the issue? Is she okay?”
“Morgan, I don’t know. She was fine at breakfast and then all of a sudden, she copped an attitude with me. Screaming something about her dad, how I’m not the boss of her, and she hates everyone.”
I narrow my eyes. She’s never talked to me like that before, so I know something serious has to be going on with her.
“I’ll talk to her.” I grab a glass of orange juice first and suck it down with a couple of Aleve.
“How was your event thing?”
“It was going great until you sent Jennifer,” I fire back, setting the glass down in the sink. “Thanks for that by the way.”
“Morgan…” she pleads as I start walking away.
“Any chance this has anything to do with Ryan’s uniform?” I stop and ask, turning around to face her.
“She asked for it a few nights ago, and I just couldn’t part with it.” Her voice is soft, pained.
“She’s eleven, Mom. She’s lost both parents and feels disconnected to everyone right now,” I try and explain. “She needs something to hang on to. Something that’ll help her to not feel so alone.”
She lowers her eyes, nodding her head. “I just miss him so much.”
I step closer and wrap my arms around her. “I know, Mom. Me, too.”
I walk her to the couch and tell her to sit and wait for me. “I’m going to go talk to her.”
She nods, her eyes heavy.
I walk down the hall to Nat’s room and find her sitting on top of her bed with a pillow pressed against her chest.
“Hey, Shorty.”
“Hi,” she mumbles against the pillow.
“Wanna talk about what happened?”
“Does it look like I do?” She presses her eyes against the fabric, wiping her eyes off.
“Grandma isn’t always rational when it comes to stuff like this. She’s suffering, too,” I remind her. “But I think we can work something out.”
“What’s the point?” she counters. “She’ll just find a way to make a big fuss about it.” She sniffles.
“I have a lot of his boxes here. You can have anything you want.” I wrap an arm around her shoulder and hold her close to me.
She stays silent a moment before speaking up again. “Do you think him and my mom are up there together?” She peeks up at me under her lashes, a small hopeful smile spreading across her face.
I smile in return. “Yeah, absolutely. I also think they’re both looking down on you right now. You have two guardian angels, and I think that’s pretty special.”
Her eyes widen a bit and her smile grows. “I like that,” she approves, nodding.
“Hopefully, one day this all makes sense. I don’t know why bad things happen to good people, but I know he’s in a better place now. He’s probably up there dancing with your mom right now…”
She snorts. “Yeah, he’s probably teaching her all of his bad dance moves, too,” she says, laughing.
“Your mom was a beautiful dancer. Hopefully, she rubs off on him.” I wink at her, squeezing her tighter. Lena was a fabulous dancer all through her high school and college days. She danced professionally for a while before having Natalia, but once she was born, Lena devoted all her time to being a mom.
“I hope I get to see her again one day. I hardly remember her. Sometimes I think I do, but I don’t know if it’s just from something my dad told me about her, or if I really do remember it.”
“Maybe it’s both, but the important thing for you to know is you never have to stop talking about them. I’ll always be here, Shorty.”
“Thank you.” She curls into my side, and I hold her tighter.
I place a kiss on top of her head and whisper, “I love you, Natalia.”
After I’m sure she’s okay, I walk back to the living room where my mom is sitting on the couch, swirling the ice that’s left in her glass. Her head is bowed, and I know something’s eating at her.
“We need to talk,” I say, her eyelashes lay against her cheeks before she looks back up at me.
“I know I’m not handling this right.” She frowns. “She reminds me so much of him.”
“There’s no right or wrong way to handle losing a son, Mom. But I do want to know what you were thinking by telling Jennifer where I’d be. I can’t believe you even talk to her.” I sigh, brushing a hand through my hair as I think about the grudge I still hold in my heart.
“I’m not a huge fan of her either, Morgan. But she once made you happy. She once made your brother happy, and as much as that sounds wrong, I’m glad you had each other.”
“She’s also the reason I left,” I remind her, my teeth clenching together.
“I know, sweetie. I know.” She pats my knee in only a way a grieving mother can. “I thought she could help give you some closure, a little clarity.”
“What do you mean? Why would she have anything to offer me?”
Besides pain, that is.
She purses her lips together, her brows knitting together as she shifts on the couch and faces me. “Do you know why Ryan made you Natalia’s guardian?”
“I assumed it was because I was her Godfather.”
“Right. But after you left.”
“I assumed he’d pick someone else,” I respond honestly, as much as it hurts to say it. I still remember the day he asked me to be her Godfather. I was beyond honored, but more than that, it bonded us in a much different way.
“A couple of years after you left, I told him he needed to readjust his will. Make it more up to date.” She pauses a moment, and I can see the pain in her features as she talks about this. “He refused.”
“What do you mean he refused?”
She shrugs, lowering her eyes. “I told him I was worried about him not keeping his paperwork updated in the event something happened. I wanted to make sure he protected himself considering he had a risky job. He wouldn’t do it.”
My jaw tightens at the thought of them having this conversation, my mother always so worried about him when he worked. “Why not?” I manage to ask.
“He said no matter what your relationship was, and even if you never spoke again, he trusted you more than anyone in the world. He knew you’d be the best person for Natalia and so he didn’t change it.”
I bow my head, tightening my eyes as I let the guilt eat me alive.
“He was right,” she finally says, putting her hand on top of mine. “You are the best person for her.”
“I really love her,” I say, my throat tightening as I think about what would have happened to her if I hadn’t come back.
“I know.” She flashes a genuine smile. “You two are good for each other. Both grieving over the same person. Both struggling with change.”
A few hours after my mother leaves, Nat finally comes out of her room wrapped in one of her blankets.
“Feeling better?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” She plops on the couch with the remote and starts flipping channels.
“What do you want for dinner tonight?” I ask, hoping to get a reaction out of her.
“I don’t care.”
“We could go out.”
“No thanks.”
I wrap a hand around the back of my neck and squeeze. All her answers are short and robotic. I decide against pushing her and leave her alone for a while.
But the more I’m left to my thoughts, the more they go back to Aspen and her fucking amazing lips.
I’m torn between calling her and waiting until after class Tuesday to talk to her in person.
Before I have time to decide, I hear Nat call my name.
“Coming!” I yell back and head into the living room where she hasn’t moved. “Yeah?”
“Can you make spaghetti?”
Her question catches me off guard at first, but the moment I remember the meaning behind it, I smile wide and reply, “Of course, Shorty.”
Her lips spread into a satisfied grin, and a moment later, her eyes fly back to the TV screen. I head back into the kitchen and dig around my cupboards, doing a mental checklist if I even have all the ingredients.
“Don’t forget meatballs!” she hollers from the couch. “And cheese!”
“I won’t!” I shout back with a knowing smile. Ryan’s wife was Italian and from a very large family of amazing cooks. When they first started dating, he tried to win her parents over by cooking his infamous spaghetti and meatballs.
It ended up being a complete disaster, and they never let him live it down since, but it ended up being Natalia’s favorite. He continued to make it even though, compared to his wife’s cooking, he was awful. Tonight was the first night she’s requested it since he died.
I manage to make it exactly how she likes it, meatballs, and all. After cleaning up the kitchen, I grab a beer from the fridge and go check up on Natalia, who’s been reading in her room since dinner.
“Bed in fifteen,” I say, popping my head through the doorway.
She doesn’t move. Or speak.
“Nat? Did you hear me?” I ask louder.
Nothing.
I walk next to her and grab the book out of her hands. “Hey!” she screeches and leans up to reach for it, but I pull it up even higher.
“Have you gone mad?” She hisses.
“Have you gone deaf?” I arch a brow.
She makes a face and reaches for it again. “Fifteen minutes,” I say firmly, handing it back to her.
“I was reading that.” She scowls. I repeat my words again as I walk toward the door. “Yes, I heard you. Bed in fifty.”
“Fifteen!” I call over my shoulder with a smile and walk out.
Natalia has another therapy appointment this next week, and even though she’s been going for months, there’s not been much progress. I know she’s going through a lot, even more so at her age, but I just wish I could wrap my arms around her and promise that everything will get better someday.
But I won’t make that promise.
I can only promise that I’ll be here with her as we both work through it.
I walk down the hallway to my office and sit behind my desk as I focus on the boxes piled up in the corner. They aren’t mine, but they represent a part of my childhood. After Ryan’s funeral, Mom asked me to take them for her. She said she couldn’t go through them right now or even look at them. She held on to a few of his personal belongings, but his childhood memories were just too much to bear. Hell, I can barely look at them without feeling anger and resentment pile up inside me, but most likely, Natalia will want his things one day. So until then, they’ll continue to taunt me.