Syd was in their room, packing. I hesitated at the door, feeling like absolute crap. Guilt churned restlessly as she glanced over her shoulder at me. “Thank you for last night,” I said, watching her fold a shirt. “For helping me. I appreciate it.”
“It’s no big deal. It’s a practice run for me, right?” she teased. “You’re feeling better?”
I nodded. My headache was partly due to the anxiety attack and mostly because I’d gotten plastered. “Syd, we don’t have to leave.”
Syd dropped a ball of socks into the suitcase and turned toward me. Her expression was pinched, somber. “Yeah, we do.”
“But—”
“Both of us are ready to go home, and it’s actually calling for rain again, later tonight and all day tomorrow. So if we stayed, we’d be stuck inside,” she continued. “And honestly, none of us need cabin fever.”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the next. “It’s because of last night, isn’t it? I promise—”
“Andrea, you know I love you. You’re my best friend. Seriously.” She sighed as she walked over to me, and I tensed. “I just don’t think this is good for you right now. Honestly, I probably shouldn’t have pushed you toward Tanner. That wasn’t a smart move.”
My mouth dried as my stomach tightened.
She looked up at me with all seriousness. “I know you haven’t told me that anything happened between you two, but I’m not stupid. Something did, and maybe it shouldn’t have, not right now.”
“Not right now?” I heard myself repeat.
Sydney drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She squared her shoulders, and I prepared for a blow. “Like I said, I love you. I do. And it…it kills me to see the way you were last night. You never would’ve gotten to that point if you hadn’t drunk so much. And you know, deep down, that is true.”
I did. I so did.
“What you need right now isn’t a guy,” she said quietly. “What you need is help.”
You need help.
Those words recycled over and over in my head. She hadn’t stopped there. She’d talked about meetings and therapy and getting to the root of my problem. I was like a chunk of ice by the time I left her room and started gathering up my stuff.
You need help.
My brain couldn’t shake those three words, couldn’t let them go. I felt like I was going to be sick. Like at any given minute, I could just hurl all over the shorts I was stacking in my suitcase.
You need help.
Was it that bad? Was I that bad? I’d just made a stupid decision last night. Well, a stupid decision fueled by other dumb decisions that were rooted in a whole bunch of idiocy. If I could just stop making dumb decisions, I’d be fine.
I’d just shoved my undies into the suitcase when I felt a presence behind me. I didn’t even need to turn to see who it was. I just knew. It was the guy that I apparently didn’t need.
“I really don’t want to talk,” I said when he didn’t speak.
There was a pause. “I think that’s the problem. You never want to talk when you really need to talk.”
I laughed hoarsely. “Jesus.” I slammed my makeup caddy into the suitcase and whirled around. He’d changed from earlier, wearing jeans and a worn shirt that clung to his broad shoulders. “Is today the day when everyone tells me all about all my problems? Because if so, can we fast forward to the part where I say none of this is fucking news to me?”
Tanner blinked, taken aback. “Okay. Look—”
“No. There is no ‘okay’ or ‘looking.’” My voice shook. “We ruined this for them. Or I ruined it for them. It doesn’t matter. This trip was ruined. Okay? So there’s really nothing I want to talk about right now.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it. A long moment stretched out between us, and in that time, I wanted so much—so damn much. I wanted to redo this whole trip, our whole freaking relationship. I wanted to cross the little distance between us and throw my arms around him, because it wasn’t that I needed Tanner. I wanted him. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry, but I wasn’t sure what I was even sorry for or what I wasn’t sorry for.
And all I did was stand there and stare at him.
“Okay. You don’t want to talk. You don’t want to figure out what’s going on between us. I respect that.” He exhaled loudly. “That’s why I’m not going to force this. I’m not going to chase you down once we leave here. You come to me when you’re ready, and if you don’t? Well, that’s a damn shame, because I think that no matter what is going on in your head, we could have something real between us.”
My tongue wouldn’t move. My jaw was locked down, because whatever Tanner thought we had between us would swan-dive out the window when he really got to know me.
Tanner’s shoulders rose with another deep breath as he rubbed the palm of his hand over his chest, above his heart. His voice was flat when he spoke, and his gaze distant, almost cold. “Later, then.”
He left the room without so much as a glance back. I closed my eyes, holding my breath until my lungs started to burn, and I went beyond that moment, right up until when I had to drag in air.
“Later” didn’t sound like a promise. “Later” sounded almost like a goodbye. “Later” was totally expected.
As expected, the ride home was a sad and awkward affair. There were no long or teasing looks between Tanner and me. Kyler wasn’t grinning at us in the rearview mirror. Syd had her nose buried in her eReader, and that was about the only thing that was similar to the trip up.
The sky was overcast and cruddy, and as we drew closer to Maryland, it started to drizzle. Tanner was the first one to be dropped off.
He climbed out, hesitating as our eyes met, and then he closed the door. I pressed my lips together and told myself not to look when he walked out from behind the car with his duffel bag, but I did.
I looked up, peering out the window. He stopped by my side, tapped the window, and then moved on to Kyler’s window. “I’ll text you later,” he told him, and then he was off.
Tanner didn’t speak to me, not that I was expecting that, but my chest still ached. When Kyler pulled up in front of my apartment, Syd followed me upstairs.
I stepped inside, suddenly weary to my very bones. Dropping my suitcase just inside the door, I faced my very closest friend. Neither of us said anything, and I almost said the things I’d never said to her before.
“I’m sorry,” was all that came out of my mouth.
Sydney’s smile was somewhat sad as she said, “I know.”
The next few days flat-out sucked.
I spent them in my apartment, ignoring the calls from my mom and dad. I knew nothing had happened, because if so, Brody would’ve showed up. I just wasn’t in the mood to deal with them. They’d mean well, of course, but I never felt like I…like they were proud of me when I got off the phone with them. Their disappointment always lingered like a festering wound.
I’d slept most of Sunday and Monday away, holed up in my bed. At some point during that time, I decided I needed a dog or a cat. Weird and random, but I thought then maybe my place wouldn’t seem so cold and empty.
By Tuesday afternoon, I’d ventured out of my bedroom and ended up spending the majority of the day roaming around my apartment aimlessly. So much was floating around in my head, and I wanted to talk to Syd, but I didn’t want to bother her. Although she hadn’t said she was upset, I knew she had to be. I didn’t blame her. I was pissed at myself.
I needed a change.
Standing in my living room, I took a drink of the beer I had left in my fridge while I turned in a slow circle. I ran my fingers through my hair. I didn’t like where the TV was, and that was an easy fix. Over the next hour, I moved the television to the other side of the room, dragged the couch across the floor, and rearranged the leaning bookshelves. My arms ached as I studied the walls. Maybe I needed to paint. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’d gone through at least three different colors since I’d moved in, and now I was regretting going back to the sandy beige color.