Page 19 of Unloved

It echoes in my head on a loop, tethering my ever-spinning mind.

CHAPTER 7Ro

“You look like shit.”

I barely raise my head, instead turning my neck so I can peek up from the blissfully dark paradise my crossed arms on the table have created.

Sadie smirks, setting down two cups of coffee from our secondhand Nespresso—a gift from my mother the first and only time she visited—in front of me.

“You try waking up with a pounding headache and ‘tolerate it’ playing on repeat like a sad, terrifying alarm.”

Sadie bursts into a laugh, wiping her mouth with her sleeve where some of the coffee sputtered. “Please don’t tell me that was your speaker playing all night on a loop.”

I groan. “I think I started with ‘Getaway Car,’ and then at some point during the night I got sad and weird.”

“That’s less surprising considering your absolute knockout karaoke performance in the back of the car last night.”

I slam my hands down on my face, head shaking. “No, please say you’re kidding.”

Sadie raises one perfect eyebrow, her lips still stained from her usual dark red lipstick, hair slicked back into a bun. Even undone, she’s perfect, elegant. And I’m…

A lumpy mass of frizzy, tangled curls and swollen eyes.

“You really don’t remember?”

“I blacked out after those last shots, Sadie,” I whine, rubbing my eyes and dramatically slumping back in the wooden chair at our little breakfast table. “I don’t remember anything.”

Sadie’s face looks almost stricken and something sinks in my gut.

“Oh God,” I moan. “Your face—just tell me. What is it?”

“Your little sing-along might have been in the back of Matt Fredderic’s car.” She chews on her lip for a moment while I feel my face slowly drain of color with each word she says. “And you might’ve somehow ended up in the pool with him.”

“In the pool? What? How—”

“You jumped off the top of the shed like a lunatic.” Sadie snorts. “Kinda scary, but also kinda amazing.”

Oh God.

I hate that my first thought is of Tyler, wondering if he saw, if someone at that party filmed me acting insane and told him all about it. IwishI didn’t care about his opinion of me, but I still do, because I love him, I think. And I want him to think highly of me, as an equal and a partner.

Not a drunk party girl jumping off roofs with playboy hockey players.

Instinctively, I reach for my phone and open our text thread.

Nothing.

Just two unanswered, unreadI’m sorrytexts, from me to him.

My entire body jolts as I do a double take at the time staring up at me from my phone.

1:39 p.m.

“I slept past one!” I shriek, nearly knocking the chair back in my haste to stand up.

Sadie, who has put her trusty corded headphones into her ears, looks over at me with a piece of butter-and-jam-covered toast halfhanging out of her mouth. She reaches up to pull one earbud out, then reaches for the toast.

“Yeah,” she says, dragging it out, arching an eyebrow. “I think we were up until nearly four, Ro. I barely survived getting the boys to their practice this morning, and immediately went back to sleep when I got back. Why—what’s wrong?”

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