Page 45 of Bring You Back

“What happened?” Julian questions her, echoing my same thought.

“Mom got dumped,” she says with a dramatic frown. “She brought home some wine, and we drank it all.” She’s aimlessly pointing, blinking in an effort to clear the haze from her vision.

And Mother of the Year didn’t try to stop you, I see.

She directs a finger at Tommy. “Hey, remember when you drank that one time and you kept drinking and drinking and couldn’t stop? It’s hard, isn’t it?”

Tommy squeezes the cup in his hand, the cracking of plastic cutting into Julian’s muttered, “Fuck.”

“But don’t worry, I stopped,” Reyna continues. “Mom hogged a lot of it, anyway. You know, she’s not so bad.”

Julian laughs without humor. “Of course she’s not.”

Reyna swivels her head toward him, and stares. He stares back. When she squints at him, Julian shifts his gaze toward me and Tommy in confusion. Which seems to snap Reyna from her spell, because now her eyes are on me.

“So this is what you guys have been doing?” She waves both hands between Tommy and Julian, her eyes locked with mine. “Hanging out with her, while I’ve been back at my house, with my drunk mother, doing this?” she says with a finger-wave around her face. “Do you know what happened to me this morning?”

“I do now,” Tommy defends with an accusing stare on Julian, but Reyna’s stare is also on Julian in a pointed reminder.

I speak up, gesturing between myself and Tommy. “We just found out, Reyna.”

“Oh, shut up,” she slurs at me, and my brows narrow. I think back to this afternoon when we talked in the ice cream shop, when she offered to put in a word for me about a job, when we smiled. . .

“I thought we were okay.”

“No,” she says through a teary scoff. “We’re notokay.”

I should’ve known. The Reyna from this afternoon was the happy, sober version who lets bygones be bygones and gives an unlimited number of chances.

“But great,” she whoops, tears running down her cheeks. “Everybody knows. And you didn’t think to come check on me?”

“They sent you texts, Reyna,” I try again. “And you didn’t respond. And, again,wejust found out,” I add with another gesture to myself and Tommy.

Reyna’s eyes are back on Julian, my words going through one ear and out the other. “What am I doing wrong?”

The words crack, and we all flinch at the pain in her voice. Tommy shifts beside me, his eyes heavy and misty as he watches her.

“Huh?” she presses, then sniffs, hard, as she tries to stand taller, waving another finger around her face. “This is kinda your fault.”

“Okay,” Julian cuts in as he steps toward her, not wanting to have the conversation we all know is coming in front of me and Tommy. “Reyna—”

Reyna stumbles away from him. “You know, she’s not special because she has problems.”

I snort. “Trust me, no one’s acting like I’m special.”

“But you want us to,” she fires at me.

“No, that’s you,” I state simply, my tone bored, knowing that this entire night is going to be a blur for her in the morning. When all she does isstareat me, I add, “All you want is attention.”

“Maybe I deserve some fucking attention!”

Before we can react to the fact that Reyna saidfucking, she stumbles forward, right into Tommy’s outstretched arms. “Whoa—” He catches her, and she settles against him, resting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes.

“Hey. . .” He shifts, lifting her upright. His hands frame her face as he tries to get her to open her eyes. “Reyna.”

I let my eyes find Julian. His eyes are still on them. They slide to the sand for a brief moment before dragging back up to our still-embracing friends.

That green, ugly feeling creeps back in, and I breathe through the squeeze until it ebbs.

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