Page 77 of Chaos

As Joy shifts her attention back to Finn, mine moves too.Imove, onto the next stall a couple of feet away so Icaneavesdrop, but I don’thaveto. I can just as easily ignore them.

What I can’t ignore, however, is the delicacy I happen to stumble upon.

Wine.

Lots of it.

Samples.

Lots of them.

I look away. I find Finn and Joy again, I hear her asking if he’s coming on Sunday, him sayingmaybein that drawn out, teasing way that really means yes, and I look away again. I look at a bottle of deep, rich red, and I practically lick my damn lips. I start thinking that one little glass wouldn’t hurt, that a bottle would be fine, I—

“What’re you doing?”

I jolt. I turn to Eliza and I know I look guilty as all hell, I know I sound it too. “Nothing.”

My little sister blinks at me, then the object of my attention, then me again. And the look on her face…fuck.

“Jesus, kid, I’m not gonna crack open a bottle right here.”

Eliza swallows. She looks like she doesn’t believe me, she looks so very young as she slips her arms around my waist, hugging me sideways, holding on tighter than I prefer, but I don’t stop her. Guilt has me holding her just as tightly—the tangible proof of just how much my little habit affects my family has me feeling pretty damn tight too.

And I only get tighter when another presence brushes my other side. “Did I miss something?”

“No.” I paste on an apathetic expression before glancing at Finn. “Finished with your girlfriend?”

“Not my girlfriend.” He winds a strand of my hair around his finger and yanks. “Got a preference?”

It takes me a second to realize what he’s talking about—it takes Eliza just as long, and half that time to bark, “Lottie doesn’t drink.”

I flush.

Finn stops surveying the array of wine for sale, and frowns at me instead. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t know.”

“There’s nothing to know,” I insist as breezily as I’m capable of. Shrugging off Eliza, I pinch the skin above her elbow discreetly before moving closer to the table, trying to actnonchalant as I browse the selection. Picking a bottle at random, I hand it to Finn. “This one.”

He takes it. Doesn’t even glance at the label before buying two bottles. Tucks both in his bag before continuing their meander.

And he never tells me what’s happening on Sunday.

I learn what the wine is for the next day.

The ranch hands are not going out tonight like they usually do. They’re having aparty. It’s just the four of them, just dinner, but a party, it still definitely is. I can hear them downstairs, the clang of dishware and the thrum of a playlist and the endless chatter of people who never get sick of each others’ company.

They invited me, of course.

I declined, of course.

And then I holed myself up in my room with Grouch, and that’s where I’ll stay. Where Ihaveto stay. Because if I accepted that dinner invite, I would’ve accepted something else too.

With a frustrated grunt, I toss aside the knitted project I’ve been trying and failing to start for hours now. This is so stupid. It’s ridiculous. It’s all Lux’s fault because she’s in my head, insisting I have a problem, making me overthink until I’m fucking scared to even be in the vicinity of an alcoholic beverage.

This, an insistent voice in my head that sounds an awful lot like my older sister claims,is what craving feels like. It’s what alcoholics do.

Shut up, I hiss back.Shut up, shut up, shut up.

I’m getting that feeling again. The same one I had only last week. The helpless sensation of losing control, like fumbling my grip on a rope, friction burning my palms as I desperately try tohold on. There’s a pit in my stomach, an empty void that only one thing will fill. And I’m pissed because it would be so easy, the cure for the throb behind my eyes, the restless itch, the fucking temptation is two floors down, but I can’t. If I do, I can’t…

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