Page 61 of Built to Fall
“Like what?”
“This messy. This broken.” Her words are slurred but sharp. “I used to be the girl who held shit together. Who smiled politely at funerals and thanked everyone for coming.”
“Funerals?”
She snorts, like she’s laughing at some private, horrible joke. “My mom’s. Last year.” Her voice goes glassy. “I gave the eulogy. Shook hands with every distant cousin and colleague of hers I’d never met. Smiled through it all.”
A pause. She draws in a shaky breath.
“And then I found out my boyfriend had been cheating on me,” she says, too casually. “At the wake. Walked in on him and my best friend in my bedroom.”
The silence that follows is suffocating. I feel it like a punch to the ribs, which makes me want to wring the motherfucker who dared to call himself her boyfriend’s neck.
“I didn’t even cry,” she continues, eyes fixed on the floor. “I closed the door, walked back downstairs, and poured everyone another glass of wine. I got drunk for the first time ever that night.”
“Jesus, Lina…”
She folds her arms, like it doesn’t matter. Like she didn’t rip the floor out from under me. “Anyway,” she mutters, “we don’t have to talk about that.”
I was not expecting to have this conversation with her—not now, or ever—but there’s a small part of me that is folding for her, piece by piece, and a bit bigger part of me that is slowly convincing myself she won’t remember any of this in the morning.
It causes me to wring my hands together in front of me, focusing on the blue wren tattooed on my hand, the mosaic frame further up my wrist, and then the bouquet of flowers on my bicep.
“I never thought I’d be this way either.”
“What do you mean?” She turns toward me, our legs bumping together with the motion.
“My mom died too. It happened when I was seventeen, and I haven’t been the same since,” I tell her, running my hands up and down my slack-clad thighs. “I don’t think anyone can be the same after losing someone so close to them. Don’t beat yourself up for feeling different because of it.”
I don’t tell her the full story, and maybe that’s because I’m not drunk like she is. I have nothing to numb me or loosen therestraint I have on my words. Still, all I want is to empathize with her—make her feel better.
“Is that what Braxton and Meredith mean when they talk about your mommy issues?”
“Wow, alcohol really kills your filter, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t think I had one to begin with.” I can’t tell whether she’s beginning to sober up or if she’s the rare type of drunk that is capable of using it as conversation leverage.
“Yeah, that’s what they mean…” I answer her question. “And I can’t say I blame them.”
Lina’s lips purse, and then she says, “Well, I’ve got you beat. I have mommyanddaddy issues.”
“You can have that victory, pretty girl.”
It knocks her back a bit, the way the pet name fell from my lips so effortlessly. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t exactly expecting to say it either. I’ve said it to her before, but that was a much less intimate environment.
Yet, looking at her sitting in bed with her big eyes and long brown hair draped over one of her shoulders, how could I not?
I watch her carefully, her head lulling back and forth like she’s trying her best to stay awake, but her tiredness is slowly starting to take over. It’s exactly what I was hoping for by bringing her up here—for her to finally get some sleep.
“Why don’t you get in bed?” I offer, standing and pulling the comforter back for her to, hopefully, climb under.
She stands, stumbling and grabbing my arm to steady herself before saying. “I can’t sleep in this.”
At this point, I’m positive the only reason Lina hasn’t come to her senses and tried to flee from my bedroom is due to her inability to balance. Which is why I grab each of her shoulders and slowly guide her so she’s sitting back down on the bed.
“Hold on, hold on,” I say cautiously when she tries to stand again, only to fall right back on her ass. “I’ll get you something. Just give me a second.”
“Okay,” she says with a long breath, like it’s the best news she’s heard all day.
