Page 114 of Your Biggest Downfall
Tears spilled from her eyes as she dropped her gaze to the floor, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. And for the first time, I realized how deep her pain really went, how I had broken something inside her that I wasn’t sure I could ever fix.
I staggered forward, my mind hazy and my body unsteady, trying to figure out what the hell was happening. But before I could say anything, she shook her head as tears streamed down her face.
Nova walked over to me, her eyes narrowing with suspicion as she leaned in, sniffing the air around me. The second she caught the scent of alcohol, she recoiled, disgust flashing across her face. She scrunched her nose and stepped back, shaking her head.
“You know what? I cannot fucking do this tonight,” she muttered. She turned away from me and started down the hall toward our bedroom. “This is why you weren’t answering your goddamn phone?” she snapped, her words slicing through the haze of my drunken mind.
My phone. Where the hell was it? I glanced around the room, my head spinning as I searched for it. Then I spotted it, blinking on the kitchen island, flashing with notifications. I grabbed it, my fingers fumbling as I swiped it open, and my stomach dropped when I saw the screen filled with missed calls and texts—most of them from Luna.
Luna: Pick up the phone. Nova’s mom is dead.
Luna: Don’t be an asshole. Wake up and answer me. She needs you.
The words blurred before my eyes, but their meaning barreled into me. Nova’s mom was gone. And I’d been sitting here, drowning in whiskey, while she was going through the worst moment of her life. The news sobered me up instantly.
“Nova,” I shouted, panic surging through me as I stumbled down the hallway.
My feet felt like they were encased in cement, my vision blurry, but I had to get to her.
I rounded the corner into the bedroom, and there she was—standing by the bed, an open duffle bag in front of her. Her hands were moving quickly, stuffing clothes into the bag with a sense of urgency that made my chest tighten. She was packing.
I froze, watching her as she grabbed handfuls of clothes and threw them into the bag, her movements frantic and angry, like she couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Her shoulders were tense, and her breath came in shallow bursts. She wasn’t just packing clothes—she was packing herself away from me, away from this disaster I’d become.
I moved toward her, desperate to reach out, but she shook me off with a sharp jerk of her arm. “No,” she shouted, her voice cracking. “No, you don’t get to do this.”
Her words sliced through me, raw and filled with venom.
“My mom fucking died, and what were you doing? Sitting around drinking? You’re a fucking drunk.”
Blood dripped down her hand. “Let me get you a towel,” I muttered, guilt gnawing at me.
She paused, her eyes widening as she noticed the crimson droplets staining her clothes. “You see what you fucking did, Austin?” she snapped, the anger in her voice as sharp as a razor’s edge.
I did this. I hurt her.
“I can’t be with someone so drunk he’s hurting me,” she said, lifting her injured hand as she walked into the adjoining bathroom. She stuck a towel under warm water and dabbed it over the scratches on her arm. “I—I can’t be with someone who would ever think of doing this to me.”
The bleeding stopped, but the marks remained—deep scratches around her tattoos, like someone had clawed at her.
For a moment, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. Then she wiped the hair off her face, took a deep breath, and turned away, walking past me like I didn’t even exist.
“I didn’t mean?—”
“What?” she shouted, throwing more clothes into her duffel. “You didn’t mean to get drunk? Or throw a bottle at me?”
I stood there, speechless.
“Which one?” she yelled, storming toward me, her voice shaking with outrage. “Which fucking one is it?”
She shoved me hard, pushing me back against the wall with more force than I expected. Her face was twisted with rage, her tears magnifying the fury in her eyes.
“You are an addict, Austin, and you need help,” she screamed, her voice echoing through the room, leaving me paralyzed.
I was frozen, my heart beating wildly as her words echoed in my head. “I—I’ll get help for you. I will get better for you. I p-promise,” I stammered, reaching out to her again, but she was already backing away, shaking her head in disbelief.
“No,” she said, her voice quieter but filled with a cold finality. “That’s the problem. Luna warned me. You got help for me, but you need to fix your own problems—for you.”
“It’s always about fucking Luna. She was always going to be first, wasn’t she?”
