Page 118 of Lovestruck at Sundown
Aaron pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Please, Aaron.” My tone was softer now, and I made sure my eyes were round enough to elicit a shred of compassion before I said the following words. “Naomi is going through a rough patch, and it’s not my place to talk about it, but I just need you to do this for me. Not for her. Forme. Can you do that, Aaron?”
He cleared his throat and stared down at me in silence for a moment before turning around and looking out the window at the hotel’s beautiful gardens. He started mumbling to himself in Hebrew, and I did my best not to chuckle. I waited for him to be done processing the news of him having a new roommate and that he had to pretend to be dating her if my dad asked.
He turned around, looking defeated, and said, “Fine.”
March 18, 2011
I was onthe verge of having a full-fledged panic attack inside the restroom of a packed nightclub in Las Vegas. I had no idea how long I’d kept myself locked up inside the stall, but the bathroom attendant knocking on my door and yelling, “Everything okay in there?” for the third time gave me an idea.
Too long.
It’d become tiring to smile, dance, and engage in small talk with Lily’s friends, most of whom I hadn’t met before, when a hot, guilt-infested, pressing weight had lodged itself inside my chest. So I fled from our table to the ladies’ room to gather myself with the intention of it being for only a few minutes.
I shouldn’t have agreed to come to Vegas on this date. It was the eve of the first anniversary of Caleb’s deathandhis birthday. I was well aware of it when Lily suggested this weekend as an option; the date was impossible for me to forget. She claimed it would be more convenient for me, being spring break for me at school, and she wasn’t wrong.
If I intended for my scholarship application to be considered by the committee for the fall semester, the least I could do was show up for class. It was important to demonstrate to them I wascommitted to my studies, so it made sense to do the bachelorette weekend in Vegas on this specific date because there wouldn’t be any more breaks or holidays before the semester ended.
I don’t know what I was thinking. Even Aaron made a pointed remark when I texted him the itinerary, but I stupidly thought to myself, “Caleb would want me to have fun and enjoy my life.” What a self-induced copout that was on my part.
The problem was that I wasn’t having fun and refused to enjoy life in this particular moment when I was so blatantly reminded he was gone because ofme.
“Everything’s fine,” I rasped through a small door opening, feeling my phone vibrating inside my clutch. “I have a slightly upset stomach. I’ll be right out.”
The bathroom attendant scanned me from head to toe, probably wanting to detect the presence of any drugs. But she wouldn’t find any. Before I locked myself back inside the bathroom stall, I checked my phone to see a text from Aaron.
Aaron:Everything okay, Miss?
Me:Yes, Aaron.I’ll be out in a minute.
I took a deep breath and put my phone back inside my clutch.
“Billie?” Serena Delacroix, one of Lily’s friends, said when she spotted me before I could lock myself back inside. “Are you okay? You’ve been gone for a while. Lily was starting to get worried. And since your bodyguard is waiting outside the bathroom, I figured you were here.”
I met Serena this weekend—a model, too. She was very sweet but based in Los Angeles, so that’s why I’d never met her before. And the moment she approached me, I started to have trouble breathing. I placed my hands on the small of my backand bent slightly over, my lungs burning as I tried to get air into them.
“What’s wrong?” She stepped inside the stall and locked the door behind us. I could feel my heart beating loudly inside my ears, and the bathroom attendant banged on our door three seconds later.
“Miss, I need you to step out!” She yelled. “Only one at a time is allowed inside the stalls!”
“Seriously …” Serena cursed under her breath. She pulled out a ten-dollar bill from her purse and opened the door just enough for her two fingers to offer the woman a small bribe. “How much time does that buy us?”
“Five minutes,” the bathroom attendant replied in a snarky tone, plucking the ten-dollar bill from Serena’s fingers. The woman shut the door with a thud, and Serena locked it up.
The tequila flowing through my veins wasn’t doing me any favors. I tried to make the guilt of partying in a nightclub on this day go away by drinking a lot and drinking fast. All I wanted was to disappear from this place and teleport myself to my apartment.
Calling William wasn’t an option either. I knew I could talk things through with him. He was there that day. He had been shot because of me, too. If anyone alive besides Aaron could understand, it was him. But Aaron and I hadn’t been on the best terms ever since I invited Naomi to move in with him, and William was at a bachelor party with Joel and their friends at some bar or nightclub in New York. I couldn’t ruin Lily’s night either. I had to find a way to calm down and power through the night without her noticing.
Serena placed her hands on my shoulders and gave me a full body scan as if to see if she could somehow detect any apparent injuries on me. But there were none that she could see with her eyes.
“Breathe,” she said, realizing what my main problem was. “How can I help? What do you need?”
“Just …” I took a slow, jagged breath through my nose and let it out unhurriedly through my mouth. “Need … a minute.”
“Are you having an anxiety attack?” Serena asked. I nodded. Anxiety. Panic. Both. Who knew at this point?
Serena yanked down the toilet seat cover and made me sit. She grabbed my clutch and placed it next to her purse on the black granite shelf behind me.
