It's Never Enough: Book 1 in the Never Series (14 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The morning sun shone through my blinds. I hadn’t slept all night. My phone still lay on my pillow near my head. The five unreturned texts I’d sent to Devin throughout the night mocked me. My head pounded behind my eyes. Once I peeled back the bandage off of my ankle, I saw the cut, still raw like my heart. The entire day before seemed like a blur. It went from being an amazing, romantic time to a nightmare within a blink of an eye. The backfiring car obviously triggered something for Devin. Something that was very deep and very scary. Something I was afraid to see again.

After redressing my wound, I strolled to the kitchen where Fiona was making her usual breakfast—a cereal concoction and a cup of coffee. “How’d you sleep?” she asked while taking a spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

“Didn’t.” I sat down on one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

Fiona wiped milk from the corners of her mouth with a paper towel. “Did he text you back?”

I shook my head.

“Give it time. I mean, it sounds like it was pretty intense.” She took a sip of her coffee and poured me a cup.

Grateful, I downed half the mug in one shot. “Intense is an understatement for what happened. I mean, he totally wasn’t himself.” In that moment, the Devin I knew had completely vanished. I was just thankful he snapped back enough to help me after I hurt myself.

“Like I said, give it time.”

“Sure.”

She rubbed her thumb around the floral design on her mug. “You’re still okay, right?” She wouldn’t look at me. “Nothing going on that I should know about?”

Meaning: had I fallen off the eating disorder wagon?

“No. I told you everything’s fine.”

“Because you promised—”

“I remember.” I slid off the stool and plodded back to my bedroom with my coffee in one hand and phone in the other.

“Hey,” Fiona called out as I reached my doorway. “Give it a little time.”

I nodded and shut my bedroom door behind me.

Even though I already knew the outcome, I scrolled through the messages and notifications of my phone anyway. No missed calls, no missed voicemails, no missed texts, and no missed emails. No way to know what he was thinking, what he was feeling, what he was doing, where he was, what he wanted. Nothing. It was like being on a deserted island waiting for a message in a bottle. How much time would he take to get to me?

***

“It’s gonna take me a while to get to you,” I said to Haley who had called me just after I finished track practice. She’d left school early with Jason Freedmont. I never understood why because Jason was a loser. He was beyond a loser. He was also a slacker and a stoner.

“Well, drive fast!” she yelled. “I’m half-fucking-naked here!”

I told her I’d be as quick as possible, and I hung up. Jason had taken her to some club that he’d been able to sneak into with a piss-poor fake I.D. After convincing her to have sex with him in the ladies’ bathroom, he swiped her purse—and just to make sure she couldn’t chase after him, he grabbed her shirt and bra—and took the hell off. Piece of shit. Thank God she’d had her phone in her pants pocket.

Forty-five minutes later, I was fighting with a bouncer to let me into the club. He thought I was trying to run some sort of scam on him. I had to describe Jason and show him a photo of Haley before he agreed to let me in, but he had to escort me to the ladies’ room to keep an eye on me.

“Haley?” I called out.

“Mal? Thank God you’re here!”

I walked over to the stall from where I heard her voice, and I passed her an extra hoodie I’d had in my car. “So when do you want me to start the lecture?” I said, when she walked out. My shirt—which was a size small—was hanging off her. Her eyes were sunken, and her cheekbones were so pronounced you could practically cut yourself on them.

“Don’t start, okay? Do you have any mints?” she asked as she walked over to the sink. I bit my lower lip as I watched her cup water in her hands and move it to her mouth to rinse. She wiped her hands and face dry with a paper towel. “So do you have any mints, or what?”

My heart hurt as I reached in my purse and pulled out the tiny box of super strong mints. I knew why she needed one. She’d been purging while she waited for me. Probably more than once. That was her new thing. Purging as much as possible. But I knew she wasn’t binging first. She wasn’t eating at all. And I was afraid. I was more afraid than I’d ever been before.

The first fifteen minutes of our drive home, we were silent. I wanted to talk to her, but I was scared and I felt like a hypocrite. Who was I to lecture her when I was still binging and purging? Why the hell should she listen to me? How could I talk to her about control when I couldn’t control myself?

“Can I say something without you getting mad?” I had to try.

She rolled down her window and pulled a pack of cigarettes from her purse—her newest venture. “Okay, but when you start a sentence like that, you’re kind of guaranteeing that I’ll be mad.” She lit the tip of the cigarette and took in a short drag. “But go ahead.” She exhaled out the window.

“I’m worried.”

“About what?” Her voice was casual and aloof.

I cleared my throat. “About you.”

“Me?” She made a grand gesture towards herself. “I’m fine.” She inhaled longer as she clutched the cigarette between her teeth.

“You’re not fine.”

She made a pffftttt sound and waved me off.

“I’m serious, Haley! Do you think screwing Jason in the stall of some club is fine?”

Pffftttt.

“You think puking your guts out when you haven’t even eaten is fine?”

“Hey!” she snapped and pointed a finger at me. “If you’d left school with me when I asked you to, I wouldn’t have gone with Jason!” She shoved the cigarette in her mouth and took a deep drag before blowing the smoke in my direction.

I waved the smoke out of my face. “You’re blaming this on me?” My hands twisted tighter around the steering wheel.

“I asked you to ditch with me!”

“And I told you I couldn’t!”

“Right.” She flicked the cigarette out the window. “Because you had track practice with your track friends.” She practically gagged on the words
track
and
track friends
.

“We have a meet coming up! I had to!” My fingers were turning white on the steering wheel.

“Whatever. I’m over it.” She leaned back in the seat.

The road started to blur through my tears, and I had to pull over.

“What are you doing?” she asked with annoyance in her tone.

“Haley, are you okay or not? I mean, every time I see you now, I’m afraid it’s going to be the last time. I mean what does your mom say? She must see the changes—”

Haley leaned over to me and took one of my hands. “Hey, hey I’m sorry, okay? I’ve been a bitch. I was just…just fucking pissed at Jason, and at myself I guess.” She turned my face so I could look at her. “I’m okay Mallory. Really. Shit’s been crazy, but I’m getting it all together again. Really I am. I just need a little time. Just give me a little time, okay?” She batted her tired gray eyes at me and her little bow mouth turned into a sweet smile. The kind of smile that would make someone who had just won the lottery hand over their giant check to her. “Just give me a little time.”

She was my best friend, so I put my faith in that million-dollar grin and said, “Okay. A little time.”

Only I didn’t know then that that was all she had left; a little time.

***

The door to Casper’s apartment was open when I walked up to it. Two guys carrying a love seat walked towards me. “Watch it, honey,” one of them said to me.

I slid to the side to let them pass. The entryway of the apartment was lined with boxes labeled kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. Was Casper moving? Without telling me? Was I walking in to be told I’d lost my job? The best paying part-time job on the planet? Casper’s daughter walked towards me with a large white laundry basket in her hands.

“Oh, hey,” she said. “The dogs are in the back area. My dad’s not here.”

Panic started to set in. Had he already left? “Um, are you guys moving?” There was an audible quiver in my voice.

She set the laundry basket down near the row of boxes, and I noticed it wasn’t filled with laundry but with books. “What?” she asked after standing up and moving her straight, blonde hair behind her ears. “Oh, not my dad. Just me.”

Relief washed over me. “Cool.”

“Yeah, independence, you know? Gotta cut the cord sometime.” Her eyes shifted to one of the moving men who was grabbing an end table. “I forgot to empty the drawers in that one, so be careful.” She batted her long eyelashes to cover up her error. The guy rolled his eyes, but after she batted her lashes one more time, he let out a little smile.

I waved goodbye and moved to the back area to find the dogs. They were in the doggy playroom, and once I entered their space, they all made a beeline for me. Apparently, my energy wasn’t peaceful since they were all trying to jump on me at once. With purpose, I tried to regulate my breathing and get them all to sit before I attached their leashes. After five minutes of failed effort, I gave up and just hooked them all one by one while they jumped and circled and wreaked havoc around me.

The walk was like any other. Basically, it was a pulling competition between them and me. My forearms had to be the most toned area of my body because they got more of a workout than any other part of me. But still, the dogs never asked much of me, and that’s part of why I liked them so much. Prancer had stopped to do his business, and I was prepped and ready with a disposable doggy poop bag. As I bent down to clean up the mess, my phone buzzed. Devin! One hand held the leashes, and the other hand dropped the bag as I clambered to grab my phone. It was on its third ring, which meant that if I didn’t answer it before the fourth, it would go to voicemail and then get kicked out since my voicemail was full. Just as I retrieved it and attempted to slide it to answer, Vixen pulled the group forward and the phone jetted out of my hand. I watched it turn end over end in slow motion before crashing into the mound Prancer had left behind. Crawling on my hands and knees, I tugged the dogs over to the phone. With the doggy bag, I pulled it out of the mess only to see the call I missed was from my dentist. Dropping back to my heels, I hung my head low, and it took all I had to fight the tears that were already coming.

***

Four days had passed since the incident at the beach with Devin. Every hour ticked by like days. Fiona had been keeping a very close eye on me. She was worried something like this might set me off on a bad path of destruction—to myself. I’d spent two days by myself trying to kill time, walking the dogs more than necessary, going to the bookstore, going to Perked, even going back to take a few yoga classes at Zen, but it wasn’t enough. That low itching feeling in the pit of my stomach was so close to grabbing hold of me and consuming me. I’d tried calling Devin twice a day. That was with huge restraint on my part. I texted him a few times, too. But I got nothing in return. On the third day, Fiona was so worried that she went so far as to bring me to work with her. She’d told her boss that I was going through some extreme shit or something and I needed to be around her. So for two days while she worked her shift, I sat in a booth where she could keep an eye on me as I picked at the salads she would bring me. She was right about one thing; the customers didn’t seem to treat her as rudely as I thought they would. Thank God.

At home, I lay in bed thinking of Devin. The way his body merged with mine that night after the Amy Parkson concert. It took all that I had not to tell him I loved him that night, but that little part of me that held onto my secrets and my pain inside of me wouldn’t let the words come out. There was a moment where we just stared into each other’s eyes as we lay there, and in that moment, I felt like we’d said it without any words at all.

“Knock, knock,” Fiona said as she came into my room. “You okay?”

I shrugged as Fiona sat down next to me on my bed. She pursed her lips out and looked from me to the wall and back again. The look that always meant she had something to tell me.

“What is it?” I moaned.

Her eyes softened at me. “I kind of need your help with something.”

“I figured that. With what?”

“Well, how do you feel about going to our folks’ Friday night?”

“Ugh,” I groaned “To hear my dad badger me about college? No thanks.”

Fiona pursed her lips again. “It’s kind of a birthday party for my mom.”

“It’s your mom’s birthday?” I sat up.

“Well, not till next week, but I wanted to sort of throw her off. I invited some of her closest friends. Your dad said he’d be there. He even offered to help out.”

“Shocker,” I said, grabbing a pillow and hugging it to my chest.

Fiona laughed. “Seriously, I know. But I think he really wants to. Mom’s been feeling like shit for a week now. I guess this pregnancy’s been really tough on her.”