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🍒 HALF HEARTED 🍒 TWELVE: HALF OF MY HEART
Here's the thing, Lani may have started the heavy drinking before Sarah died. After spilling her feelings to her best friend in some desperate attempt to make her stay and then getting rejected, she thought the world was ending. All she could see was the pity in Sarah's eyes, the way she looked at her and wondered if she'd ever see her the same – if their friendship would ever be the same.
She'd gone home that same night, grabbed an untouched bottle of tequila from her parents' unlocked liquor cabinet, and silently went to her room. She'd sat on her bed with her legs crossed, a large sweatshirt covering her body, drowning her in minimal comfort though it did keep her warm.
She'd drunk half the bottle when she finally decided to call Topper. He picked up the third time she called, and she just cried. Before that, she hadn't cried in months. But after that, she didn't know she'd be crying for days straight – for different reasons, though.
She crashed at almost nine o'clock, her body giving out, and her phone dying while she was talking to Topper. The call had ended with Lani, you need to listen to me – something happened –
And then it cut off.
The next morning she felt like a ghost, like she was sleepwalking through the whole thing. She floated down the stairs, her mind numb. As she passed the living room, she caught the end of the morning news as it said " – still missing. The search will continue throughout the day."
Then, she heard the click of the TV powering off and her name being called. She'd dragged her feet over to her parents in the living room, trying to rub the exhaustion and hangover from her eyes with the heel of her hands. Her brother had just left for school a few days earlier, so it was just the three of them now. She hadn't made a move to sit down because she really thought she was going to throw up. Her head was spinning. They were looking at her, eyes filled with something that she couldn't read. We need to tell you something, they'd said.
And then they said it. The words she'll never forget.
That Sarah died.
That was the first time she felt herself being thrown off the deep end, sinking into the never-ending depths of the water. She could hear their voices, their footsteps when they approached her, but she couldn't make out what they were saying. The sound was muffled in her ears.
She knew they were still talking to her, but she couldn't string the words together. The words entered her ears and just kind of...swam around aimlessly, never reaching the proper destination.
