The Fear Of Faith [2]

30. Cal

I picked up my phone as I heard it ring, immediately throwing it across the room when I saw Tori's name and brought the beer bottle back to my lips, throwing the bland liquid back. It was only 10am and I had been awake all night. When I'd left that fucking party and came home, I'd drank myself silly until Sunday morning and spent all day sleeping off the headache before waking up at 8pm and starting to drink again, torturing myself with negative thoughts as I lounged around with a bottle in my hand, still in the same clothes from the party. I'd tortured myself with thoughts of her and cursed myself out for even trying to touch her like that when I should have known she would have pushed me away.

All I'd done was drink all night long to try and numb myself from the images of how stunning she'd looked and how much it hurt that she'd tore herself away from me and asked me to leave. When she had begun kissing me back, I'd thought there was a little hope but clearly I took things too far too soon. Even in The Falls when she was with Archie and going through worse shit than she was now, she didn't push me away when I kissed her. This was just another sign of just how much I was losing her completely.

I heard the phone ringing again and I rolled my eyes. Tori was clearly worrying with me not turning into work but I was still drunk and frankly didn't give a fuck, knowing they could handle it.

I spent some more time laying about the sofa and drinking some more, a part of me praying that the alcohol would just knock me out so I could have at least a few hours peace from the nightmare and even if I never woke up again, I was good with that too.

As the phone rang again, I growled loudly and jumped to my feet, storming across the room to where it lay by the window in the kitchen.

'Why can't people just leave me the fuck alone?' I cried out to myself, as I picked it up and answered to Tori. 'What?!'

'Cal, why aren't you here?' she asked me.

'I'm not fucking coming in, okay!' I yelled at her, my words slurring a little.

'You're wasted,' she gasped. 'Have you been drinking all night?'

'What's it to you?' I asked.

'I'm coming over,' she said. 'You've been drinking all weekend, haven't you?'

'No!' I cried. 'Don't fucking come here, I don't want to see anyone!'

'Cal, you can't do this to yourself,' she told me. 'What would Bethan say?'

'Don't you dare say her name to me,' I growled.

'Stop it!' she yelled. 'If she knew you were doing this to yourself it would kill her. What chance do you have of saving things if you're sitting getting wasted early in the morning instead of actually trying to fix your relationship?!'

'It's beyond fixing,' I muttered.

'No, it's not,' she replied. 'I saw the way her face changed when she saw you and I saw how badly she wanted to just run to you. I'm a girl, I know what we're like. You can fix this.'

'I can't,' I whispered, leaning against the kitchen counter to stop myself from stumbling.

'In time, maybe not right now,' she said. 'She will come around eventually. As long as you don't give up.'

'I tried to make the move on her,' I admitted.

'You did what?' she asked, calmly, but I could hear the slight intake of breath she made.

'When I followed her in she went upstairs,' I said, not knowing why I was revealing all of this to Tori. It was likely the alcohol. 'In one of the bedrooms I tried to come onto her.'