Find Her, Fix Him

18 | Broken people break people

"K-K?"

My lips tighten, and I keep my hand on the door-handle without turning around as I say, "Carrie."

"You're leaving?"

I turn to face her, the girl who kissed me this same hour. In the half-hour or so since I backed out of her advances, her hair has gone from stylishly mussed to crazily wild, and I can't tell if the smudges on her face are smeared lipstick from all the kissing she's been doing or messed-up mascara from crying. She must have cried at some point, because there are dark crocodile-tracks running down her cheeks. I wonder if it was because of me. It just makes me feel ten times worse. "Yeah, I'm...I thought I should- um-"

Her mouth lifts into a shadow of a smile. "Philly and that girl with red hair that Delilah hangs out with already went after her, incase you were planning on doing the same."

Fuck. "Carrie..."

She steps down from the bottom of the stairs and makes her way towards me, her steps slow. During my time being friends with Carrie, I have seen multiple expressions on her face- flirty, happy, that dumb-blonde-bitch expression she puts on when she wants to kid people that she's just a stupid girl and not the sharp, savvy, calculating person she is. I've rarely seen this one, though- it's complicated to read. Her mouth slightly uptilted at the edges in a wry smile, eyes full of emotional layers. She is looking at me like I'm a silly little boy, and she has the weight of the world on her shoulders. When I first met Caroline Mathers and she threw her arms around me and announced that we were going to be best friends, I thought she was what everyone else thought- a feather-headed spoilt bitch who was the centre of her own universe. It took me a while to get past that mask.

"Not that that's going to stop you going after her too," she continues, getting closer, and I see how her eyes are red- crying? Smoking? "That's what I've always loved about you, K. When you care about someone, you'll follow them to the end of the world."

"You're wrong," I say, "I didn't follow Lilo, and it's too late now."

"It isn't," says Carrie, "If you care, it isn't too late."

A glazed look has come over her face, her eyes. For the first time, I notice that she's swaying, ever so slightly, from side to side. Since when have her hands been shaking? I blink through the haze that is neon flashing lights and smoke, squinting at my friend as she stands unsteadily on the stairs. She doesn't look alright. She doesn't look alright at all. "What have you been drinking, C?"

She giggles. "Not drinking, K-K. Matty's older brother gave me some bong, it's quite something. Quit fussing, mother."

I look again, harder. "Carrie, that's not just weed."

Her nose is bleeding. Fuck, Carrie's nose is bleeding. What has she done?

She starts sniffing hard, but the damage has been done- blood is dribbling down from her nose and over her mouth like she's in some sort of crazy horror movie. She reaches up to wipe it away, but her hand is shaking so hard that she can't even maneuver it properly.

"Carrie...what have you done?" I ask in a quiet voice. My heart is beating fast in my chest, and I feel fear coursing through me. My friend laughs again, but it isn't a normal laugh. Then she falls forward.

I'm there before her in a second, the weight of her against my chest as I catch her in my arms, blood smearing over my shirt as it runs from her nose like a scarlet fountain. She's much heavier than I anticipated. This is the second time this evening that we've been in an intimate position like this, but she wasn't bleeding the first time. Neither were here eyes so hazy and pink as they are now, blinking up at me slowly. Her lips stretch into a grin, and she begins to giggle. "He-llo, this is cozy..."