chapter nineteen
{ unedited }
TO SAY ALICE WAS NERVOUS WAS AN UNDERSTATEMENT. Eddie had left after finishing his pretzel and took all the shopping with him so that Alice could talk to Maeve alone. He had also suggested, though it sounded more like a demand, that Alice should go home after the talk and stay there for the night since her family would probably be worried about her.
Alice knew they weren't but agreed nonetheless.
"Hey," Maeve said as she took the seat opposite Alice where Eddie previously sat. She was wearing the red and white striped uniform designed for the workers here, a hat perched on the top of her pink and silver hair. Alice would've made fun of her for it if they were still friends but they weren't so she refrained from doing so.
"What did you wanna talk about?" Alice was proud that she kept her voice void of any emotion. She thought that she would have let the hurt she was feeling slip into her voice when talking to Maeve after weeks of nothing and was quite proud that she hadn't.
"Can we go somewhere else? Somewhere with fewer people?" Maeve asked as she looked around the shop and Alice nodded, not really caring where they talked, she just wanted to get this over with.
Alice followed Maeve out of the mall silently. She felt like everyone's eyes were on her as she walked and it was nerve-wracking. It didn't help that she knew her old friends and Stella's possible new girlfriend was there and Alice felt like they were watching her from wherever they were even if she couldn't see them anywhere.
Alice sat on a bench when Maeve came to a stop outside, the younger girl taking a seat next to her as Alice pulled her legs up to sit crossed leg. "I'm sorry," Maeve said, turning to face Alice, her arm resting across the back of the bench. "When you showed up I wasn't in a good place. Jackson had just broken up with me saying it's obvious I like you, Sean had taken off again without any warning and I was on the verge of being expelled for something he did."
"So you took it out on me?"
"N―no!" Maeve exclaimed but she immediately nodded. "Well, yes, but it wasn't intentional. I was scared. I was scared because Jackson thought I liked you and Sean had passed on a message saying that I liked you too and I didn't know how to feel and when hearing how you felt things just became very real and I didn't know how to deal with it. When I started talking, I couldn't stop."
Alice opened her mouth but Maeve stopped her from talking before she could. "Let me finish, please." Alice nodded, sealing her mouth shut and Maeve continued. "You're always there when I need you without even knowing. You're always nice and you try your best to make things better and I love that about you but it got too much then. I didn't want to get angry with you but everything just came out at once and I hate that it was to you."
"I was scared and I was angry," Maeve continued to explain. "I was scared because I felt the same way about you the way you did to me. At least, not as much as you do but still liked you. I have never felt that way for a girl before and then you showed up and everything changed. And I still do really like you, so much that it still scares me."
Alice didn't know how to feel. She thought she would be happy hearing this but she wasn't. It only made her hurt double as her leg shook, picking at her lip. Alice didn't feel relieved that her feelings were returned. It only made her confused.
"You hurt me, Maeve," Alice whispered, her voice strained as she dropped her hand to her bouncing leg, gripping onto her knee to try and stop it from shaking. "You really, really hurt me."
"I know. I know I did and I can't take that back but I want to try to make things right. Can you forgive me enough for that? I want to try and make things better. I want to make things between us go back to normal, Alice."
"How could it go back to normal when you know how I feel about you and you possibly like me too?"
"Not possibly, definitely. And maybe it doesn't have to go back to the way it was. I'm still scared about how I'm feeling but I do wanna explore it. I'm not saying I wanna be in a relationship, I'm not ready for that and I know we need to make things right between us first before that but I do want to figure it out. Can we try again?"
"So, let me get this right. You don't want to be in a relationship but you don't want us to be just friends?" Maeve nodded, picking at the nail of her thumb. "Even though you know I'm an addict and don't want to be reminded of your family?"
"I trust that you're better than them." Alice knew that wasn't true. She was probably worse than them all put together. For weeks now, there wasn't a moment when she was sober before today. But she didn't want Maeve to know that so she stayed silent. "Look, I'm not sure about my sexuality yet and I want to figure it out before getting in a relationship, not saying it'll be with you but I would like it to be, and I want to be confident in it before anything. I mean, like you are confident in yours."
"I'm not confident in it," Alice cut in. She hated that some people within the community thought that the person they wanted to date had to be as comfortable and confident in their sexuality as they are before getting in a relationship so she wanted to clarify that with Maeve. "I'm still figuring it out. Like, I thought I was a lesbian but now I realise that isn't the case. I've just decided that I don't need labels, I like who I like and that's enough for me. I don't think it's, like, a necessary thing for everyone to know that though so I don't see the point in clearing things up. But yeah, I'm not confident in my sexuality but I'm comfortable with myself."
"I want to be comfortable with myself first then," Maeve corrected. "But before any of that, can we try and fix this? I really don't wanna lose you more than I already have."
"Okay."
Alice knew it wouldn't be good for her. She knew she should've said no. She knew bringing Maeve back into her life was wrong but she couldn't help it. Alice was dependent on her and there was no breaking free from that. The invisible shackles were wrapped around her body once more and dragged her back down.
Alice was simply a puppet under Maeve's control.
As soon as she left Maeve at the mall, Alice had hated herself for letting Maeve back in her life. She thought of herself as an idiot, the biggest idiot in the world. It was because of losing Maeve that she let herself get this far gone and here she was risking everything again for something she didn't even know it was worth it.
She also hated herself for the fact that she let Maeve back in her life sooner than she did her friends for over a decade now.
So Alice made a pitstop at Brown's, the convenience shop, and headed straight to the alcohol aisle as always. She grabbed a bottle of vodka before making her way to the till, holding back a groan when seeing it was Ola. She really didn't want someone from school seeing her here and possibly spreading shit about her once she got back.
"Hey, Alice," she greeted and Alice returned it with a tight-lipped smile. "Y'know, Otis has been asking a lot about you. He's worried about you," she said as she scanned the barcode.
"What?"
"What?" She echoed. "Oh, Otis and I are dating. Did you not know that?" Alice did not. She thought Otis liked Izzy? He had done so for years now and she was sure Izzy liked him too. "Is...is that okay with you?"
"I don't care," Alice said as she paid for the drink and put the money on the counter, grabbed the bottle and left. She did not need to stick around longer than she needed to. Alice pulled the lid off and took a large swig, the drink burning as it went down her throat.
Alice hadn't even realised someone was coming her way on a skateboard and banged into her, making Alice stumble slightly and some of the drink spilling onto the floor. "Shit, I'm sorry," the person apologised as they grabbed Alice's shoulders, stabilising her.
"Cal," Alice remembered, lifting the bottle in their direction. She hadn't seen them since the middle of the last term since she stopped going to the abandoned toilet blocks when trying to get sober. That place always stank of weed, cigarette smoke and beer. "Want some?" She asked, shaking the bottle lightly.
"Nah, mixing weed with vodka is not a good idea," they said, grinning slightly. "What can I do for you today, good human?" They asked as they skated beside her when Alice started to walk away. "Something bothering you?"
"Nah," Alice said, shaking her head. She wasn't one to dump her problems on others, especially someone she hadn't talked to for months. "Getting high for the sake of it or trying to forget something?"
"For the sake of it," Cal said. They offered the blunt in their hand to Alice but she shook her head, saying she'll stick to the vodka. "I haven't seen you around lately."
"Yeah, was trying to stay sober but you see how that went," Alice laughed weakly as she took another swig from the bottle. Alice knew she was supposed to go home like she told Eddie she would but she really didn't want to go back there and face Jean after days. Nine days to be precise since the last time Alice had been in that damned house.
Alice stopped walking and turned to Cal, the latter getting off their board to face Alice. "There's a place in the woods I like to go when I'm getting high," she said as she closed the lid to her drink. "Do you wanna go there with me now? I kinda don't wanna go home."
"Lead the way," Cal said, holding out their arms and Alice grinned, doing exactly that.
It was three hours later that Alice got into her stupid house. She really wished she could go against what she told Eddie but that would lead her to feel more guilty so here she was, entering the house with a half drank bottle of vodka. She wasn't exactly drunk but not sober either. Just enough to give her a slight buzz and maybe blur her vision slightly.
Alice groaned as she banged into the stairway, her eyes squinting when the light behind her opened and someone walked her way. Before Alice could turn her way, she heard the voice of the woman she hated most.
"I raised you better than to get drunk in the middle of the day."
"You raised me?" Alice scoffed, turning to face Jean as she leaned against the bannister for support. She normally would've ignored whatever remark Jean made but she was getting sick of it. Alice noticed then that Otis and Ola were behind Jean but she didn't care. "You didn't raise me at all," Alice said, her words slightly slurred as she glared at the woman. "You didn't do shit. I raised me. I did it all myself. I looked after myself, I cleaned after myself, I taught myself how to treat strangers, I even taught myself how to fucking read. I did everything when you wouldn't even look my way except to fucking criticise and yell at me. I did it all. That was me, not you!"
Alice's vision kept getting blurrier as tears filled her eyes. It wasn't that she was upset. She was angry. Alice never exactly was taught how to process her emotions so when things get too much she tends to cry. If she's too happy, too scared, too nervous and, right now, too angry. She felt it too much that she didn't know how to deal with it and it overwhelmed her to the point she would cry.
That was another great thing about booze or drugs. They stopped her from feeling things too much.
"So don't go around saying shit like I raised you better than this when we both know you don't give a shit about me," Alice continued. "You raised me better than to get drunk? Jean, I've been high or drunk since I was fifteen. I'm nineteen. Nineteen and you just noticed! So don't start trying to act like a mum now, it's too late for that."
"Nineteen?" She heard Otis whisper and her gaze switched to him.
"Oh yeah, you missed my birthday again but what's new there? Happy late fucking birthday to me." Alice turned and stormed up the stairs, drink in hand as she made her way to her room. She was about to close the door when Otis pushed himself in, keeping the door open behind him.
"Happy late birthday," he said, standing awkwardly in the doorway as Alice jumped onto her bed, her phone that hadn't been touched in weeks jumping up slightly. Alice placed the bottle on her bedstand.
"You're dating Ola now?" Alice asked as she reached for her phone, finally turning it on.
"Izzy would never like me so yeah."
"Wait, you're dating Ola to get over Izzy?" She asked, turning to face him and Otis nodded. "You do realise how fucked up that is, right? And Izzy would never like you? Dude, she tried to kiss you. She wouldn't have done that if she didn't like you. God, you really are a fucking idiot," she mumbled the last part but Otis still heard her.
"Okay, what is your problem? Seriously, I'm trying my best here! I apologised, what more do you want? It's not like you even wanted to admit you liked Maeve!"
"Just get out of my room, Otis," Alice said, not wanting to have this conversation.
"You're really annoying, y'know that Alice? No wonder your friends gave up on you too." Otis slammed the door shut behind him, the loud bang echoing around the house and causing Jean to yell at Alice for slamming doors in her house. Alice rolled her eyes as she pulled the lid of the bottle and drank until there was no longer a single sip left.
Alice banged against the caravan door, going back on her word to spend the night at her own house. She had made a stop at Brown's for another bottle of whiskey and, by the time she got here, she was finished with it.
Eddie opened the caravan door, sighing when seeing the girl at his door. He really hoped that she would be able to spend one night back in her own house. "What are you doing here? You were supposed to spend the night at home." Alice shrugged, a sheepish look on her face as her body swayed under the night sky. "You're drunk, aren't you?" Eddie held back a groan as he opened the door wider. "Come on in."
Eddie held his hand out for Alice, helping her up into his home when she took it. "What happened?" He asked as she stumbled her way through the small space, banging into his couch, his table, even his sink until she collapsed onto his bed. "Did the talk not go well?"
"I fucking hate my family," Alice mumbled, turning in his bed so she was lying on the front, hugging the pillow under her cheek. Eddie grabbed the blanket from his sofa and placed it over her shaking body. "And this stupid town. I wanna leave."
She turned so that she was looking up at Eddie, blinking away the water collecting in her eyes. Eddie took a seat beside her, brushing the hair out of her face. "I hate it here," she whispered. "I hate everything and I hate myself so fucking much. I―I'm just...pathetic."
Alice didn't know how else she could describe it. What else could be it be called if she couldn't spend more than an hour around her family? If she couldn't stay away from someone who she knew wasn't good for her? If she pushed away the people who actually cared about her?
It was stupid and it was pathetic. Alice was stupid and pathetic for the way she was and she hated herself for that.
"I'm sorry," Eddie said quietly, wiping away the tears that fell out of her eyes. "I wouldn't have made you gone home if I knew this would happen."
"Can I stay here tonight?" Alice asked, already feeling herself drift off. Eddie nodded, knowing that even if he tried to send her home now she'd just pass out on the way there and that could lead to so many disastrous things that Eddie was hoping to avoid.
"You can stay as long as you need," he said and Alice smiled, thanking him before falling asleep.