Chapter 10: Didn't Like Enough
Naturally, I didn’t call my mother, like I’d promised my dad. I rarely made promises I actually kept, or had any intention of keeping, when it came to the evil witch and the little brat. I fully realized that eventually, this was going to come back and bite me in the ass when my dad literally dragged me by the hair to see my so-called family, even though he was the only family I cared about, but until that time came, I was going to keep playing the game.
So when I got a text from Hannah, saying that there was a party she wanted to check out, I jumped at the idea. I didn’t care who was hosting it, I didn’t care where it was, I didn’t care who was going. I immediately said yes.
I knew that drinking could never solve any of my problems, at least not permanently, but it did offer a temporary relief and that was what I was aiming for.
I threw on a pair of black skinny jeans, a low-cut top that showed off my chichis and I pulled my dark hair back until there was not a hair out of place and I felt like I’d cut off all circulation to my scalp. Beauty came at a price after all.
I was just finishing up with applying my make-up when I got another text from Hannah. It was already time to go.
By the time I snuck out of my house, it was way past eleven o’clock and my dad had gone to bed. I didn’t really need to sneak out of my house, like most kids my age had to these days, not because my dad was cool with me going out on a school night to get shit-faced, but because ever since the divorce, he needed to take sleeping pills to fall asleep. And when he did take them, which was basically every night, he was knocked out cold till the morning rolled around. He had no idea how many times I’d left the house when I was supposed to be sleeping soundly in my bed.
Even still, I always tried to be extra quiet because all I needed to do was make one mistake, get caught and dad would never look at me the same way again. He trusted me too much for his own good sometimes. I knew he wasn’t even going to be angry with me, not really, mostly just plain disappointed. When parents got mad at you for doing something stupid that you should’ve known better not to do, you knew that you were going to be punished somehow, but that also it was going to blow over, eventually. But my father didn’t do angry. He wasn’t about grounding me to teach me a lesson. He was going to get upset and sad. Punishment I could deal with, but seeing my dad sad because of something I’d done was going to break my heart all over again.
Pushing such dark thoughts out of my mind, I tried to lighten up. I’d been in a pretty foul mood, thanks to the whole Zoey fiasco and then dwelling on my family drama, and it showed. Now was not the time to be moody. Now was the time to get happy and drunk.
When I went outside though, I was surprised to find Margot’s car parked in my driveway and not Hannah’s. I really had no idea she was coming along.
Hannah rolled down the passenger window and stuck her head out. “Hurry up, bitch, we’re going to miss the party!” she yelled, giggling as Margot pulled her back inside.
I shook my head at her before I did as I was told and got into the car.
“Wake up the whole neighborhood, why don’t you?” I grunted, slamming the door after me as Margot turned on the ignition.
“Ooh, someone’s in a prissy mood,” Hannah giggled drunkenly upon seeing the look on my face.
“And someone’s drunk,” I observed with my arms crossed across the chest, hating that I was already missing out on the fun.
“Who? Me?” Hannah pointed to herself, playing dumb, even though she should’ve known she couldn’t fool me. “Nope. I haven’t had a teeny, tiny drop of alcohol tonight,” she argued, clearly lying to me. “Ask Margot.”
But I didn’t need to ask Margot or anyone else for that matter. I knew my best friend better than most.
She didn’t have a drop of alcohol, that much was true. She probably had a whole bottle.
“Han,” I started, speaking to her, as if she was a disobedient wild child I was trying to get in line, “I’ve known you for the last four years and during that whole time, I don’t remember a day that has gone by when you actually abstained from drinking,” I told her and silence followed after my keen observation. “So where are you guys hiding the booze?”
***
“Oh,” I exclaimed, my lips forming the familiar ‘o’ shape, “so it’s a college party,” I stated, standing in front of the frat house that had people steaming in and out of it, taking in the scene.
Hannah stood on one side of me and Margot on the other and we had yet to go in.
“Yeah,” Margot shrugged, “does it matter?” she asked me, glancing at me from the corner of her eye.
“No, not at all,” I replied, shaking my head no. It wouldn’t have made difference had I known where we were going anyways. Whether it was some random high school party or the local college’s rager, I couldn’t care less.
“Well then, come on, let’s go in,” Margot said to me as she grabbed my hand and urged me to start walking towards the house. Hannah hadn’t even waited for us to catch up with her, she had already ventured inside and I had a feeling I wouldn’t see much of her tonight, which didn’t exactly come as a surprise to me.
We’d barely made our way inside when a guy that looked vaguely familiar stepped in our way. Margot seemed to recognize him too for she jumped into his arms. They said something to each other, but I couldn’t hear what exactly over the loud music. When they broke apart and I took a closer look at him, I remembered where I knew him from.
As he gazed at me through his drunken haze, he too seemed to know who I was. “Savannah, right?” he asked, a half-smirk pulling at his lips as he kept an arm around Margot’s shoulders.
“Yeah,” I replied through narrowed eyes.
“You two know each other?” Margot asked, surprise coloring her voice. She looked at the guy questioningly, but he kept his eyes trained on me.
“I didn’t know you knew my cousin,” Margot said to me, blinking confusedly.
“Well, to be honest, we don’t really know each other,” I explained, frowning as I thought back on that night when I threw the party at Connor’s house and when I saw Tyson for the first time in years. Tyson who was friends with Margot’s cousin and who I hadn’t seen or heard from since he kissed me. Judging by the look on her cousin’s face, I could tell he knew about this too.
“I don’t even know your name,” I said to him.
“That’s because you never asked,” he laughed, then extended his hand, which I took, “I’m Sam. At your service, my lady,” he guffawed, then bowed down and kissed my hand as I frowned and pulled it back, fighting the urge to cradle my violated hand to my chest like a baby.
I gave Sam a weird look that he basically ignored, or didn’t care one bit about.
“He’s here, by the way,” he drawled, his eyes glinting as he smirked down at me knowingly and I knew exactly whom he was talking about.
“Who’s here?” Margot asked, now looking more confused than ever, like Sam and I had an inside joke and she wasn’t in on.
“Tyson,” he said and Margot blinked a few times before it dawned on her.
“So what? I don’t care,” I responded, shrugging flippantly and glancing away because for some reason, I was boiling on the inside.
Maybe he had no time for me, that was time with me. Despite popular belief, I didn’t think the world revolved around my grand persona. He didn’t have time for me, but he had time to go to a party.
“You don’t?” Sam echoed, looking not quite that convinced.
“Nope. I’m here to get drunk and that’s all I care about,” I proclaimed before I promptly walked away from them. Margot called after me, but I was faster and got lost between the bodies bustling back and forth, making it harder for her to find me.
I spotted Hannah’s dishwasher blond head in the crowd and went to her. As if feeling my prodding eyes on her, she turned around. Her Cheshire grin grew even bigger when she saw me. She beckoned me over and latched onto my hand at once, looking happier than ever to see me.
“Savvy!” she screamed excitedly, her hot breath fanning across my face as she stumbled on her feet and I steadied her. “Perfect timing! Let’s do body shots!”
Now why didn't Hannah get such great ideas all the time?
***
My head was woozy and by the time we were done doing body shots, I was in worse shape than before we’d arrived. I’d caught up with Hannah quick. I’d meant it when I said I’d set out to get wasted tonight, but I still felt out of sorts and the alcohol hadn’t helped this time. It’d just opened up a bigger hole in me. When I felt like I was about to empty the contents on my stomach on some poor soul, I stumbled outside to get a breath of fresh air to sober up…just a little before I barfed all over someone.
There weren’t that many people milling around because the night had gotten chillier and the ones who were outside were too intoxicated to be bothered by the cold.
I slumped down on the ground, waiting for my dizzy spell to pass when I felt someone sit next to me. A whiff of cologne assaulted my nostrils and as I turned my head a little to the left, I couldn’t say I was surprised to find him there.
He looked like a mirage, one I’d made up in my mind, but really, I knew he was real.
“I was told you’re here,” he told me, breaking the silence that had settled over us, “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Have you?” I asked, scoffing at that, even though I probably shouldn’t have, in retrospect. “Why? Did you lose my number or something? You could’ve just called,” I went on, figuring that if he wanted to see me that much, he could’ve just a pressed a button and called me. But he didn’t. That was my simple logic.
A beat passed and then he asked, “Are you mad at me?” He didn’t sound bothered by the idea, though. He sounded amused instead, as if my being mad at him was somewhat funny. But I wasn’t funny when I was mad; I was terrifying, I’d been told.
“No,” I eventually replied unconvincingly.
Tyson then laughed and bumped our shoulders together; he was sitting that close next to me, I could feel his body heat.
“Yes, you are,” he disagreed, chuckling lightly still, “that’s cute.”
Tyson calling me cute once again when I really wasn’t trying to be cute (hell, I couldn’t have been, even if I did try) ruffled my feathers in a way I couldn’t quite explain and this got me all fired up again.
“It’s not cute!” I insisted, getting angrier by the second. “Stop calling me cute! I don’t even know what cute is!” I said exasperatedly, throwing my hands up in the air, as if I was giving up.
Instead of taking the bait and yelling back at me, like any other guy I’d ever encountered would’ve done in his place, Tyson kept smiling at me, appearing quite amused. “Just look into the mirror and you’ll know what cute is,” he responded, his eyes laughing at me. He really was enjoying my anger management problems a tad too much than he should have.
“Stop calling me cute,” I repeated, softer, more dejected this time because I had a feeling I wasn’t going to win with this guy no matter what I did, or said.
“I will,” he promised, curtly nodding his head, “but you’re mad at me.”
“Fine,” I admitted through gritted teeth, looking away from his knowing smile and probing blue-eyed gaze, “I’m kind of mad at you.”
“But just a little,” I added because I didn’t want to sound crazy, even though I felt like this ship had long ago left the harbor and sailed away.
I liked him. I thought he liked me too, but he obviously didn’t like me as much as he pretended to and that was a possibility that I could no longer ignore. I didn’t want it to bother me, but some things couldn’t be helped.
It was fine, but then people started asking me questions about him that I couldn’t answer…and it wasn’t because I didn’t want to, it was because I didn’t know. Not having an answer for something had always bugged me more than any problem I might’ve ever come across because problems had a way of solving themselves whereas not knowing what to expect was the worst.
And then Hannah told everyone that he was madly in love with me, naturally twisting the truth around and quite possibly thinking that she was doing me a favor by boosting my reputation for snagging one of the most eligible guys that had ever walked the halls of our school, but what worried me deep down was this: what if she was wrong?
I tried my damndest to act like it was all good, that it didn’t bother me one bit that he’d showed interest in me, like I’d always wanted him to, and then taken a step back, but a part of me was bothered more than I cared to admit and then my friends made us into something we weren’t and I tried to be fine with that, too.
But Tyson confused me, he confused me back when I was just a freshman and he confused me now when I was supposed to have more experience and know better. I knew better. That was why I wasn’t that kind of girl – the one that waited on a guy and cried when he didn’t come through. More than anything, I didn’t want to become that girl because of him.
And then all this radio silence…but now suddenly, I had to act like the kind of girl that was cool and everything.
“I’m sorry for not calling you, Savannah,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically somber now and I looked at him, but he wasn’t looking at me, “I just had some stuff to take care of,” he explained vaguely and I furrowed my brows at him, expecting him to go on, but then he didn’t.
“Stuff? What stuff?” I wondered, my curiosity getting the best of me.
“Just…stuff,” he said, sidestepping my question, “boring stuff.”
“You… and your stuff,” I murmured under my breath and whether he had heard me or not, Tyson made no indication of responding to me.
I sighed inwardly, realizing he wasn’t going to talk to me about this, but why did I even expect him to? I was just some girl he liked, but didn’t like enough to keep seeing after the impromptu make-out session they had in the backseat of his car one night that seemed like a forever ago and now that I was drunk, I found that to be terribly pathetic. Some days (or nights, in this case) it really sucked to be me.
When I didn’t say anything, too lost in my own thoughts, Tyson stood up and said, “Come on, Savvy, it’s late. Let’s get you out of here.”
A/N: Hello, babes! This update took longer than expected and it just hit me today that I'm on a deadline here and I really need to get to work. :D Thank you all so much for your love and support! It really means a lot to me. <3 In the next chapter, a big secret is revealed and Savannah acts out. Hope you enjoyed! :)