After Christmas, there really wasn't much left of our vacation. Steve and Max kept hitting the slopes, Dad and Neil discussed business (and how much they enjoyed beating their sons, probably), and I tried to sleep as much as humanly possible to numb the ache of my separation from Billy. I didn't leave my room for anything, ordering room service at least three times a day. For some reason, my mom knew not to bother me. I have no idea what they thought I was doing- drinking, menstruating, taking drugs, maybe all of the above- but I got a few days of space.
Thanks to a couple of borrowed Vicodin, I don't remember the flight home, but I do remember seeing my own bed for the first time in a week. I flopped down belly first, hugging the mattress like it was an old friend, determined to spend the rest of winter break doing nothing. Sal had other ideas.
"Can I come in?" he asked, knocking on my door one morning. Technically it was two p.m, but I was still asleep, or at least pretending to be. When I didn't respond, he came in anyway, sitting at my vanity with his arms folded. "You can't stay in bed all day."
"Why not?" I asked, voice muffled by my pillow.
"For one, it's not healthy. But, more specifically, today is New Year's Eve."
"Why the hell would I want to celebrate the arbitrary date selected to commemorate the passage of time with a bunch of people I hate."
He rolled his eyes at my ennui, ripping the covers off my body. "Because you're not going to be celebrating New Year's with a bunch of people you hate; you're going to be celebrating it with me."
"How do you know I don't hate you?"
Instead of responding, he rummaged through my closet, throwing some clothes at my head. "Get dressed, brush your teeth, and meet me downstairs in twenty."
I sat up in bed to glare at his retreating figure, trying to decide if I admired the balls he had to walk in here, berate me for staying in bed all day, then know without a shred of doubt that I'd do whatever he asked of me, or if I resented him for it. Either way, he was correct, and I put on the dark jeans and black sweater he'd picked out for me, freshening up a bit as well as swiping concealer under my eyes to cover up the dark circles that pervaded despite me getting twelve-plus hours of bedrest a day for the past several days. I debated dabbing on some red lipstick, but I knew Sal preferred me bare-faced, so I forewent it.
Before trudging downstairs to face whatever today had in store, I slipped into Mom's bathroom, placing a tab of Vicodin under my tongue, washing it down with sink water. After a moment's hesitation, I stuck the bottle in my purse, sure that I'd need a pick-me-up sometime tonight.
Upon leaving, I came face to face with Steve, who was opening the door to his room, but stopped to eye me warily. "Jesus H. Christ, what are you doing?"
"I'm not doing anything," he snipped. "What are you doing?"
"Uh, Mom has a perfume that I like, I stole a spritz."
He clearly didn't believe me, but decided he didn't care, shrugging before trudging into his bedroom, sipping a coke as he went. Clutching my pounding chest, I sprinted down the stairs, hoping I'd be numb soon, but the pills were taking longer and longer to work, the results more akin to cold medicine than anything else after weeks of abusing them. This should've given me pause, but I pushed it to the back of my mind instead.
"Where are we going?" I asked Sal on the way to his car.
"My place."
I cocked an eyebrow. "I thought you lived here, with us."
"I do, sort of, it's a long story." I looked at him expectantly from the passenger side, inviting him to elaborate. "Well, I moved out around the time you went to college, but the apartment complex I stayed at got bulldozed to make a bowling alley-"
"Wait, Hawkins has a bowling alley?"
"Not anymore. It went out of business and got dozed to make some sort of pharmaceutical headquarters a few months ago." He turned onto the main stretch of road that cut through this side of town, a few cars on the road as people started to head to their New Year's engagements. "I moved back in with your folks for a while, but recently I started staying at a live-share on the weekends."
"What's a live-share?"
"It's when you split ownership of an apartment or house with a few people to make it easier to pay rent. It's mostly people in their twenties who can't afford their own place yet so stay part-time with their parents but use the apartment for..." He looked over at me, biting his lower lip subconciously before returning his eyes to the road. "Things they don't want to do in their family's house."
What the fuck was that look? Did he want to sleep with me? Cause that's what he was insinuating- that people used this apartment a day or two a week to screw around, maybe get high. We kissed at the ski lodge, but I'd almost forgotten about it after everything that happened with Billy.
"Anyway, we're throwing a party, and you're my date."
"Wait, what do you mean 'we'?"
"Me and the three guys I'm live-sharing with. Actually, the whole floor is in on it; it'll be a real rager."
"Absolutely not, take me home."
Sal guffawed, turning onto a residential street lined with crummy homes, a few five or six-story apartment buildings looming at the end. This was the edge of Hawkins, only a part of our placid suburban town by name and public school districting; my parents pretended these people didn't exist. An alarm bell went off in my head, letting me know we were no more than two miles away from the Hargrove's house. "I can't take you home, we're here."
"I can't go to a party, Sal, I just can't." I felt myself starting to hyperventilate, the thin mist of Vicodin evaporating in my panic. "I don't want to see anyone- I don't want people seeing me- I just want to go home and sulk."
He parallel parked better than a driving instructor, taking the keys out of the ignition before turning to face me. "Why are you so upset about some guy you barely know?"
When I realized he was talking about Billy, my face flushed with indignance. "It's not about him, it's my life in general. Everything I based my identity around is a lie, or it's changed, and I don't even know who I am anymore."
"God, you're such a teenager."
"No, I'm not, I twenty-one fucking years old-"
"Well, maybe you should act your goddamn age and go to my party with me."
I folded my arms, sinking lower into my seat. "You probably don't want a stupid, immature little girl embarrassing you in front of all your friends."
He exhaled exasperatedly, rubbing his face with his hands before slamming his door shut, marching around to my side, and scooping me up, carrying me into his building.
"Woah, catch a wild one?" some guy in a Bob Marley t-shirt asked with a chuckle.
"This is Deborah," Sal said with, kicking the elevator button. "And she doesn't feel like socializing right now."
The group of smoking dudes Sal seemed to be friends with laughed, and I bristled at being the butt of the joke, slapping his shoulder and demanding he put me down. He obliged, biting his lip again, but I didn't find it sexy; I was royally pissed. If I stormed off now, I'd be confirming everything he thought about me- that I was a petulant, spoiled brat- so I joined him on the elevator, along with the Marley fan, who looked me up and down and flashed Sal a thumbs up, not caring that I saw. Maybe I'm the weirdo, I thought. Maybe this is how cool adults act and I should loosen up, appreciate the fact that this guy thinks I'm a hot catch.
Arriving at the third floor, I immediately felt sorry for whoever lived on the second, cause they'd be kept up all hours by the pounding of over a hundred sets of feet, multiple boom boxes blaring different songs, and drunk twenty-somethings crashing in between rooms waving stolen panties or brassieres around. The place reeked of weed and liquor. It reminded me a bit of the dorm parties at Augustana, except instead of college students blowing off steam between exams, these were grown men and women acting like savages.
"How are you feeling?" Sal shouted next to my ear so I could hear him over the ruckus.
"Like I wanna die."
"Let's go to my room." He grabbed my hand, dragging me to one of the back apartments, presumably his, where a few people were passing around a joint, and it seemed considerably calmer than the flats near the elevator. Aside from the bathroom, there was one other room, a tiny bedroom that made the storage closet Billy stayed in at the ski lodge. God, why was Billy on my mind again? "Is the smell bothering you?"
"Not really," I said with a shrug. Even if the scent of marijuana offended me, what was he going to do about it, kick the stoners out?
"Do you want some?"
"No, I don't take drugs." Instantly, the pill bottle in my purse tripled in weight.
Sal sat down on his bed, a creaky queen with dusty rose bedding- and I mean literally dusty. This place looked like it hadn't been cleaned since the sixties. "Are you okay?"
My eyes nearly bugged out of my skull. "No, I not fucking okay, I don't want to be here."
"I mean in general, in life."
Why was he going all Freudian on me? I thought this was supposed to be a party where I loosened up and had fun, maybe drank a bit over my limit. Growing up, I'd always understood Sal, he'd been a sturdy rock in the winding, Harrington stream, but he didn't make any sense anymore, his pale, green eyes looked cold and distant. This was no longer a one-sided infatuation between a thirteen-year-old girl and her father's godson; we were two consenting adults, and he looked at me like he wanted me right here on this ancient bed.
"I have no idea how to answer that question. I can't tell if my life is perfectly fine and I'm overreacting, or if it's a shitshow and I'm underreacting."
He chuckled, reaching up to stroke my cheek. "You never change Deb; I love that about you."
After that cryptic statement, he leaned in and pressed his lips against mine, his hand sliding up my thigh. How many times had I wished he'd touch me like this, kiss me like this, and do a thousand more things to my body when I was a tween? I'd lie awake at night, chest tight because I loved Sal Piazza so goddamn much, but now, it felt odd, stale. Maybe it was the scent of spilled beer or the thumping bass of some Foreigner song blaring through a boom box one room over, but he didn't make me melt. Instead, I froze over, and when his hand finally reached between my legs, going for the button and fly, I jumped away from him as though I'd been shocked.
"What is it?" Sal asked, startled by my odd response. "What's wrong?"
"I... I can't have sex with you tonight."
"Why not?"
I held his gaze, neither of us blinking, and my lips spoke the truth before my mind could figure it out. "I do change, every week, if not every day, and I've certainly changed in the decade I've known you."
His brows pinched together, mouth a firm line. "I don't really understand, Deb, I'm sorry."
"It's okay; you don't have to understand."
"But you don't want to sleep with me?"
"No."
Standing huffily, he grumbled, "Do whatever you want, then."
"I want to go home!"
"Well, you can't." He folded his arms across his broad chest making it obvious he relished denying my request. "This is my party, and I just got here."
"Can I use your car keys?"
"No! You knew this would be an all night thing- it's New Year's Eve for Christ's sake!"
"You forced me to come!"
"Did I put a gun to your head?" he demanded, nostrils flaring. "All I wanted was for you to get out of bed and socialize with other humans-"
"No, you wanted to get in my pants."
"So what!?" His shout caught me off guard- I flinched slightly- folding my legs as I wrapped my arms around myself, determined to be as small as possible. "So what if I want to be with the girl I've had eyes for you since- well- since you've been with Craig." My eyes snapped up at this revelation, but I averted them just as quickly, embarrassed by the intensity of his gaze. "How was I supposed to know, the very day you return Hawkins as a college drop-out, you'd screw the first guy who tells you your ass looks nice in spandex? How was I supposed to know you'd keep seeing him even after you learned he's a teenager as well as your student? How the fuck could I have guessed you'd get dumped by one manipulative bastard and fall head over heels for another, before I could even get a word in?"
I wanted to rebuke his accusations, but I didn't even have the nerve to make eye-contact. I withered like a flower in a drought, and eventually he left, closing the door, I'm sure giving me a sour look over his shoulder as he went. As soon as Sal was out of sight, the emptiness in my chest crashed in on itself, filling my lungs and throat with unbearable, white-hot pain. I needed to end this agony, or I swore I might die.
Stumbling through the connecting door to the bathroom, locking in on both ends, I pulled out my mother's Vicodin, washing two tabs down with tap water. Placebo relief flooded me instantly, genuine chemical calmness following minutes later. Groggily, I stumbled back to the bedroom to see a couple getting it on under the covers, naked limbs sticking out at grotesque angles.
Fuck this! I pushed my way past the throng, punching the elevator button hard enough to hurt. I didn't give a shit what Sal thought of me, I couldn't spend another second at his party.
This chapter took forever to update, but it's also quite long, and I'm pretty happy with it, I hope you all are too, vote and comment if it strikes your fancy!!