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The door closes behind us, and Scott sets me down on the front sidewalk. I straighten my dress as I stumble backward. “And fuck you, Scott!” I shout. “I fucking hate your ass for this!”
“Go home, Mel!” Scott says. “Get the fuck out of here. Don’t come back for a month—you or Ty.”
“What about her!?” I shout, pointing back toward the bar.
“Her? You attacked her! You beat the shit out of her, Mel.”
“Okay well…you know what, Scott? You’re an asshole, and I’m gonna beat your wife’s ass next.”
“You’re banned for life now!” he says.
“Whatever,” I tell him, flipping him off as I start down the hill. “I’ll see you next week.”
“I think the fuck not!” he shouts back.
I pretend I don’t hear him and continue home, angry again—at Heather for being a bitch, at Ty for getting so drunk and leaving me alone to deal with that when he’s the only one who can calm me down, and at Scott for throwing me out.
But most of all, I’m angry with myself. By letting her get to me, I kind of proved her right.
I think that’s what Ty would tell me if he wasn’t sleeping off his own brand of self-loathing in the parking lot behind the pub.
“Mel!” Lisa yells, hurrying after me. “Wait up! Are you okay?”
“Not really,” I tell her. “I just…I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Okay,” she agrees.
She pulls a cigarette from her purse lights it, then takes a drag before handing it to me. I inhale, then hand it back to her, and we repeat the process until we reach our neighborhood, stopping at the street that leads to her family’s home.
“Do you want me to come home with you?” she asks.
“No,” I tell her. “That’s okay, Lisa. I just…kind of want to be alone right now.”
“Okay,” she says. “I’m so sorry the night went to shit.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It’s mine; I fucked up.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” she says.
“Okay,” I tell her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
She hugs me, then we head our separate ways.
By the time I reach the house, the long walk home, the chill in the night air, and my uncomfortable revelation have all but sobered me up. I step through the front door and into the dark, empty house, closing the door behind me, then drag my tired, aching body to the staircase.
I’m in desperate need of sleep—at least twelve hours of it. And then, since I’m off tomorrow, I’ll spend the day job searching. I’ll have Ty take me around whenever he’s done nursing his inevitable hangover.
“Not even going to say hi, are you?”
I freeze, foot on the first step and my hand on the banister. My heart drops into my stomach. I turn and see Grant sitting in an armchair in the living room.
“I—I’m just here to grab something. My fiancé is waiting for me.”
“I don’t see any headlights,” he says, pulling the curtain aside. “There’s no one out there.”
“He’s waiting at his house. He lives just around the corner.”
