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Bringing the bottle back up to my lips, I drink deeply again. The whiskey burns on its way down, but the feeling is gone too quickly. And the alcohol still hasn’t helped me numb the ache in my chest.
Kayla called me a duck once. Said that everything just runs off me like water on a duck. Most people think the same thing when they meet me. And for the most part, they’re right. I have an ego the size of North America and way more confidence than should probably be legal. But there are also some things that I am incredibly insecure about. And this is one of them.
I tilt my head back and heave a deep sigh.
Sitting there on the floor, I stare at nothing as I raise the bottle to my lips once more while trying to fight off the suffocating emotions in my chest.
A soft knock comes from the door.
I blink, realizing that the room is now dark around me. The sun must have set. Only yellow light from the streetlamps outside shine in through the windows and illuminate parts of the walls. I glance down at the bottle in my hand, noticing that it’s almost half empty.
Another knock comes.
I ignore it.
“Jace,” Kayla says from the other side of the door, her voice gentler than I have ever heard.
It sends another stab of pain through my chest.
“Jace,” she repeats. “Please.”
I take another drink.
“Please can I come in?” she says.
Remaining on the floor, I say nothing.
The door is opened anyway. It brings with it the smell of food. But I don’t have enough fucks to give right now, so I just keep staring out at the window.
Soft footsteps sound on the floor.
Then Kayla appears next to me. I can feel her looking down at me, but I don’t bother turning towards her. A soft and very miserable-sounding sigh escapes from her chest.
She sits down next to me. Resting her back against the side of the bed, she stretches out her legs along the floor. She’s so close that her thigh almost brushes against mine.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly.
And then she holds out something to me. Tearing my gaze from the window, I glance down at the item she’s holding out to me with both hands. It’s a bowl. One of her normal kitchen bowls. Filled with something… vaguely edible-looking.
I shift my gaze up to her face.
My heart clenches.
She looks genuinely sorry. And a little miserable.
“What’s that?” I ask, nodding down at the bowl she’s still holding out to me.
“It’s food.”
“You don’t know how to cook.”
She winces. “I know. But you like food. And I wanted to… well, I wanted to apologize. And to do something… well, give you something… that you would like.”
The way she’s floundering makes my heart warm a little. I’ve never seen her like that before. Never seen her this… vulnerable. And the fact that she’s even showing me this side of herself, for the sole purpose of apologizing to me, is undeniable proof that she actually means every word.
After setting the whiskey bottle down on the floor beside me, I reach out and take the bowl from her still outstretched hands. There is a fork stuck into the food. It looks kind of like pasta. Except the long noodles have been broken into small pieces. Which is an absolute sacrilege.
Spearing some of the floppy bits with the fork, I bring it to my mouth and eat.
