Page 68 of Tell Me I'm Enough

We stay on the phone as long as possible, until Rose comes to find them, telling them they have to get ready to get in thecar, and we all say our goodbyes. Neither one wanted to hang up, whining for Rose to let them stay on the phone. It broke my heart a little when she finally took the phone away from them and told me goodbye before hanging up. I could still hear their cries in the back until the click.

Silence takes over the room again, and I stare at the black screen of my phone for a moment. My throat burns from the emotions, my chest aches. I feel…heavy, and it hits me pretty hard—I don’t just miss them. I miss having a family. I miss feeling like somebody wanted me around. I miss being for them what my mom was for me.

They’re the only people left in the world who make me feel like I matter.

I toss the phone aside, flop back on my bed, and cover my face with my forearm.

Fuck.

Eventually, I force myself to get up and head into the bathroom to shower before heading downstairs.

Last night there was a crazy, way-too-out-of-hand party that I already know will require a mandatory cleanup by all the guys this morning.

Walking out into the hallway after my shower, I can already see the war zone this place currently is. I internally groan and kick a couple of cups out of the way on the floor to clear a path to the stairs.

When I head into the kitchen to grab some ibuprofen, the guys are already up cleaning.

“Where the hell you been, Sinclair?” Tanner asks. “Getting your beauty rest?”

Tank comes over and slaps me on the shoulder. “Nah, he just partied too hard last night, probably had to recover from all the macking he was doing.”

I scrunch my nose up. “Macking? Who is still sayingmacking?”

Tank waves me off. “Whatever. Sorry, my vocabulary isn’t as fancy as yours, rich boy.”

I honestly don’t remember much of last night. I know I was drinking, but that’s about it.

Idokinda remember some blonde band chick…and the president of the HSA, and…a couple of Kappa girls.

Well,shit.

I swear I had no intentions of hooking up withanyone, but sometimes when the alcohol hits, and the cheers and chants get loud…I kinda just fall back into bad habits. I like the rush of getting attention. I like the validation. Call me crazy, but there’s this high to feeling wanted. It’s the easiest way to convince yourself you actually are.

I walk past the guys, grabbing some medicine and then a Gatorade out of the fridge before taking it and heading into the main area of the house, where I’m sure most of the damage is.

“Geez,” I mutter, stepping over a passed-out first-year who is somehow still asleep on the floor, using a pizza box as a pillow.

“Tank!” I yell. “Get this idiot to a room!”

From the kitchen, Tank yells back, “I call not it! That’s ayouproblem, sleepyhead!”

I roll my eyes and nudge the kid’s leg with my foot. “Hey. Up. You’re not staying on my floor. We gotta clean under you.”

He still doesn’t move, so I do the decent thing and at least bend down to check for a pulse before finding two other first-years to do the dirty work of moving him for me.

I grab a trash bag from the closet and start moving through the living room, tossing cups, plates, and random crap into it. Every surface I touch feels sticky. It makes me want to gag. The whole place smells like beer, old food, and shitty choices that people will just call ‘the good old days’ ten years from now.

Brett comes down the stairs, rubbing his face, hair sticking up everywhere, looking a mess. “Dude. My head.”

“Congratulations,” I say, flatly. “You actually have a brain up there. Grab a bag and start cleaning.”

He flips me off, but still grabs the bag.

I don’t really get along with the guy. He treats girls like garbage on purpose and acts bigger than his britches too often, but we’re all ‘brothers’ here, so I try to be civil around him.

We’ve got music blasting now and have just started to scratch the surface of cleaning this dump when the front doors open and Madison from the Gamma house walks in with a group of girls following behind her.

“The house isn’t really company-ready,” I throw over my shoulder to her as I pick up a questionable cup of chunky liquid that could very well be someone’s vomit.