“Your name pinged on Jake’s Google account. There are photos of you arriving here all over the internet.”
“What the fuck, dude? You and Jake stalk me on fucking Google?” Turning the faucet on full force, I collected the cool water in my hands and splashed it over my face. It didn’t revive me as much as I’d hoped. “That’s fucking weird.”
“Someone needs to keep an eye on you,” he said, as if that made it any less creepy. “What’re you doing, Matt?”
“Drying my face,” I answered, patting my damp skin with a paper towel, even though I knew that wasn’t the response he was searching for.
“So what, you’re over Alex now?” Sarcasm saturated Sawyer’s voice as he used his thumb to point toward the door the brunette had just left through. I’d forgotten her name already. “I thought you were gonna talk to him?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Come on, man. I’m immune to your bullshit attitude remember? What happened?”
“He blew me off.” Sawyer’s neck snapped back, his eyes widening. And they say I’m immature. “Not like that, dickweed. He tried to sugarcoat it but the truth is he’s just not interested. He doesn’t trust me.”
“What’d he say?”
“He…doesn’t matter.” I stopped myself revealing the part of Alex he clearly wanted to keep hidden. “We’re through. Even as friends. I’m better off without him.”
“If you believe that, you’re an even bigger twat than I give you credit for.”
“Excuse me?” How the hell is any of this my fault?
“Putting the whole, are you, are you not, attracted to him thing aside, the guy is the best thing that ever happened to you. You’ve changed since you’ve been friends. You’re happier. More settled. In a lot of ways he’s been the making of you, Matt. Are you really gonna throw all that away to go back to expensive booze and cheap women that you don’t even remember the next day?”
“Why am I getting the blame here?” I barked, my blood beginning to simmer. “You don’t even know what happened.”
“Because I know you. I know that you turn into a jackass when you don’t get your own way. Because that’s what she was, right?” He pointed toward the door again. “Fucking her was you proving a point. Having a tantrum. Throwing your damn dummy outta the pram.”
“I didn’t fuck her. I tried but…I… well I couldn’t.”
“Because of Alex?”
“Yes, okay? I couldn’t get it up because she wasn’t Alex. Happy now?”
“No I’m not happy. And neither are you! Fucking talk to him, Matt!”
“I did!”
“And you ran away when things didn’t go how you wanted. You need to stick it out. Be a fucking adult.”
“He’s not interested!” I yelled, turning my back to him and slamming my hands down onto the sink.
“I’m not buying it. I spoke to him just yesterday and that wasn’t the voice of a man who didn’t care. What the fuck happened to you two? This has gone way beyond a fucking kiss by a washing machine.”
Suddenly feeling too hot, I wound my fingers into my hair, pushing it back off my face with so much force I almost ripped it from my scalp. “I don’t know. I feel like I don’t know anything anymore.” Tipping my head back and staring blankly at the white tiled ceiling, I huffed through my nose. “I wish my mom was here. She’d tell me what to do.”
Since she died there wasn’t an hour that passed where I didn’t think of her. It felt like the moment I got the call someone tied a boulder around my neck and threw me into the ocean. Most of the time I was a good swimmer, strong enough to keep my head above water despite the heavy rock of grief, but sometimes the struggle weakened my resolve, pulling me under, drowning me. Losing a parent is a kind of grief you can’t possibly imagine or prepare for. Losing both, despite the fact I didn’t remember my dad, is insufferable. I felt lost. Abandoned even. Like I was all alone in the world now with no one to guide me.
In the most random of places I’d slip away into a daydream, remembering the way she used to laugh, sing me to sleep when I was a kid, even the way she used to hiccup. She always sounded like a little yapping dog and she would get pissed whenever I made fun of her for it.
“I knew your mum well, and I know right now she’d tell you to go home, cool off and think things through. She’d also tell you to pull your head outta your ass and stop acting like a prick.”
Yeah, I agreed in my head. She would’ve said that, although a little more eloquently.
“When did life get so fucking complicated?”
“When you finally grew up,” Sawyer teased, half grinning. “Now can we get out of this bathroom? I’m sure there’s a queue of people outside waiting to have sex.”