Chapter Twenty Nine: Lacey

I miraculously managed to hold it together during my drive home, but I knew it was mostly because the anger I was feeling beat out the devastation that was trying to rear its ugly head. I knew Ezra had been back to fucking other girls because, of course, he had, but seeing it up close and person had affected me unlike I’d ever expected. Of course, this moment had been nearing since we’d been home from Hawaii, and though I figured I could push through it and force things back to normal, that hadn’t been the case. Things weren’t normal. They never would be again.

I had six missed calls from Ezra when I got back to my apartment, and as I closed the front door behind me, finally feeling a moment of overdue relief, the tears came. The dam opened. All self-control was lost in a hazy mist of heartbreak and anger and devastation, the same devastation that had been slowly seeping its way in since Hawaii.

I slid down the wall with a choked sob, drawing my knees into my chest. Tears fell from my eyes, soaking my face, leaving hot, dry streaks across my skin. My cell phone buzzed again in my pocket, and I knew it was Ezra. I ignored it still.

Once I felt like I had most of the tears out, I pushed myself off the floor and went to the pantry for a bottle of wine. I popped the cork and poured a big glass full, raising it to my lips and swallowing it down like juice. The alcohol burned my throat, but I ignored it as I poured another glass and tossed that one back, too. I felt ashamed. Hurt. Broken. But I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was fade out and just pretend that Ezra never existed for a short period of time.

Easier said than done.

I reached into my pocket to turn my phone off as I poured another glass of wine, locked the deadbolt on the front door, and went to the couch to stew in my emotions. I knew that storming out of the club had been an immature thing to do, and it was something that normal me never even would have considered or entertained. But I couldn’t do it, not anymore. I just couldn’t hold it together while watching my best friend move on with his life. I guess for him, things could be normal again. But that wasn’t the case for me.

The wine was going straight to my head, intoxicating me to my core, but it was the best I’d felt in days, mostly because I was now too drunk to think straight. After I’d downed that third glass of wine, I took my phone out and checked it, ignoring the messages and texts from Ezra, noticing instead that Tilly had also called and left a couple of voicemails. I didn’t bother checking them. It didn’t matter what anybody had to say, not right now. I would get through this without the unwanted help of those who only meant to reassure me. They didn’t have answers. Nobody did.

“You, Lacey, are a mess,” I said aloud, giggling at the sound of my own voice in my empty, lonely apartment. Even with a bottle of wine to comfort me, I felt isolated and alone. I was rarely awake when I was home, spending most of my woke hours at the club only to come home and sleep before waking up and heading back to be with Ezra. But things would be different now, and I had to start by finding a new job.

I pulled my laptop out of the bag I’d grabbed from Club Phoenix and booted it up. Part of me knew I was too drunk to even focus, but I also needed something to keep my mind off my own emotions before I had a complete and utter meltdown. Not that that hadn’t already happened, of course.

I don’t remember much of the rest of the night, as I managed to toss back the rest of the wine and pass out on my couch at about five o clock in the morning. When I woke at ten, still slightly drunk but mostly just hungover, my phone was dead, and my stomach churned with nausea. I plugged my phone in and went to the bathroom to shower, not caring that I was technically supposed to be at the club for work. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. I was done.

After cleansing off the night in the shower, I rechecked my phone. I had more missed calls from Ezra, multiple texts, and a few more from Tilly. Ignoring them, I shut the curtains in my bedroom and laid down on my bed, feeling like I could sleep forever and still not get enough sleep.