Chapter 1 Chapter One
CANDY'S POV - 1
The deafening silence around the table is the only response I need to realize, rather late, what a stupid, stupid idea it was to play put a finger down with the bunch of snobbish piranhas I’d only just met this night while being stupidly drunk to stupor. I’m not in denial of the fact that I'm about to become the next gossip topic, a prey for them to devour.
But that’s on them, not me.
I shouldn’t have left my room or even come on this stupid pity trip to start with, but I’ve always been something of a coward and at the time I made the decision to, I’d needed a kind of saving that only running away could give me. I’d needed to hide from the world to conceal the shame that’d wrapped itself around me like a bright colored cloak begging for attention.
“Well, there you have it, ladies. Enjoy your drinks and trust no one.” I say as I throw back my last shot, my head feeling sickeningly light.
I struggle off my seat, the ground refusing to stay still enough to plant my feet on and spinning too fast to keep me up.
Holding onto every other table for support, I force myself to take every step slow and steady, reminding myself to put one foot in front of the other because I’d die first before I fall and add to the embarrassment I already left in my wake. By some miracle, I make it out the door of the small bar escaping its stench of booze and sweat and pretentiousness, walking into the cool, fresh breeze outside.
Angry tears fill my eyes out of nowhere as I try to convince myself that I’m okay, that I don’t care that my best friend isn’t here right now, right next to me as she’s always been, making me laugh like a wanton bitch, bitching about those girls in there who wouldn’t have come within a ten-mile radius of me tonight if I wasn’t buying drinks for everyone.
It hurts more that I can’t pick up my damned phone to call her anymore and have her tell me everything is going to be alright.
I don’t want to care, but I can only be so strong.
Ignoring the weight crushing down on my little heart and the tears blurring my vision, I continue walking down the path I have no memory of where it leads. Maybe it’ll mercifully take me to my death, that’ll sure make some people super happy.
Somehow, I manage to make it to the beach side which is definitely quite the distance still from my hotel, the only way I should in fact be headed, but it’s something. The tiny shards of sharp sand covering it cuts into the sole of my feet with every step I painstakingly take, decorating it with hellishly painful micro lacerations. I must have lost my sandals earlier at the bar or something.
This night is definitely not my night, I think to myself as I hear my stomach rumbling, the drink I’d filled it with earlier threatening to marathon back up my esophagus.
“It’s not been your day or week or month either, honey.” I mutter to myself out loud, my voice funny and the words slurred a bit.
I hate the sound of it and I hate the person I’ve let myself become here.
The dark depths other water looks deceptively welcoming, beckoning me to wade into it and let go even though I’m the worst swimmer I know. Maybe I could do it, let myself drown with my problems and be washed ashore days later for my enemies to rejoice over.
I could this, end it all now and find my peace.
But before I can get my legs to move any further into the water, I feel an instant change of mind that has my legs moving on their own away from the waters. Without pause, they continue heading towards the hotel, trying to stay on the right path this time. It takes me twice as long as it would have if I’d been sober and a ton of picking myself back up after every slip and fall but I finally manage to find myself in the lobby.
The peering, condescending eyes glued to me are the least of my worries as I grab onto the banisters taking the stairs one at a time because I can’t for the life of me figure out where the elevator is. I’m not the first woman to be drunk and determined and missing her footwear and I won’t be the last either so they can enjoy the freaking show.
After what felt like a climb up mount Fuji, I finally get to my floor. Without pausing to let everything that’s currently wrong with me to catch up, I match down the hallway to my room hoping to escape into it, to curl into myself on my comfy bed until the alcohol fades from my system, hopefully my memories with it.
But all that is abruptly paused when I find this tall block of a man standing right outside my door, trying to unlock it.
“Hey stop or I’m calling security.” I yell, scampering towards him. I probably look like a badly animated penguin right now in my haste but that pales in comparison to the situation at hand. This mountain of a man is breaking into my room and I’m not having it. I’m going to stop him one way or another.
“I said stop.” I slur, this time staring in his unamused face.
He raises a brow in question, studying my overall look. His eyes are a dead giveaway of the fact that he thinks I’m deranged and out of my mind.
Well, we’ll see who’s insane when hotel security shows up and cuffs him for trying to break into my room to steal my valuables or something.
“Are you…….okay?’
His eyes follow me as I wobble on my feet, my jelly knees trying and failing to hold me upright. I lean on the wall for support before attempting to answer him else I’ll be doing that with my face kissed to the damned moving floor.
“Fe-feels like there’s a parade in my head that won’t shut the fuck up but that won’t stop me from calling security if you don’t leave my door the fuck alone.”
Again he looks at me like I’ve lost it but he says nothing.
Good, I’m probably getting through to him. I’ll rather honestly not have to deal with the whole theatrics of actually calling someone up here to deal with him and this mess when he can just leave me the fuck alone to go inside my room and fucking empty my guts for starters.
I’m swearing a lot in my head. Funny cause I almost never swear.
“I’m sure you’ve had um….” He pauses to take another head-to-toe look at me. “A busy night, but your room is somewhere down the hall. This one is mine.”
“Oh no mister, look here,”
I lift myself off my support wall to look the intimidating part I’m trying to pull and instantly I realize what a stupid, terrible idea that was. The hallway starts spinning like a crazy merry go round, the ground moving from underneath me. And before I can do anything remotely helpful about my mistake, I lose my footing and fall face first into Mr. mountain man.
I hear a stream of curses leave his mouth and I start to apologize for my profound stupidity but the next worst thing to happen to in the history of my twenty six years of existence decides on this already fucked moment to make its grand entrance.
In the blink of an eye, I feel all the booze and the instant ramen I’d had earlier in this same room I’m now fighting for, that’s refused to stay down my gastrointestinal tract fly back up at world-record-worthy speed, spewing out my mouth and onto his clothes.
And that’s the last thing I remember before the pitch blackness comes for me, sweeping me under.
That and his now endless stream of curses, ringing in his unfamiliar but nice deep voice.