Chapter 93
I bite my lip, copying her and leaning against the back of the couch. “What hurts.”
“The fact that Lucas played with my feelings. We’ve known each other our whole lives. I’ve liked him since we were eleven. And just when I thought he could actually like me back,” she pauses to chuckle dryly as she sniffles slightly. “Turns out he’s gay and was just using me to try and convince himself he’s straight.”
She’s definitely drunk. She wouldn’t be spilling everything like her sister if she wasn’t. “Tavi…”
“So I started thinking. What makes the pain of a stupid little teenage heartbreak go away?” She ignores me, tears slipping down her cheeks. “Tucking alcohol! So I took a bottle from the cupboard, went to the lake and downed it.”
“You got drunk at the lake?” I explode. “You could’ve drowned or something!”
She rolls her eyes. “But I didn’t.”
I roll my eyes. “You sound like Winnie.”
“Yeah, anyway,” she continues on with her story. “I couldn’t talk to Winnie because she’s out with Adonis, and I couldn’t talk to Kamri because I didn’t wanna burden her with my crap, so I came here.”
“Are you saying you’d burden me with your crap, but not Kamri?” I give her a blank look. “Great. Nice to know.”
“Shut up. You sound like both Winnie and Adonis.” She tells me. Yeah, I think I’ve been spending too much time with the two of them lately. “I really thought that getting wasted would help but it didn’t. I still feel like shit. But you know what will help?”
I eye her suspiciously as she turns her body towards me and leans forward. “Octavia-”
“A distraction.” She slurps lowly, giving me yet another wonky smile before darting forward and pressing her lips against mine. My eyes bulge out of my head and I immediately pull away, leaving Octavia staring down at the floor with a hurt and embarrassed expression, tears still falling down her face.
“Look. Tavi, it’s not that I don’t want to do this, because god, I do. I really fucking do.” I start, tilting her chin up to make her look at me. “But I am not going to take advantage of you. Plus, I know how you feel, and I know if I were you, I’d regret sleeping with someone else while drunk.”
She scoffs, pulling away from me. “You have no idea what it feels like to love someone who doesn’t love you back.”
I push the burst of anger down. She’s drunk. She’s fucking drunk. Don’t hit her in the face with your shoe, Flynn. “I’m only gonna tell you this because you’re wasted and won’t remember this in the morning. But I liked Winnie for three years when I moved here. I tried to convince myself I didn’t so I wouldn’t get hurt, but obviously, that didn’t work out. I had to watch the most important person in my life crush on other people while I sat off to the side and played the supportive best friend and acted like it didn’t feel like my heart was being ripped out of my chest and fucking danced on. When I realised it was never going to happen with Winnie, I forced myself to stop liking her. After that, I started getting feelings for someone else, which brings us to now. I like you. A lot. Have for a year now. And now I’m watching you cry over some other guy. So don’t you dare say I don’t know how it feels to love someone who doesn’t love me back. Because I do. Better than I’d fucking like.”
She stares at me in shock, opening and closing her mouth a few times as she tries to find the words to say, “Flynn, I-”
“You can sleep in my bed tonight. I’ll take the couch.” I cut her off. “Bathroom’s up the stairs, first door to the right. There’s spare toothbrushes in the cabinet under the sink. I’ll grab you some of Winnie’s pyjamas to wear.”
She nods gratefully at me. “Thank you.”
Chapter 93
I watch as she stands up and drags herself up the stairs, swaying slightly, though clearly more sober than she was when she first got here. She is going to have one hell of a hangover at school tomorrow.
I slump back against the couch when she disappears from my sight, bringing my hands up to my face and rubbing my eyes until I see TV static. I am going to regret telling her that in approximately thirty seconds.
I groan loudly before picking myself up off the couch and trudging upstairs to my room, going straight to my dresser and opening the bottom drawer. Half my dresser and half my closet belongs to Winnic. When I’m not at her house, she’s at mine, which is more often than you’d think. I pull out a pair of Winnie’s pyjamas she rarely wears and place it on my bed in a neatly folded pile. I yawn as I quickly strip down to my boxers. I snatch Winnie’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle blanket off the foot of my bed and wrap the fluffy material around myself before slinking back downstairs. I grab my phone and shoot a quick text to Winnie, letting her know Octavia’s at my house and that I’m going to need to need to complain about my life decisions
tomorrow.
