Page 150 of Please Open Me
I exhaled through my nose and rolled my eyes. But itwasn’tmy fault I relapsed. Sophia was the one who reintroduced me to alcohol, and it spiraled from there. Fuck, something about Halloween had me so on edge I felt high, and the next day itfeltlike I was withdrawing. All I wanted was to bebetter.
“I relapsed because I wanted to be better,” I said.
The words came out stupid and small. Seb’s scissors paused. For a beat, I convinced myself he’d stopped because heknew,for once in our lives, I was right.
“You think getting high makes you better?” he asked slowly.
“Iknowit does,” I scoffed, fully prepared to double down. “You’ve always been perfect. You don’t–”
“You thinkI’mperfect?” He pointed the scissors at himself.
“Iknowyou are. You’re smart, and you’ve had a good job, and you have the perfect life.” I sounded triumphant, and saying all that out loud felt fantastic.
I had a reason to be fucked up because my life was fucked up. That’s all there was to it. Then, Sebastian started laughing.
At first, it was just a slight chuckle. I’d shot him a look, wondering what the fuck was so funny, and that only made it worse.
His laugh turned into something sharp and ugly, and frankly, I didn’t feel safe with him holding scissors to my head.
“Dude, stop,” I warned.
Seb wiped a few tears from his eyes and stood a little straighter as he caught his breath.
“Sorry, it’s just—I knew you were fucking dense, I just assumed you weren’tblindtoo.”
I stared at him in the mirror. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Wait—you know Mason’s pregnant, right?”
A weird seed of pride blossomed in my chest. “Uh, yeah, why?”
“Just making sure.” He stated calmly before clearing his throat. “As for your comment about my perfect life—I have a Ph.D collecting dust in my office, I got your wife pregnant, and, most days, I fucking hate myself.”
Sebastian continued to ramble on, probably something about his self-loathing coming from the fact he hit his emo phase at twenty-three, approximately a decade late.
But, I zoned out because what the fuck did he meanhegot Mason pregnant?
“Uh, did she have a paternity test done?” I asked, scratching my chin as Sebastian finally went back to cutting my hair.
“Uh, not as far as I know, but…” Pink crept into his cheeks. “I thought pulling out was a good way to prevent pregnancy, even though Cam told me it wasn’t.”
How could someone so smart be so fucking stupid?
“Well, I mean… condoms can fail, and I have sex with her too,” I said, sounding far more jealous than I would have liked.
“How often?” he asked.
I squirmed under the weight of my brother, knowingly fucking my wife.
“Like, a few times a week.”
One corner of his lips turned up into a condescending smirk. “So, I’m not one to kiss and tell, butexcludingthe fact that you love condoms, statistically, it's still in my favor.”
… Did this mother fucker just tell me he has sex with my wife more often than I do?
My mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again, but nothing came out because my brain was stuck doing the dial-up screech.
“Are you—” I jabbed a finger at him through the mirror. “—braggingright now?”
