Page 212 of Filthy Beautiful
She just left me alone.
She was more mature than I was, maybe.
At least she let her feelings come screaming out before they consumed her.
I’d been so fucking careful about that… ever since the accident.
I’d battened down the hatches on my emotions for so damn long, when all this shit with Courteney and her brother finally cracked the seal… they all just came pouring out. I could see that now.
How I’d been holding onto my own feelings about everything with some kind of death grip. Shoving them back into the shadows. Picking up and moving on before that shit dragged me down, like it dragged Cary down.
And when I finally gave up and let go… all the feels just ran me right over.
So there I lay, flattened.
Sometime toward the end of day three, when I was working up my nerve to call her, tell her I was letting her go… just trying to figure out if I could talk to her without falling apart… she showed up at my door.
I buzzed her in and managed to look in the mirror. I hadn’t shaved or showered or anything. Hadn’t really looked at myself in three days.
Jesus. What a mess.
I scraped a hand through my hair and opened my door.
Courteney stood there, and to her credit, when she saw me, she didn’t recoil or anything.
She cocked her head and looked past me, into my place. At all the shit on the floor.
Actually, all the shit was… everywhere. I was usually pretty neat and clean. I’d been called a “neat freak” by some of my friends on tour. So sue me, I didn’t like dirt and mess.
But right now, everything I’d touched in the last three days was lying right where I’d left it. Dishes, food, clothes… everything. On the floor. On the kitchen counter, the dining room table, the couch. It was like I’d left a trail of couldn’t-give-a-fuck in my wake.
And then planted myself face first on the couch, repeatedly.
Feelingsblew.
Guilt and pain and regret and self-pity and self-loathing and frustration and shame and fucking fear… All the shit that ran through you, trampled right over you, when someone you loved disappeared from your life.
When one of your best friends died in a fire… and your other best friend drowned himself in the guilt and the pain and the regret, the self-pity and self-loathing and frustration, the shame and the fucking fear.
Who had the stamina for this shit?
I couldn’t take all the fucking feels anymore.
And yet… when I looked in those honey colored eyes of hers, I fucking cracked.
I had every warm and fuzzy feeling that ever existed for this girl. When she frowned at me a little, my heart fucking broke.
How could I let her go?
“Hey,” I said. My voice cracked. I hadn’t actually used it in three days. Hadn’t talked to anyone. Hadn’t seen another human being.
Unless you counted the Gilmore Girls.
I’d watched a fucking Netflix marathon, or at least kinda stared blankly at it with the sound off.
“Hey,” she said softly.
I sighed. “How the hell does Cary do this shit?” I leaned on the door, holding it open as she stepped into my place. I shut the door behind her as she kept looking around.
