“Merry Christmas, Dad.”
Chapter 21 – Lucas
“Brilliant.” I muttered in the darkness. The only light I had on was small lap at my desk on the other side of my bedroom room. The alcohol and the seedy events of tonight had settled into a sour pool in the pit of my stomach and were churning over and over. I new I’d feel better if I threw up but I hadn’t thrown up from too much alcohol since my freshman year in high school. I wasn’t going to take a step backward.
Telling Tilly what for was supposed to make me feel better. I was supposed to see her real colors. She was supposed to try and stop me from talking to tell me how much she cared about me. I called so many girls way worse things than a slut and they came trotting back for more like trick ponies. They weren’t supposed to wish me well and just hang up. That’s what…
That’s what real women did, Lucas. You blew it with this girl and you know it. Now pull yourself together and deal with it.
I stretched out on my bed but couldn't get comfortable. The room wanted to shift when I closed my eyes and I should have never eaten that whipped cream and cherry thing that Jenna had tucked back in the fridge. I could tell the way she had it back there she was trying to hide it for herself. I took a big scoop out of it and shoveled it in my mouth. Now it was swimming around in the muck already in my stomach waiting to come back up again.
I tried to stick it to Jenna and ended up making myself literally sick.
"Lucas. What is happening?" I looked at the clock. It blinked 2:53 a.m. at me. “Why did you call her now? Why didn’t you wait until the morning? Or even a week from now?
A wave of nausea rolled over me and I felt myself turn sweaty and cold all at once.
"I've had more to drink than I did tonight and been able to stroll in at six in the morning without any problems," I grumbled, rubbing my stomach. "Maybe I'm coming down with the flu."
Maybe your body is sick of your mouth too and would like to get away?
Just then I heard it.
“No. Please God. Anything but that.”
I held my breath as my stomach continued to fold over and over itself as if building up momentum.
But there was no denying that what I was hearing was Jenna and my father.
She was doing this on purpose. I know she was. Part of me wanted to go kick the fucking door down and drag her out by her hair. How could my father be so blind?
But another part of me, the part that was continually reminding me I shouldn’t have eaten that cherry thing and that I better just make my way to the bathroom because the inevitable was going to happen sooner or later. That part of me was saying let it go. Dad had made his choice.
Without warning everything I had consumed tonight lurched up my throat. I sat bolt upright on the bed, swung my legs over the side and clamped my hand over my mouth. In four long strides, I was in my bathroom, on my knees in front of the toilet letting everything out.
My body constricted painfully as everything was thrown into reverse. My throat burned and for a few paralyzing seconds, I couldn't breathe. I felt the sweat flooding my armpits and dripping down the center of my back. The burning in my throat and nose made my shoulders hunch up and my eyes watered terribly, blurring my vision and making my bathroom look like nothing more than wavy lines of white and dark blue.
Finally, after gagging and coughing and flushing the toilet half a dozen times to get the image and the smell of vomit out of the room I sat back. I was on my knees like I really was praying to the porcelain god and rested back on my haunches. Panting, I took in great gulps of air as sobriety quickly seeped in and I thought of what had happened this whole night.
“If I only would have gone to Tilly’s house.”
You might have had a really nice time. You might have found a good friend. Not like Henry. Not like Monica. But a genuine person. And you blew it.
“I didn’t blow it. I could stop by her house tomorrow and make things right.”
Did you forget you are leaving to go back to New Hampshire? You’re going to get the boot from your own father while Jenna stands behind him, her arms folded over her fake tits and that smirk on her face.
"I won't give them the chance," I said out loud. My voice echoed in the little room and bounced back at me.
Are you not going to say goodbye to your own father?
“He never says anything to me. He doesn’t ask me anything. He just tells me. Lucas, I’ll be in Hong Kong for two months. Lucas, the New York office is a mess. Be back in a week. Lucas, I’ve been working so hard I’m taking Jenna on a vacation. What the fuck?”
Why didn’t I tell Tilly what I wanted to tell her? Why didn’t I tell her that I needed her right now? I just wanted to talk to someone who had sense, someone who would just listen. Why did I say those things to her?
Now I had no family, the girl I liked hated me and I was being shipped back to school to await orders from my new step-mother about the life she and my father had picked out for me.
They only picked it out for you because they think you are too much of a fuck-up to do it yourself. They’re right, aren’t they?