Crashing Into Blue

Chapter 41

It's the birds that wake me up the next morning. Instead of them peacefully teasing me out of my dream state, the cries of the gulls feel more like a screeching, or nails on a chalkboard. I crack open my eyes, but it's as if someone glued my eyelids together during the night; they feel heavy and sticky. The light that is streaming through the window sends a sharp pain through my skull and I immediately close my eyes again. I move my tongue around my mouth, and what I'm met with is the driest feeling, like someone took sandpaper to it and rubbed it all away. I throw my hands over my face as foggy memories of last night come back piece by piece. Scenes of me yelling and crying come to the forefront and I instantly crumple in on myself. Turns out I'm the weepy, rambling kind of drunk.

I let out a whimper and that's when I hear her.

"Not feeling so sunny today, are we?" asks Indigo from our doorway. I crack open my eyes and look through my fingers. Indigo is at the doorway, holding a breakfast tray. There's a glass of water, a cup of coffee, and some medicine bottles on it. She makes her way towards me. I peel my hands back to rub my temples.

"Could you keep it down a little?" I ask her. "My head feels like a hundred people are driving nails into it."

Indigo sets the tray down on my bed and looks at me wistfully. "Ah yes, a girl's first hangover. It's a first that she'll never forget." She winks at me sarcastically.

"Not today, Indi; I think something died in my mouth."

"I think people would call that something a self of sense preservation."

I wince at her as I push myself up onto my pillow to grab the glass of water.

My aching limbs protest loudly. I take a tentative sip, nausea roiling within me as it trickles down.

"Was it as bad as I think it was?" I ask her as I set the glass down.

She reaches to open the bottle, and passes me two pills.

"Worse, probably," she says. I feel a chill pass over me as I swallow the pills. I look over to Indigo, and see her looking at me with concern in her eyes. I immediately well up.

"What have I done?" I ask her quietly.

She scooches closer to me on my small twin bed.

"You laid it all out there, and I have to admit, a meltdown of such epic proportion does take a certain amount of skill and nerve, so bravo." I give her a watery smile.

"Thanks, I guess." I look down at my nails and see that there is some dirt under them. Probably from when I was lying in the grass last night. Why was I lying in the grass again? I wonder to myself. The only thing I know for sure is that I ruined something last night.

"How bad did I screw everything up?" I ask Indigo as she passes me the cup of coffee. She winces at the question.

"Just tell me," I say to her, holding the cup in front of me, letting the warmth seep into my rigid fingers.

"Well, Jasmine was pretty upset. Seems that she pieced most of the fake boyfriend story together." I drop my head back against the pillow. My friendship with Jasmine was just blossoming, just becoming something that could survive past the summer, and I killed it. Just like that.

"I never meant for her to get caught up in any of this," I say to Indigo. She reaches out and squeezes my leg overtop the blanket.

"I know you didn't, but she became collateral damage. We all did."

"How about Patrick? Bingo?"

She sighs and lays down on the bed. I pull my leg up to give her room. "Patrick seemed like a pretty smug son of a bitch; sadly, I think you just gave him the vindication he was looking for all summer. And Bingo just feels bad for the both of you, he knows it's complicated."

A fresh wave a sickness grips me at the mention of Samson.

"Samson is never going to talk to me again, is he?"

She rolls over to face me and props herself up on her arm.

"Do you remember when we were ten, and you broke Samson's new action figure? He was so mad at you. He yelled and he cried and he lashed out at you. You felt so bad, you went straight home and got one of our newest dolls to give to him. He ended up loving that doll more than the one you broke."

I do remember; Samson's angry red face, his stomping feet. How I ran all the way home to get my newest doll; she had long brown hair and a lab coat with a paw print on it. She was my birthday veterinarian doll, and my ten-year-old self never loved anything so much. I gave it to him, and he shyly accepted it. Next time I saw that doll, her hair was shorn off and her lab coat was tied around her shoulders to act as a cape.

"I don't think a doll is going to fix this problem, Indi."

She gives me an irritated sigh. "Don't be so literal Lia; he was pissed off then, and you figured out a way to fix it, and you both ended up happier than before. You'll figure it out again."

"But what is this is too big to fix? What if we can't go back?" I ask her anxiously.

"Do you want to go back to the uncertain, fumbling, insecure people you were two days ago? You finally got everything out into the open, that has to feel good. Everything you've never said, it's out there to finally face and get over."

"But the things he said about dad..."

"Were true," she finishes for me. "We both know he was right Lia; he was a dick for saying it like that, but it's a truth we've always known. It's a burden we've been carrying our entire lives. Don't you... feel lighter now?"

I think back to Samson's words. He broke you. He left you. And in that moment, I start to acknowledge what a part of me has always known but kept shut away. That he did break me, that he did leave me. But sitting here with a pounding head, a pounding heart, and my best friend in the entire universe, I know that he didn't shatter me. That I can pick myself back up and be stronger than ever before, or at least get on the long, winding path that will lead me there.

I reach out for Indigo's hand. "I need to make things right with everyone." She nods along with me. "You do, and I know just where to start."