seaycee (A Collection of Short Stories)

One Last Time 2/2.

edited ;)

15 hours later.

Finally managing to insert the key after many failed attempts, she swung the door open, a sigh laden with fatigue escaping her as she trudged bleary-eyed into the apartment.

What seemed like days ago- but had been less than one- she had left Poland in a blind hurry, paying dearly out of pocket for the first flight back home. She'd arrived at LAX with a barrage of texts from Bailey and an unknown number, and she'd responded only to her best friend.

After explaining what had happened, Bailey had understood and said she was on her way back too and coming straight over

After hours of waiting and travel, she had finally made it home.

Dropping her belongings at the front entrance with little formality, she moved into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge, plopping her forehead against the cool surface after it swung shut. Her eyes squeezed shut on instinct against the emerging tears.

Fuck. She was Kaycee Rice.

This crazy accomplished dancer and choreographer turned actress, but at the first sight of him, the walls she had painstakingly built had tumbled in the wind like a house of cards.

Her kryptonite. How fucking typical, she thinks, laughing humourlessly at the thought. Poor dumped girlfriend pining over the happily taken ex like an unwanted groupie who hadn't yet gotten the memo.

Flinging the unopened water bottle carelessly into the sink, she dug instead into the liquor cabinet, gulping down the first liquid she touched without bothering to find a glass.

What was it about him that made it so hard to move on?

She'd been so sure she could handle seeing him, but being around him had felt like getting churned through an industrial disposal, chewed and spat out.

Lifting her free hand, she slaps it to her forehead with a keening sob, breath sticking in her throat as her chest heaves with effort. The tears trail down her face and off the cliff of her chin as she tips the bottle back, sucking down oblivion.

Bottle in hand, she stumbles towards her bedroom, places it on the beside table before flipping onto the covers. Her eyes catch on the picture on the nightstand, the one she had been too weak to throw away, them at her birthday party.

Together.

Happy.

Reaching out a hand, she swipes the frame from the nightstand, twisting to face away when the sound of shattering glass reaches her. The alcohol worked the magic she had come to rely on, lulling her into fragmented peace, a blissful reprieve from the reality tomorrow would bring. Where she would face what she had done to a relationship and to her own fragile heart.

But for now, finally, she slept.

-

Her eyes are peeled awake some hours later when a continuous pounding sounds at the door, snatching her from the embrace of sleep. When the knocking seizes, her lids fall back in place with the hopes the person would disappear, preferably to hell for waking her. Her eyes snap open as the pounding starts again and with effort she rolls off the bed, dragging herself up onto sleeping limbs. She stomped to the door, anger ticking up in level with every step as the banging continued.

"Someone better be fucking dead I swe -"

The rest of the sentences catches in her throat, frozen as the person at the door glares at her.