Chapter 4

A Fucking Bistro Set and Gas Stations Flowers…

NOW

(Beth)

"OhmyGod, did I fucking die?"

I leaned against the doorway to the bathroom and watched as Holly climbed out of her giant tub like a zombie rising up from the grave. Her hair looked like she belonged in a hair metal music video. Her makeup was smeared all over her face. That was from crying. The crying was from the puking.

There was a can of apple cinnamon air spray on the counter and that was because of the smell last night (thank you fish tacos).

I loved learning new things about my friends.

Such as with Holly, I didn't realize that a semi bar fight was enough to make her burst into tears. That it made her want to confess everything wrong she had ever done in life, starting with stealing the answer key from her Spanish teacher in high school all the way to almost cheating on Brian when they had a fight. That led to her getting into some really wicked ugly crying. And that's when she got sick.

In the meantime, Nelle being Nelle, she found a bottle of tequila and decided the night was far too young to end. She and Maria had a few drinks and started to sing. I took care of Holly with Dani still stone cold sober, lingering outside the bathroom.

I knew what she was waiting for and when I gave the signal that I was obviously going to spend the night because someone needed to make sure Holly didn't do anything stupid to herself so she could attend her own wedding, Dani played catch up with the drinks.

I moved Holly from the toilet to the tub and gave her a pillow. She curled up on her side and whispered something about Brian. Then something about Joel. Then something about Leith. Except Holly didn't know who Leith was. She just identified him as the hot guy who got into a fight for me. She said I should date him and thank him.

I laughed, my heart not feeling the laughter, and Holly passed out.

I may have then taken a little helping of the tequila myself to chase away Leith just to get myself to sleep.

Now it was morning.

Nelle was already up and gone, proving once again she was not human. Nobody should have ever been able to drink as much as she did and wake up the next morning like it was nothing. Not to mention she was off to the gym to burn off the tequila and get ready for the upcoming day and night.

Good for you, Nelle. Good for you.

The last time I was in a gym was during a one-night thing with a guy named Jim… but then again, it was probably the other way around.

That was a sad attempt at a rebound after Joel.

And it was best left buried in the back of my memory for good.

Maria was still sleeping hard in Holly's bed. Which would prove to be a little interesting if Brian came home to find another woman in his bed.

Dani was in the kitchen making breakfast.

And I was back on Holly Duty.

"I think I'm going to be sick again," she said.

"Probably," I said.

I walked into the bathroom and opened the toilet.

Holly threw her left leg over the tub. Her skirt flew all the way up her body, showing off a sleek, black thong that touched places I wasn't so sure were actually comfortable. She had a tattoo of red lips on her left ass cheek, which when she told the story of it, it always changed.

With her ass in the air, she was back at the toilet.

"When you're ready, there's coffee and breakfast," I said. "You're going to need it soon enough."

Holly groaned and let out a cry.

My head was surprisingly clear.

Not that I went out to get blasted like Holly did.

But seeing Leith like that…

Shit.

I thought about the picture on his phone. Of course he was the guy now who was a teacher with a bride-to-be herself and their picture was the lock screen of his phone. That's how you did it. That's how you showed love. That pretty girl with the blue eyes and the gigantic smile. She probably smiled at everything. She probably brought out the best in Leith. Her hand touching his chest, that diamond glittering so fucking bright.

Holly threw up and that was enough to chase away the high school bitchy jealousy.

She lifted her head from the toilet, then turned and leaned against the tub.

At least the bathroom was nice.

Bigger than my damn bedroom.

A big tub. A separate shower. Even the toilet looked bigger. Somehow fancier than a normal toilet.

"I'll be back to check on you," I said. "Wash up if you feel like it. Shower even. Not sure Brian will want to see you like this."

Holly touched her face. "Is it bad?"

I kept a straight face and lied. "No. I'm messing with you."

I got out of there and found Dani in the kitchen.

"What the hell is this?" she asked me as she pointed to a table and chair set next to the kitchen window.

"A bistro set," I said.

"That looks never used."

"It's for show."

"For show? You know what? It looks pathetic… that's for show …"

I laughed. "I think I like you, Dani."

"You always say. Only because I'm poorer than you."

"No. We just have an understanding."

"Well, I did not understand that Holly was this rich. Why is she slinging drinks behind a bar then?"

"Brian has a good job. He travels. She has a job to kill time, make money, and drink for free."

"That sounds like a promising marriage. Hope they get a lot of antibiotics for gifts at the wedding."

I snorted. "Jeez. You're awake today."

"Sorry. Fucking bistro set in the kitchen yet the couch felt like metal and cardboard."

"That bad?"

"Where did you sleep?"

"In the chair."

"And that was comfortable?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

There was a set of mugs on hooks on the counter. Each with some cursive written quote.

"Beth?" Dani asked.

"What?"

"You ignoring me now?"

"No. I'm getting coffee. Then I need to get back to the vomit queen in there."

"Screw her," Dani said. "She's fine. Let's stand outside and take in the morning together."

"Is this a date?"

"Of course," Dani said. "But I don't put out in the morning."

"What? The morning is when it's the best."

Dani laughed. "Since when do you have morning sex?"

"Ouch," I said. "Thanks for the reminder."

Dani walked from the kitchen to the sliding glass door that went outside to a two level style deck. The deck looked like wood but it was some kind of heavy duty plastic.

There were two sets of patio furniture and a hot tub in the one corner on the top level.

I stood at the railing and looked out to a development of houses that all looked the same. This was living, I guess.

"So are you going to be quiet all morning or talk?" Dani asked.

"What? I'm here. I'm fine."

"Far from it. Are we going to talk about last night or what?"

"What's there to talk about?"

Dani threw her head back and laughed. "You asked me to watch out for you. And I did. So you're going to completely just forget that you looked ready to hump that guy?"

"What?" I yelled. "No…"

"Oh wow, now you're making it even more obvious.

"Beth…"

"Dani, trust me. You have no idea what that was."

Dani turned and leaned against the railing. "So give me an idea."

I sighed.

Where to start when it came to Leith?

Dani bought the story about Leith being an old fling. Which was partly true. And it also helped that Holly made an appearance, looking for food.

When Dani saw her, she screamed. Then she told Holly not to come out into the direct sunlight because she'd burst into flames.

Maria finally woke up and we had ourselves a girls breakfast. Two of us were hungover, the other two waiting to get the hell out of there.

"Hey," Dani said to me in the kitchen as I put our plates into the sink.

"Hey," I said back.

"This Leith guy."

"What about him?"

"Old fling… old as in bad? Or old as in it just did its thing?"

"Why does that matter?"

"Well, the way you were looking at him…"

"What are you trying to say Dani?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Give it another go?"

I laughed. "Yeah, right."

"Why not?"

The picture of the woman - Amy - popped into my head. Along with the diamond ring. But the diamond ring wasn't on her left hand. It was her right hand. Unless the picture was turned or something. Maybe. Maybe not.

So maybe Leith was engaged.

But maybe he wasn't.

Either way, he was with someone.

"It's not that simple," I said.

"Only if you make it not that simple," Dani said.

Dani left the kitchen and I looked at the bistro set again and frowned.

I touched my stomach.

I shook my head.

The thing with Leith… there were no scars.

At least not the kind you could see.

That's what made it so hard.

We taught each other how to be crazy.

And we taught each other how to break each other's hearts.

I hadn't visited my father in a little while and it was a little strange for him to be on my mind the way he was. Not that I didn't love my father, but our relationship had always been different. Growing up the daughter of a cop was a hard thing to do. Not to mention he was a single father on top of it. I really didn't try my best to not raise hell for him. And he was never shy about wielding his authority.

He never hurt me.

But it sort of became normal to have one of his officers appear from nowhere to check up on me. Or to crash a party and get me out of there safely before other officers started writing citations. Or any boy that came within a few feet of me was given a detailed lesson of the impact of bullets to the human body.

To me, it was normal.

It was his way of saying he loved me.

And most of it was just him protecting me. Trying to make sure his crazy only girl child didn't get herself into some serious trouble.

The only time he ever got really serious about it was with Leith.

He would never say he hated Leith, which was always strange to me. He never had a problem telling me about everyone else he hated. So as I got older, it made me wonder if maybe he knew something about me and Leith that I didn't.

But then it didn't matter anymore.

And when he met Joel, he seemed comfortable.

Because Joel and I were in college. And Joel had a plan. And Joel was the cliché good-looking guy who played baseball in high school and looked forward to life.

I sighed as I walked the rows of the cemetery.

Cemeteries never bothered me.

I'd been coming to them since I was a little girl.

My father brought me to visit my mother all the time.

He taught me how to walk through them with respect to those resting in peace. He walked with me to the top of the cemetery where the headstones were really old. So old they were crooked and faded. Dating back to the 1800s, which seemed like a million years ago.

Then again, it seemed like a million years ago since I'd heard my father's deep laugh. I called it his cowboy laugh. Because to me, he was meant to be a sheriff in a town like in the westerns he always watched. He was the only person I knew with a VCR and a VHS collection. He'd sit in his favorite spot on the couch with a glass of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes and he'd watch movie after movie.

I bought him a DVD player one year for Christmas and Joel bought him a stack of his favorite movies on DVD.

My father stared at it like we had gotten him a diet book or something.

He thanked us.

Joel offered to hook it up.

My father said he'd do it himself later.

When we cleaned out his house after he died, we found the DVD player still in the box, unopened. The same for the stack of DVDs.

I stopped at the wide headstone with the angel that separated his name and my mother's name.

I remembered nothing of her.

My father could never forget a thing about her.

And the drunk driver who killed her died an hour after the accident. Right before my father got to the hospital to kill him with his bare hands.

Rebecca. Timothy.

"Hey, Dad," I said.

I reached forward and touched the smooth stone.

I brought some cheap flowers with me because I knew if it was anything expensive, he'd get mad at me. He told me too that my mother didn't like flowers. She was the kind of woman who would rather a pizza and a kiss than some flowers that were overpriced and would be dead in a week.

I loved her even if I didn't remember her.

Maybe because I was the same as her.

I cleaned up around the gravestone a little bit and placed the five dollar gas station bouquet of flowers down.

Then I just stood there.

I licked my bottom lip until it felt raw. I crossed my arms and looked as though I were standing super still. But my toes were dancing in my shoes.

Just so much at once to think about.

Which there shouldn't have been.

There was nothing to think about.

The past was the past.

What was done was done.

The cruel reality was that I'd never hear my father's laugh again. I'd never have the chance to have my mother hug me.

As for other things…

It was just as cruel.

The divorce papers were long since signed.

I gave Joel the engagement ring back because I wanted nothing to do with it.

The wedding band I had dropped down a random sewer on a random street corner.

I got nothing from him and he got nothing from me.

So seeing Leith was just the same.

He was the past. The way way past. A part when I maybe felt happy and thought I understood life, but even that turned out to be nonsense.

My stomach twisted as hard as my heart did.

I looked over my shoulder and swallowed hard.

There was nobody there.

But in my memory… I saw something else.