The Edge of Always(56)

“You drugged us! I’ll f*cking kill you!” Andrew roars.

I finally manage to get to my feet, though I stumble once before I make it over to him. Just as I go to grab his arm to try pulling him away, I’m pushed hard on my ass from behind. I don’t even know what happened, but for a second it knocks the breath from my lungs. I look up to see Caleb on top of Andrew. I must’ve been caught in the crossfire of Caleb’s attack on Andrew from behind.

I raise my body back out of the sand and see Elias coming our way.

In a panic, I look to both sides of me and back at Elias seemingly in slow motion. Are all three of them about to gang up on Andrew? Oh no way in hell! I start to grab Tate while he and Caleb are punching Andrew, but I’m pushed out of the way by Elias.

“Move!” he growls at me.

Andrew manages to hold his own well against Tate and Caleb, he’s still on his feet and he’s still returning punches with both of them, but if Elias joins in, I don’t think he’ll be able to fight all three of them.

Elias jumps in, and I can’t tell who’s hitting who when a pair of hands grab me underneath the arms from behind.

“Stay back here with me, girl,” Bray says.

Amid my confusion and dread, I see Elias punching Caleb and relief washes over my body, though it’s short-lived.

Andrew’s mouth is bleeding. But then all four of them are bleeding somewhere. I think the fight is going to go on forever, and with each blow Andrew gives and receives, I wince and shut my eyes, just wanting to block it all out of my head. I’m sitting in the sand with Bray’s arms wrapped around me from behind, because she still thinks I’ll try jumping into the fight myself. But I’m right back to feeling like I’m going to puke, and I can hardly move. Sweat is beading off my forehead. The back of my neck feels clammy. The sky is starting to spin.

“Oh no. Bray… I think I’m—”

I lose it right there. I feel my body heave violently out of her grasp and my hands come down in front of me, digging into the sand. My back arches and falls, arches and falls, as I vomit over and over and over again. Oh God, please make it stop. I’ll never drink again! Please just make it stop! But it seems like I never stop. The more I vomit, the more my body reacts to the smell of it, the sound of it, the taste of it, and it just makes me vomit that much more. I can barely hear the fighting in the background anymore over my own noises and the dry heaving when there’s nothing left in my stomach to come up. Finally, I fall over onto my side. I can’t move. My body is shaking uncontrollably, my skin is both cold and hot and now clammy all over. I feel Bray sitting next to me.

“You’ll be all right,” I hear her say. “Wow, that stuff really messed you up.”

“What was it?” I ask, and right when I do, pieces of my memory from last night start to come back to me.

I don’t even hear if she answered my question, or not.

I remember that everything was fine, just a normal kind of drunk, until shortly after we started drinking the gin. And then out of nowhere, I couldn’t see anything directly in front of me because it was way too close. I kept focusing my eyes at things farther out, the ocean and the stars and the light from the boats moving across the water in the distance. I remember thinking that a ship was coming toward us and that it was going to crash onto the beach. But I didn’t care. I thought it was… beautiful. It was going to kill us all, but it was beautiful. And I remember hearing Andrew singing this sexy song. I laid my head on his chest and listened to him sing. I wanted to crawl on top of him and get naked, and I would have if I could’ve moved.

And I remember…

Wait.

That blonde bitch. She asked me… wait.

I raise my body from the sand.

“I think you need to lay still for a bit,” Bray says.

My fingertips come up to my forehead.

I remember her sitting next to me and Bray. She was as messed up as the rest of us, but I didn’t feel jealous of her anymore. She talked to us for a while, and I didn’t mind.

As it’s all coming back to me, my body is starting to shake more.

She tried to kiss me. I think I kissed her back…

I think I’m going to be sick again.

I draw my knees up and rest my elbows on top of them, burying my face in my hands. I’m still so dizzy. I still feel like I’m not done puking. I don’t have that great feeling of relief after vomiting. No, the need to be sick just intensified, this time brought on by my nerves.

The rest is coming back to me and even though I want to force it out of my mind, I don’t.

She asked me if she could sleep with me and Andrew. Yeah, I remember now. But… oh God… I thought she really meant to sleep, but I realize now that I was so high I didn’t know she meant it sexually.

I told her I didn’t care.

Then I remember her…

My breath catches. My hand flies to my mouth, my eyes are wide and stinging from the breeze.

I remember her giving Andrew a blow job.

Trying to push myself to my feet, I feel Bray’s hand on my back.

“Girl, come on,” she says, pulling me back down on the sand with her. “Don’t go over there. You’ll just get hurt.”

I jerk my wrist from her hand and try to get up again, but the sudden movements mixed with the frayed nerves just sends me back into a dry-heaving episode.