The Art of Losing(65)

“I’m lonely,” he whispered. “I don’t have any friends left. I tried to call my best friend tonight and he blew me off. I’m boring now.”

I wanted to argue with him, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to hang out with his old friends anyway. And now I wasn’t even sure we could hang out. Rage was simmering in my veins, but my heart ached for him. I understood loneliness.

Audrey had always been there, in the bedroom next to me, tapping secret messages on the wall that were unintelligible because we never agreed on a code. She’d been there every morning chattering over cereal while I mourned the fact that I had to be awake. She was the lightness in the room when things were tense, always a positive force for the family. We’d been unraveling without her.

But at least now I understood the shredded Wall of Fame.

“I’m not Cheech anymore,” he mumbled sleepily.

I didn’t know how to respond. But I didn’t have to. He wasn’t done.

Raf shook his head, his face pinched. “I’m mad at you, too, you know. And I don’t like it.”

It was going to be nearly impossible to have a coherent conversation with him. I needed to try, though. “Why are you mad at me?” I asked.

“Because!” he slurred, pointing an accusing finger in my general direction before letting his arm flop back to the bed. “You kiss me and then you tell me you can’t kiss me anymore. And then you kiss me again and then you act like nothing happened!”

“Well, that’s an oversimplification,” I said. “You’re the one who kissed me the first time . . .”

But Raf wasn’t listening. He was already talking over me. “I tried to be your friend,” he said. His raspy voice caught. “But being around you and not being able to touch you, not being able to kiss you, it hurts. I can feel it in my chest.” He pounded heavily on his chest with one fist.

I didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t wrong that I’d been confusing him. I’d been confusing myself. I reached out to push his hair off his forehead, and he caught my hand, pulling it to his cheek.

But before I could say anything, his eyes closed.

“Raf?”

Nothing. He’d passed out. Maybe that was for the best. I took a deep breath and swallowed back my anger. His chest began to rise and fall, his breathing loud and labored. I covered him with a blanket and removed his shoes. Then I took the half-empty bottle of vodka I found under his bed and set it by the door. I’d take it with me when I left. Even though I knew it was wrong, I didn’t want his parents to know about this. I didn’t want him to be sent back to rehab. Or to undo all the trust he had regained with them. Like he just had with me.

Raf had been my shelter these last few weeks. He pushed me to be stronger. His honesty had made me honest. I’d trusted him and he’d betrayed that trust. I didn’t want to deal with him if he was going to be drinking again. I didn’t have the patience for it anymore. Not after Mike.

Before I left, I looked for a trash can in case Raf threw up. I located one under his desk and moved to pick it up, but the sketchbook on his desk caught my eye. It was open to a page that was dated on the first night I’d seen him again—the night after Audrey’s accident.

In the sketch, I was sitting on the garden wall, my face in profile as I stared into the distance. My eyes were unfocused. A cigarette burned, forgotten, between my fingers. Raf drew me as I was, with round curves, folds in my stomach, and chubby thighs—but through his eyes I was beautiful. Because those features were just small parts of the picture. My face, which undoubtedly was blotchy from crying that night, was clear and angled. Even my messy bun was more of a purposeful updo, with soft tendrils that framed my face. The shirt that I’d been wearing that I’d worried was too tight instead hugged my curves purposefully and exposed a little cleavage. Or at least, that’s how Raf had drawn it.

My breath caught in my throat. Raf had drawn this weeks ago and had brought it out tonight. While he’d gotten drunk. Because he was mad at me. Because I’d broken his heart.

I left the drawing on his desk, set his trash can on the floor next to him, and ran from the basement with the bottle in my hand.

The next morning, I waited for Raf to text me. I checked the backyard a few times to see if he was out there smoking, but he wasn’t. It was almost noon when I finally caved and sent him a message asking if he was okay. It was possible, I realized, that he didn’t even remember what he had done.

I’m okay, he wrote back a few minutes later. Sorry about last night.

So he did remember. The anger that had burned in my veins last night now froze to ice.

Can we talk? I asked. I didn’t want to do this over a text message.

He didn’t respond for a full fifteen minutes while I stared at my phone like it was an egg getting ready to hatch. But I could have waited longer to hear what he said.

No, he wrote. And then a minute later: I think I need to not see you for a while. I need to just focus on my recovery. I guess that’s pretty obvious after last night.

I was almost relieved that he couldn’t see me, because I didn’t know how to react. I’d been trying not to ruin our friendship with romance, and then he screwed it up by getting drunk. So now I didn’t get to have the friendship. Plus, I never even got to enjoy the physical part.

My throat burned, and my hands were trembling. I wanted to call him or storm over to his house, but that would be directly defying what he had just asked of me.