"Holt!" Owen calls my name as I walk past the kitchen in search of my parents and Birdie. "Come 'ere."
He waves me over, a bottle clutched in his left hand. Alec and Jack are huddled around the kitchen table with him, a collection of glasses scattered about the table top.
I redirect my path, my head foggy from alcohol. I'm somewhere between slightly buzzed and almost drunk. My body warm, the very edges tingly, all my demons sated for the moment as they feed off the alcohol. It's a feeling that if I was anyone else I could see the appeal. But the loss of control that comes with getting drunk has never been a good feeling to me. I've lived so much of my life without control, I can't bear to let go of what I have.
Digging into my pocket, I pull a sad excuse for a treat out and lower my hand to Navy. It's an action that she's quickly learning and I feel her warm breath on my hand moments later.
"You straight?" Owen asks me as Alec nudges a chair in my direction.
"A little buzzed." I say.
Jack and I make eye contact, his blue eyes bright under the harsh lights that chase away the night. Maybe it's the alcohol, it probably is the alcohol but before I can catch myself I say, "you have his eyes".
Alec and Owen take interest in the table and I take a seat, thankful when I hear Navy ungracefully drop to the floor beside my chair.
"That's what Julia keeps saying." He says back.
Owen doles out four shot glasses, the fifth sitting in the center of the table. It's crowded by other glasses, empty bottles of beer and half drank glasses of wine but none of us make a move to clear the table.
"Are you sure I'm allowed to do this?" Jack asks, looking at Alec then Owen.
Owen shrugs his shoulders, "who's here to stop you?"
My mind slowly takes me back through the memories. Of being in college, Drew pulling me along to parties, parties I never fit in at, convincing me to play a drinking game in our apartment which ended up in both of us puking and hungover, the time when we went to some local concert on one of our summer trips. The bartender thought Drew was cute and didn't even card him and the two of us drank luke warm beer in a dingy basement with a bunch of sweaty people as we listened to music we couldn't understand the words to. My memories go all the way back to the very first time I drank.
I had been curious, growing the slightest bit comfortable. I wouldn't say I felt secure in my new life but I felt safe enough that curiosity won. Birdie, Drew and I were at his house, the original plan was to just play video games and hang out, the three of us. But I had asked Drew what it felt like to be drunk as I stood in his massive kitchen and stared at a wine rack full of bottles. Drew moved around aimlessly, searching the cabinets for something. He said it was fun, that all your worries disappeared when you were drunk and I wanted to taste that. I wanted my head to be silent for a change.
"Hand me the whiskey." Alec holds his hand out towards Owen and the bottle exchanges hands. As he twists the cap off and the sour smell of whiskey hits my nose he asks "The girls don't want to join?".
Owen shakes his head, "it's just us".
I know that Julia finds this particular ritual displeasing, Mo also. And maybe they're right, maybe Drew's carefree attitude about substances was part of his problem, I wouldn't know. He kept me separate from that part of his life besides the drinking.
Alec pours the amber liquid, filling the shot glasses almost to the brim. The fifth shot sits in the middle, missing it's owner and I stare at. My mind trying to conjure up Drew, what he might have looked like if he were alive right now. Would he still be quick with a smile? A laugh? Would he still be hiding his depression or would he have found a way out from under it?
The bottle of whiskey hits the table, rattling all of the cups that sit on it. Alec grabs his shot, lifting it into the center as he says "to Drew".
The rest of us chime in with our own "to Drew" a disconnected echo that carries all of our sorrow in those short two words. We clink our glasses together, warm whiskey spilling over and down our hands. And then we knock our glass to Drew's that sits lonely and full in the center of the table before we tilt our heads back and swallow down our grief.
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I'm just about to turn the light off in our room when my phone goes off. Birdie already has her eyes closed, snuggled down into the sheets until she's just a head popping out. She grumbles, asking who it is.
"My mom." I tell her, answering the phone as I studied Birdie's face.
I love looking at her. Tracing the edges of her face with my eyes, taking in her forever bronze skin, her slender nose and her sharp jawline. The way her dark lashes fan against her cheeks and her curls spill over our white sheets. She's breathtaking, a perfection collection of all the most beautiful things and every night she falls asleep next to me.
"Hey mom." I say into the phone, shifting my gaze to somewhere other than Birdie.
"Hey honey." Even though it's late and we were all over at Mo's she sounds wide awake. "Are you settled into bed?"
Her question raises alarms, this isn't a normal thing. She doesn't call and tuck me in at bedtime.
"Mhmm." I mumble in the phone, the rhythm of my heart increasing in tempo, anxiety starting to eat away at the calm I was feeling moments before.
"Good. Well..." she takes a deep breath, "I don't want you to worry but Raf didn't come home."
My stomach knots, a fist clenching my insides, leaving a nasty pit filled with unease and fear.
"What?" Birdie's hand wraps around my arm, her chin resting on my shoulder as she leans closer. All I can smell is honey and lemon but it doesn't settle my nerves.
"We'll find him. He'll come back." She tells me but I don't have the same optimism.
"Mom..." my voice is weighted down with desperation, the worst case scenarios filling my thoughts.
He got picked up by the cops. He ran into the wrong people. He ran away. He's hurt. In trouble. He's dead.
"It's okay Holt." She tells me. "You're dad's going to go drive around and see if he can't find him."
"I'm coming."
I'm already out of bed even though my mom protests and Birdie looks at me questioning. But this is the only option. I have to find him. It takes me just a few minutes to throw on joggers and a hoodie and convince my mom that she can't convince me otherwise. Before I head for the door I give Birdie a kiss and a promise I'll be back. I grab Navy's leash and harness, the moment I emerged from the bedroom she was on her feet, watching me with curiosity. She stands still as I lift her feet into her harness and fill my pocket with treats.
We wait for my dad to come pick us up on the stoop of my townhouse. The street is quiet, mostly dark except from the yellow glow of front porch lights. The trees cast shadows along the pavement, rustling in the slight breeze that sweeps through. I'm anxious, I can feel it reverberate through my bones, a tremor so deep my teeth chatter and my hand shakes.
But as I stand there, I attempt a deep steadying breath, hoping to focus my thoughts and panic that wants to grab hold of my lungs. Why would Raf leave? Where did he go? Didn't he get that my parents are safe?
That's how I was keeping him safe.
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The party was a success though I froze my ass off for four hours because I'm a dumbass and planned a four hour long party and underestimated peoples ability to withstand the cold. Note to self: never doing that again.
