If No One Else

ᶜʰᵃᵖᵗᵉʳ ⁹

9. c h e e r s t o f o r g e t t i n g
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"Chandler..." my eyes lazily flicker up to meet dark eyes drowning in worry.

"You should probably slow down on the drinks. You've taken five shots back to back..." my low stare takes her in, noting the crease of concern settling between her brows as she looks over at me as if I were some addict who needed help.

We both need help.

"Val," I blink the curly-headed girl into focus and give her an eye roll, "You don't care, so why do you even act like you do?" I ask, though, I never expected an answer when it had already been given years ago.

"Are you... okay? You've been drinking a lot more recently, and that's saying something because you always drink a lot," she emphasizes her words as she points down to the nearly empty bottle— blatantly ignoring the previous words I had said.

She always had a way of making you feel wanted with just a few words, but only when she wanted to because she could just as quickly turn to the opposite spectrum and become ice cold.

My stare hardens as a frown lowers my lips. "I'm fine, ok? You really don't have to pretend you care about me because we've passed that stage in whatever we call this... relationship that we have a long time ago," I snap.

I should feel bad because she was only trying to help, but the anger running through my body overrides the need to apologize. And so, I don't.

We weren't friends, not anymore at least.

A few years ago I would've said we were the best of friends. She and her brother was like my found family, and I was the same to her, but good things never lasted long for me.

She ruined me. I ruined her. We both ruined whatever small chances we had to upkeep our friendship.

But we had too much history shared between the two of us to just walk away after everything that had happened.

She knew everything about me, and I her. We were easy together, and so we both remained exactly where we were with each other in our lives.

Animosity sizzled in the air whenever we were in the same room, but we had grown to ignore it because in some ways we still depended on each other to be a friend when no one else could.

And tonight, I felt lonelier than ever.

And for some reason, my gut told me that Val was too.

"Chandler, I still care about you. No matter what happened in the past. I can never not care about your well-being," her soft voice wafts into the air and left prickles of irritation on the skin of my bare arms.

My glare drops from hers and eyes out the half empty bottle of aged-whiskey. I want to hate the substance for not making me numb enough to my emotions, but I also curse it for having my thoughts all jumbled up and confused.

"Now tell me what's bothering you." Her tone hardens as her hand grips onto my chin and forces my eyes back to her.

I sigh in defeat, knowing Val wouldn't let it go until I confess. She always had a way with pulling things out of me and I hated her for it.