Never Summer Again

Chapter Forty-Six - House Of Cards

Score: House Of Cards - BTS

Lydia

"How are you feeling, baby?" Alex is stroking my wet hair, her eyes full of pity.

I hate pity!

We're sitting around the island in Gloria's kitchen. After Mark and Patrick left, Gloria, Alex, and Nate picked me up from the mud and took me inside the house. Alex shoved me into the shower and I just stood there, under the hot water, until she came back to drag me out. She and Gloria wrapped me up in a warm dressing gown and took me to the kitchen, where a steaming mug of tea was pushed into my hands.

I'm grateful for all their effort, but, really, the only thing I want right now, is to be left alone. I need space and time to process things. I feel like I'm walking in a dream. Like I don't have a will of my own, and my body is automatically following someone else's commands.

"Nothing. I feel...nothing," I say, trying to convince myself more than anyone else.

Because I do feel something. I feel all sorts of things. And I don't want to feel any of them.

I feel the absence of my heart. I feel the bleeding nothingness, where my heart used to be.

Fuck having your heart broken. Like everything else in my life, this, too, couldn't be mundane, and ordinary, and boring...Mark couldn't just break my heart. No. The motherfucker had to rip it out of my chest, throw it on the ground and stomp it.

I feel the goosebumps, rising on my skin, making me all prickly to the rest of the world, warning anyone who wants to come close to me to fuck off because I want to be left alone. And I can actually feel the resistance my brain is putting up against the torrents of unwanted thoughts, threatening to let loose in my head and drive me completely insane.

So, yeah. I'm feeling things. And it sucks.

"I'm so sorry, Lyds," Nate says, reaching with his hand for my arm, but Alex slaps his hand and he retrieves it.

"Haven't you done enough already?" She hisses, the icicles in her voice pinning Nate to his stool. His jaw falls open and his eyes go wide as if he's not sure what to make of the situation.

"Babe, I'm sorry, I had to tell her," he begins, but trails off when his eyes meet her murderous glare.

"Yeah, you should have, you idiot! Two fucking years ago," Alex spits. "How could you keep this from me, all this time? You know she's my best friend!"

"I know! But I never thought things would go this far, and I never thought Mark would actually come back!"

"But he did! And you knew they'd been hooking up since Gloria's fucking birthday party! Didn't you find the time in your busy schedule to tell me?" Alex realizes her mistake a bit too late and shoots her hand up to cover her mouth, darting her eyes at me.

It is my turn to shoot her a murderous glare.

"I thought it was supposed to be our secret," I say.

"I'm so sorry, babe, it slipped."

I scoff and continue sipping my tea.

"You're not being fair, Alex!" Nate grabs his girlfriend by her elbow.

"Piss off! I think you should leave!" Alex yanks her arm away and swats his chest.

A groan escapes my lips. I don't want them to fight because of me.

"Folks, this isn't about you now," Liam says. I look up at him, a silent "Thank you" suspended in the air between us.

Alex scoffs but doesn't say anything else, and Nate shrinks in his stool.