Yes, I Am

Chapter Seventeen.

I was exhausted down to every tiny little bone in my body. My only goal was to go home and sleep forever and ever but of course that wasn't to happen. I stumbled inside home sweet home, drunk on lethargy, and stopped in my tracks. The whole house stank like a garbage disposal site. Austin was curled up on the couch, a bucket of ice cream between his thighs, empty bottles of beer and vodka stacked on the table, wrappers of chocolates lying all over the floor.

"What the fuck happened here?" I said, cringing.

Austin lifted his chin up marginally and he looked so frightening that I almost shrieked. His eyes were horribly red, as if instead of sleeping since the past few days, he'd been crying. His face was pale, his hair a step further than messed up. But the scariest part was his expression; so blank, so emotionless, like he couldn't muster up the energy to feel anything anymore.

"Betty," he replied bitterly in a husky voice. "Betty happened." And he turned away again, his gaze far, far into the distance.

Something really bad had gone down there in my absence but Austin wasn't in the condition to talk. Or even stand up for that matter. I helped him to his room, without any protests from him whatsoever, and brought him real food with a couple of painkillers to conk him out for a while. Once he was asleep, I opened up every window in the apartment to let some air in and the suffocation out.

It was already quite late and, as I mentioned, I was exhausted. I convinced myself that there wasn't anything I could do right then. When morning rolled around, I dragged my ass out of bed with the sole motivation of checking up on Austin. I had crossed my fingers behind my back but it didn't exactly help. He looked exactly the same as the night before, although evidently a bit better rested.

I slid into the blanket beside him. "You want to talk about it?"

"I don't know what to tell you," he said monotonously.

"What are you thinking about right now?" I asked.

He blinked slowly, his eyes on me but still somewhere far away. "I miss her," he whispered softly, his voice breaking at the last word.

"Who? Betty?"

"Never in a million years." Anger flashed on his face when I mentioned her name but it returned back to its blank state in a second. "Haley. I miss Haley."

That was the girl he'd been going gaga over for the past two months. It had been partly refreshing and partly hilarious to see him light up like a Christmas tree whenever her very name was mentioned. Now it seemed like someone (most probably Betty) had permanently erased that name from his chalkboard.

"Did you both break up?"

He chuckled without humor. "She broke up, I didn't. She screamed a bunch of stuff that I didn't understand, cried some and then dumped me coldly."

"Why?"

"Betty," he growled. "I will kill that bitch. She did it. She made it happen."

"Austin-"

He cut me off with one sharp look. "We were happy, Matt. I'd never been so happy in my entire life, not even when I won the inter state soccer championship. But she hates me now for something I didn't even do and I have no idea how to get her back." His voice broke again, little cracks on his angry façade that slowly gave way to more prominent ones, ultimately ending in him breaking down. "I want her back..."

I had never seen him like that. It was shocking enough that for a few minutes I just watched him cry like an idiot, lying immobile rooted to one spot. Realizing what a dumbass I was being, I spurred into action. I helped him sit up and handed him a box of tissues. It was time for sobriety and pep talk.