Chapter Five: Desperate

…

The healthy can't understand the emptied, the broken.
You'd try to list all the reasons for living,
but I left 'em behind at Victoria Station back in early summer.
–Frobisher, Cloud Atlas

…

She was halfway through her shift at Baz's on a Tuesday and was leaned against the bar. They weren't busy but steady, and it was getting late enough that those still there were far past tipsy. She had just taken a shot of whiskey with Phil when she heard shrill laughter, even over the music blaring overhead.

Phil gave a low whistle and shook his head. "So much for it slowing down. Incoming."

She turned to look over her shoulder and was greeted with the sight of eight or ten girls, all wearing matching bright pink t-shirts.

"Oh Lord, a sorority?"

"Guess again," Phil shook his head, and her eyes alighted on a slim blonde girl pulling up the rear with a tacky wedding veil pinned sloppily to her head and a bedazzled sash boasting "The Future Mrs." in a large, glittery font.

Bachelorette Party. Not her favorite crowd. They had been the hardest to deal with just after…

"You want me to call Eve from the back?" Phil had this uncanny ability to see straight through her – especially if she was having one of her bad days. "I know it's your section, but …"

He graciously didn't finish the sentence.

"Nah, I got it." She inhaled sharply and sauntered off.

The party had congregated at a table in the middle of the bar and Cadence had to weave through several groups in order to reach them.

"Hey ladies. Can I get you anything?"

"We need shots!" One of them yelled, and there was a chorus of "no's" and "please not tequila" and "yes! More shots!"

"What can I get for you guys?"

"Um," the redhead who had spoken up originally glanced down the table, "Heath, what do you want?! It's your party!"

Cady let her eyes dance down the line of girls – she finally noticed that their shirts read "To the Future Mrs. Carpenter!"

Carpenter. Why did that sound familiar?

And then her eyes met the bride-to-be's and her breath stopped in her throat.

It was Heather.

"Holy shit, Cadence?" Heather's eyes squinted and her mouth fell open. She was drunk – this had obviously not been the group's first stop – and Cadence had shared enough wine coolers with the girl to know the way her eyes glazed over when she'd had too much.

"Heather. Hey."

The table quieted down ominously and she wondered if Heather had told them, her new crew, about her old best friend who had shunned everyone away from her when she'd lost her fiancé. And then, of course, had spiraled out of control and was now kind of a drunken druggie whore. Or so rumor had it.

Certainly that made good sleepover gossip.

"Oh my God, I didn't know you were…didn't know you'd be working." She swiped at the veil that was falling into her face and continued to stare straight at Cadence, as if she had suddenly sprouted a second head or was some sort of reincarnated version of her best friend.

"Yeah. Well, hey, congrats! I'm, um, I'm really happy for you." The words were cardboard, literal cardboard coming out of her mouth. She swallowed around the sandpaper that was her tongue and winced as Heather smiled that practiced, love-sick smile that became second nature when everyone found out that you were getting married.

"Thanks, really, thank you."

"Shot!" One of the girls yelled, and Cadence could literally have kissed her for breaking the awkward, tangible tension that had fallen over the table.

She forced a smile, "Shot. What do you want, Heather?"

A few moments later Cherry Bombs were ordered and Cadence turned from the table, feeling her heart pounding through her skin.

That should have been her. Not Heather. That should have been her Bachelorette Party.

The pounding was in her arms, now, in her legs and neck.

And why was there this jealous, stinging, you can't sit with us feeling that was coursing around the pounding in her chest? Why was there some part of her that wished that Heather had tried, even a little, to involve her old best friend in the wedding plans?

Why would she Cadence? You were the one who closed the door on that relationship, not her.

She reached the bar, and Phil read her like a book.

"Tequila?" He offered as soon as she'd reached the bar.

She nodded pitifully. The pounding was behind her eyes.

"And, um, bombs. Eight cherry bombs."

She had just finished downing the shot when she felt a movement to her right. She turned, and Heather was teetering there, her veil once again falling over her face, her freckles hiding behind the slight pink-ish glow that the alcohol had brought to her skin.

"Cadence, I just – I wanted to talk to you, you know? It's been a really long time. I guess I just – I miss you."

"Yeah, um…" she put the shot glass down on the bar, "you don't – you don't want to do this tonight, Heather, it's your Bachelorette Party."

"No, it's just – since it…since Eli, it's just that you weren't really the same and we weren't really the same, you know?"

There it was. Eli. Eli, Eli, Eli, why did you leave me here?

"You don't have to explain anything."

"And then I felt guilty, you know, when Todd proposed because I knew that it was your, you know, it was you. You were going to get married and then we were going to get married and that's it. And you got that taken away from you and that's – that's not fair."

No, you're right. It's not fair. She felt the pounding everywhere, now, like it was living just under her skin, trying so desperately hard to force its way out. As a scream, a yell, tears, anything.

She pushed it back, tried to get her mind to jump away from this, to something, but it was stuck. She was stuck, here, in her past – in memories that she didn't want to relive and reminders that her life was supposed to be so much different –

"I don't want to talk about this," she tried not to sound harsh but she knew she did. Heather took a tentative step backwards and shook her head.

"I'm sorry, I just never felt right, about us, about…about not having you in my life anymore. And I just wish that you were. I wish that you were out with us right now, and that we weren't, I don't know, strangers. And I don't really understand why you…why we can't talk anymore."

"No, you wouldn't understand. Shit happens. And we all just have to get the fuck over it and move on."

Heather was frozen. Cadence pushed the pounding down again, but it was getting harder. She needed something, anything more to make this feeling of absolute desolation go away…

"Your Cherry Bombs will be over in a minute. Have a good night."

And then she turned to Phil and said, "Yeah. You're going to need to call Eve. I'm done. Tell Andrew I'm leaving."

Without looking over her shoulder she ripped her apron off of her waist and brushed past Heather, causing her veil to tumble to the floor.

…

She found herself in an alley a half hour later bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet in anticipation.

"Hey!" The figure coming around the corner was dark at first, but she recognized Adam immediately. She wondered, not for the first time, why he always wanted to meet in some dark, deserted alley way. With his light blonde hair, square black glasses, and penchant for Ralph Lauren sweaters, he definitely seemed like the kind of guy that spent more time at the library than dealing prescription drugs. He looked completely out of place here.

She wondered if she did.

"What's up Cadence?"

"Hey," she murmured, crossing her arms and walking forward to meet him halfway.

"You alright?"

How pathetic was it when even your drug dealer knew you were a wreck?

"I'm fine," she pulled the money – crisp twenties that she'd just withdrawn from a nearby ATM, out of her back pocket and held it out to him. "Just had a long night."

He took the money without counting it. After almost two years of this, he trusted her. He furrowed his eyebrows and tugged an off-brand bottle Tylenol out of his pocket.

"Yeah, if you say so."

The bottle changed hands and was shoved into her purse quickly.

"The Oxy's a 30 milligram. It's brown. I bumped you up a bit but you can always cut it in half if you feel like it's too much. The Xanax is kind of a peach color and is a .5. The Adderall is –"

"Blue. 20 milligrams. I know. Thanks Adam."

He pushed his hands inside his pockets and tilted his head.

"You sure you're okay?"

Could he tell that her hands were shaking? That she needed this more than she could possibly tell him, that she was going crazy, that her mind wasn't jumping and she was feeling everything too much?

"I'm sure. Promise. Thanks. I'll see you next time."

He nodded and took a step backwards.

"Be careful with those, okay?"

"Yeah. Always."

As soon as he turned the corner she fumbled the bottle open and took an Oxy. She sat down, then, with her back against the wall and tried to breathe.

"Oh my God, Cadence, you look amazing!" Heather's eyes were shining with unshed tears and Cadence couldn't help but laugh at the tears pooling in her own.

"You think so? Really?"

"You're breathtaking." Heather whispered, and crossed the distance between them with her hand over her mouth. "This is it. This is the one. God, your mom is going to freak."

The dress was tight fitting all of the way down to her knees and then flared out, the sweetheart neckline decorated with pearl and silver beadwork.

"I can't believe this is happening." Cadence muttered, taking in her reflection. "It doesn't even look like me."

"It does, though." Heather gathered her into the tightest of hugs. "I'm so happy for you, babe."

She swallowed harshly. Stop doing this. Stop doing this to yourself.

Breathe.

She stood, then, and started to feel the familiar warmth spreading from her chest out to her arms and legs and to her fingertips.

And for some strange reason, as she left the alleyway, her mind jumped to Noah. And she wondered how angry he would be if he drove past her tonight on her walk through town.

…

She lifted her head at the sound of her bedroom door closing, and couldn't suppress the groan that escaped her lips. "Oh my God. What the hell are you doing here?"

"I came to wake you up. It's Saturday, it's gorgeous out, it's 10:00. Let's go on a run!" He was, quite suddenly, sitting next to her on the bed and shaking her shoulder.

"Noah, stop." She murmured, batting his hand away. "Gonna make me puke."

"Ah. Hangover?"

She squeezed her eyes shut. She might have puked the night before, couldn't quite remember. She'd gone back to Baz's late that night, made Andrew let her in and drink with her until she'd had too much and he'd offered to drive her home.

"Something like that."

"Well," he threw the covers back off of her and she squirmed into a smaller ball in protest, "come on! Sweating it out will be perfect!"

"I can't," she opened her eyes and glanced down at him. He was watching her, and she suddenly remembered that she was only in a t-shirt and panties. She felt completely and totally exposed.

He's seen you in your swimsuit, Cadence, calm down.

"Can't?" He raised an eyebrow. "Our Saturday morning runs used to be epic, Cady. You would drag us all around town for fucking miles. Like hundreds of miles."

She flashed back to most Saturdays, when she would jog the quick mile and a half to Eli's house and drag him and Noah out of bed for a solid five or six mile run. She would always be leading the way, laughing when they were wheezing to keep up, when she would have to run in place at the top of a hill while they struggled up it.

Neither of them would give up, though, because she was a girl and there was no way that she was going to out-perform them.

She hadn't gone on a run in two years. Not since the last time her and Eli had set out two days before he'd died.

She told him as much. "Noah, I haven't run in years. It's not happening."

"Well, certainly not with that attitude." He was still here, she realized as she opened her eyes again. Not standing up and moving away from her, giving up and leaving. Like her friends had, before.

Like Heather had, before.

She cleared her throat and brought herself back from last night. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"

He laughed easily and plopped onto his back. She noticed the way that his t-shirt clung to his bicep and then looked away quickly. Why did she keep seeing things like that?

"Nope. For once, I've got the weekend off." He put his arms behind his head. "No clients, no yelling, no grilling about meal plans. Just relaxation."

She moaned and shimmied her leg out from underneath him. She needed a hit of weed, some Adderall, something to help with this hangover.

That wasn't going to happen if she couldn't get him out of this room.

"So your idea of relaxing is bothering me?"

He chuckled. "Wow. I'm bothering you, now? Ouch."

"The last time that you saw me you weren't exactly thrilled with me."

This time, Noah didn't laugh. Instead, he sat up and nodded. "Yeah, um, that was a little harsh of me, I think. And different for me too, you know, um…" his voice trailed off and he looked at the floor.

She watched his eyes without meaning to – how they flickered around her clothes that she'd discarded as she'd climbed into bed the night before – her skinny jeans, her tank top, her bra...

"I'm not used to this. Yet. To how things have changed. I shouldn't have treated you like that. I'm sorry."

Now, that hadn't been what she was expecting.

"It's okay," she finally muttered to take up the silence. It was quiet again and he finally looked away from the floor and to her face.

"So, you're hanging out with me today. Because it's my weekend off and I have nothing at all going on. So get up – get dressed – we're leaving in twenty minutes!" He grabbed her leg enthusiastically and then popped up off of the bed. The sudden motion made her stomach churn and she moaned as she put her head back down on the pillow.

"Noah…"

"I'm literally not walking out of this room until you agree."

If he didn't leave and she couldn't get an Adderall, she was going to vomit.

"Fine. I'll go. Let me shower and stuff."

He grinned like he'd just won an overtime thriller.

"Twenty minutes!"