Chapter 23 - The Temptation

The house was dark. The little light the setting sun offered illuminated only a few things, like the furniture and pictures on the walls. I turned on the lights and everything flooded with colour. I made my way to the kitchen and saw a yellow Post-It on the counter. It read:

 

Andrea. I am visiting your mother for the night. There’s pizza in the fridge. Be safe! I love you.

 

      -Grandma

 

 

I read it over, and shrugged, though no one could see me. I pulled open the fridge door and grabbed the box of pizza. I pulled out a slice and pretty much shoved it down my throat, not bothering with the laborious task of chewing. After two and a half slices, I grabbed the milk container and gulped a few swallows. I know, I’m a pig. And to make it worse, I burped obnoxiously loud, but hey, no one heard but me.

 

I started to snoop through the cupboard for treats when a shiny bottle in the back caught my eye. I cleared everything else away and grabbed the bottle of booze. I guess we had missed that when cleaning the cupboards. I rolled my fingers over the smooth glass bottle, wondering what the poisonous liquid inside tasted like. I’d never had any. My mother’s alcoholism had scared me away from the substance.

 

Was Chase going to tell Skye? Probably. He seemed pretty serious about it when he was kicking me out of his car. I scowled. Why had he been such a jerk? Sure, I had just rejected him, but he had overreacted. Thank God Nate had been there. But that didn’t change the fact that Skye was going to kill me.

 

I twisted open the bottle and smelled its contents. I nearly vomited, the smell was so awful. But the temptation to take just a small sip held me tight. So I did. I plugged my nose and took a swig of the alcohol in the bottle. It burned my throat and I could barely force it down, but it eventually piled into my stomach. My taste buds hurt and instantly I felt like crap. I was so stupid . . . why did I do that?

 

Maybe it was those thoughts that influenced my decision to take another gulp. And another after that, and some more after that. Before long, I’d pounded back the whole bottle. My head screamed at me; it cursed me for being such an idiot and taking that sip. I could already feel the nausea, and the alcohol was threatening to make an unwanted reappearance on the kitchen floor. I clumsily found my way to the bathroom and breathed heavily into the toilet bowl for a few minutes before it all rushed back out.

 

 

 

It was all hell after that. I don’t remember details, but I know I spent the rest of the night regretting my choice and hating myself. When I woke up, I was on the couch. The ceiling was spinning, and my stomach, head and throat were all in immense pain. I groaned and rolled over, wishing I’d just hurry up and die. I read somewhere to drink a lot of water when you’re hung-over because you get dehydrated when your drink.

 

So I pulled myself up and got myself six tall glasses of water. I put them all on the coffee table next to the couch, so I’d have easy access. I drank two full glasses before I fell asleep again, and thank God, since my head was killing me.

 

 

Subtle vibrations woke me. I groggily pulled out my phone from my pocket and checked my messages. Ten unread messages. Oh, God. And they were all from Skye. All of the messages were about the same, “call me”, “answer”, “where are you?” That sort of thing. Except for the last two. They read:

 

Andrea I’m coming over.

 

I’m at your house.

 

The second I finished reading that, someone knocked on my door. Then followed a yell.

“Andrea, let me in! It’s Skye!”

 

Oh, crap.

Author's Note

sorry for the short chapter, but, well, to be honest i wanted to end it there 'cause i wanted to. no real explanation. I think this will qualify as a "shocker" chapter, i guess. bad Andrea . . .

Reviews

[No name]

i love it

[13ReasonsWhy]

oh lord. this reminded me of our class depressing discussion on alcoholism this morning..... this scared me to death. dont ask why. it just did. Andrea has picked up the bottle. will she go her moms way?? and wtf does skye want???? keep posting. i neeed this book now...