It was wrong to say that he wasn't used to this crumbling, crackling, turning to dust, ripping apart feeling. That would have been a lie, not that it was something he would have objected to. But he knew the feeling of being rendered apart all too well. It always happened when he'd been sober too long.
He didn't know why he thought it would be a good idea not to drink. But he hadn't had so much as a sniff since he woke up in an empty bed, her perfume on his pillows, and four feet strands of hair clogging up his shower drain. That afternoon, when the hangover had begun to wear off and he was beginning to think clearly again, he'd picked up the alcohol and poured it down the drain. Something in him said, "Maybe you should try again. Maybe you should."
He very stupidly did.
He'd forgotten how vivid life was when you were in withdrawal. Though not so much his present as his past. He didn't have a present. He just wandered around L.A. and pissed his dead parents' money away. What kind of present was that?
No, all he could experience was the past. He could only think of Lilly and that perfect prom night with Duncan and Veronica. The first and only time Lilly had said 'I love you.' And then it was Lilly's funeral and he was smashing in Veronica's headlights trying to forget that he'd ever been loyal to her. And he saw his father fucking Lilly on the TV screen, saw his father in the courtroom and deny it all with a smile on his face, saw his father raise the belt without so much as grimace to betray any sort of fury. He saw Veronica looking like maybe she loved him only to be replaced by disgust. He saw those kids who had died in the bus crash whose names he could never remember. He saw Beav... Cassidy. Cassidy, Cassidy, Cassidy jump to his death while Veronica cried into his chest and made him wonder if maybe they could do it, if maybe it was right.
It hadn't been. And he couldn't help but resent her for it. At least Lilly hadn't left him voluntarily.
He couldn't even remember how he got down to the street. One minute he'd been shaking on the floor of his bathroom, the taste of bile and vomit burning his throat, and the next he was kneeling on the pavement and screaming. He screamed for all of them. For Duncan and his baby, for Veronica and her bitterness, for Lilly and her stolen youth. He might have been crying. He couldn't tell. He could hardly feel anything anymore.
It was at that moment that he felt two arms close around him. He whirled around and almost said 'Lilly.' Then he realized who it was, struggled, and remembered that he still didn't know her name. Just Lilly's eyes, Veronica's wit, and something altogether different that he could not place with her anonymity.
He was trembling, shaking, and must have looked a little wild. Other people were keeping their distance. They looked afraid. The No-Name Girl didn't seem to be phased in the slightest. She ran a cool hand down his face and asked him if he was all right.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and sobbed into her stomach. It was humiliating in one way, cathartic in another, confusing in a third. But mostly, it was just a comfort to feel like maybe someone might give a damn.
