Hearts We Mend To Break (Book I)

.38.

💫ANGEL💫

SITTING AT LOKI'S, he was wasted out of his mind. After talking with him privately, I knew he was fighting the nerves and dread of returning home. I couldn't blame him for his coping mechanisms. I couldn't even conjure the courage to go home, so he already displayed a completely higher level of strength than I could. The entire crew came through to support him and keep him company as we all watched movies and ate pizza.

"Damn, Angel. What did you do to work up that appetite?" Zack teased.

"Nothing. It's called being a man. You wouldn't know anything about that." I joked.

"Ha!" V let out an exaggerated sound.

"Was it that funny?" I frowned.

"Just a heads up, there's plenty of man in Zack." Her eyes brightened and nose flared up as a level of tension arose in her demeanor.

"Um...elaborate, V." Loki slurred his words together, barely able to keep his eyes open.

"All I'm saying is..."

"I hit that." Zack shrugged, getting up and heading out onto the back patio with Giselle.

He hit that? He and V hooked up? I sat there for a moment wondering if I should care. Unable to bring myself to feel a single emotion towards knowing that Zack and Vanessa hooked up, I deemed it irrelevant news. Succumb to a certain level of emptiness, I grabbed a bottle of tequila and politely poured one shot. Just one. I whispered to myself.

"I hope you're not worried about Zack and V." I was interrupted by Loki hijacking my chair. Then he looked up at me and said, "That's the least of your concern."

"What are you talking about?" I threw back the tiny class of clear liquid, immediately igniting my throat and stomach as it traveled to it's destination.

"Zack nailed V. But that's not what you should be concerned about. What really matters right now is Giselle and—"

"Giselle, he's outside!" Sevyn squealed. He?

My head quickly looked in the direction of the front door. Then, towards Giselle. Who the fuck was he? What the hell could be so bad that Loki felt the need to warn me, preparing me for my worst nightmare? Feelings I was never able to understand or describe boiled inside of me. Hands shaking, I wrapped my hands around the glass bottle, squeezing my eyes shut as I tried desperately to fight of the urge to self-medicate. Who was this 'he'? Why was Giselle involved with him? Once again, why was I the only one unaware of the bullshit taking place?

No longer needing the shot glass, I turned up the bottle. This time, the burning sensation aching through my insides felt like the antidote to my life-altering disease. An illness that festers slowly, undetectable and asymptomatic. It eats away at your mind, your emotions, your dreams and desires, leaving it's venom trailing from each organ, each nerve, each cell. This disease, contagious with hardly one single prejudice, was sucking the life from me, revoking me of my own self-control and free will. It pushed and pulled me in any direction it pleased. Blinding me from reality and shielded me of rationality; It was love.

"What's going on, everybody. I'm Roman!" A very deep and confident voice ruined my eulogy, interrupting the greatest internal speech of doom.

I growled to myself, sucking down more tequila. I didn't speak. I didn't look his way. It may have been because I was too busy talking myself into behaving like a mature adult. Something I needed much more practice with before being thrown to the wolves.