NEPO BBY

41

You'd think after everything that had transpired between Anna, Carmen, and I, I would have just stopped there. Instead, I got in my car and drove straight to Lily's house, my heart pounding with confusion and desperation.

As I knocked on the door, I could see her face shift to disbelief; I must have looked like a wreck, my clothes rumpled, and my eyes far from their usual brightness. "Why'd you sleep with my best friend, Lily?" I managed to ask, but the words came out defeated, like a child seeking an explanation for a broken toy.

She opened the door wider, her expression shifting to a mixture of concern and guilt as she motioned for me to enter. "I don't want to," I replied, shaking my head fiercely, my throat burning with emotion. It was as if I was wrestling with the weight of betrayal, and all I could think about was the pain that lashed at my heart. "Lily, he's all I've got. He's my best friend. You could have anyone—why would you pick him?" My voice cracked as I begged to understand the choices that had led us all to this moment, the tangled web of emotions suffocating me.

Lily's eyes softened, sympathy radiating from her, but it felt like a cold comfort that only deepened my wounds. "Jack, it wasn't like that. I didn't just sleep with him. It just happened," she said, but her words fell flat, and disbelief bubbled within me.

I let out a hollow chuckle as unexpected tears streamed down my cheeks, and I hadn't even realized I was crying until I tasted the salt on my lips. "Why, Lily? Anyone but Gabriel. Sisters are off-limits," I implored, trying to grasp the reality of what had unfolded.

I could see her tears welling up, reflecting the tumult of emotions we were both drowning in. "I know. I'm sorry; he's sorry too," she replied, her voice breaking as she refrained from reaching out to comfort me. "But Jack, it's not like that...we love each other." No, that couldn't be true.

"No," I repeated, my voice rising in pitch as I chanted my hands in my hair out of frustration, stumbling backward in a daze only to crash into a flower pot, the sound of breaking ceramic echoing the shattering of my world.

Everything after that was a haze, a blur of incoherent moments strung together by the fraying thread of that night's decisions or perhaps the desperate need to escape. I remember driving off from Lily's place, the remnants of our argument ringing in my ears, her words echoing with a cruel clarity that pinched at my consciousness.

I stumbled into some bar—a dimly lit hole in the wall where laughter bounced off the walls like a cruel reminder of what I had lost—and ordered drink after drink with a desperation that bordered on madness. Each shot felt like a slight reprieve, a fleeting oasis in the desert of my fractured emotions, as I sank deeper into oblivion, the world around me melting into a hazy swirl of noise and blurred faces. I drank myself stupid until the edge of reality dissolved entirely, and I found myself in the grimy bathroom, the harsh fluorescent light casting sickly shadows as my body rejected the chaos I had infused it with, my stomach churning violently before it all came tumbling back out.

When the sun peeked through the grimy window the next day, I woke up to the shocking reality of my surroundings, bleary-eyed and disoriented, next to some girl whose face I barely recalled, her presence just another ghost haunting the remnants of my night.

Once she'd left, leaving me in an overwhelming silence, I stumbled to the bathroom again, bracing myself against the counter as I looked up to meet the person staring back at me in the mirror. The reflection that met my eyes was so unrecognizable, a stranger cloaked in the chaotic remnants of last night, with scruffy hair sticking out at odd angles, dark circles under eyes that told the story of my internal turmoil, and a face that seemed to wear the weight of every lousy decision etched into its features. How had I let myself spiral so far, I wondered, examining the signs of my carelessness, the hollow gaze, the unkempt look that betrayed my once-proud spirit?

The weeks following were the hardest of my life, a relentless cascade of emotions that felt as though they were drowning me in grief and regret. Carmen had blocked my number, taking the final step in burning the bridge that once connected us; the silence of her absence echoed painfully in the void where our conversations used to flourish.

In anger and desperation, I responded in kind, blocking Gabriel's number and isolating myself further from our shared circle's remnants. Lily reached out with her unyielding optimism and concern. Still, I found myself incapable of responding to her text messages, feeling as if an exchange would only serve to remind me of the friendships that had unraveled like frayed threads.

My days morphed into a blur of reckless abandon; I threw myself into a bottle, using alcohol as both a coping mechanism and a means of forgetting, transforming my evenings into hazy adventures filled with the temporary company of women whose names I couldn't quite remember by sunrise. I roamed through the city, seeking solace in the arms of strangers but finding only a deeper sense of loneliness, each encounter a stark reminder that no one could honestly fill the void that Carmen left behind.

Nights turned into a cacophony of laughter and clinking glasses, where the warmth of temporary connections failed to thaw the cold emptiness gnawing at my soul.

It was a chaotic escapade, a desperate attempt to drown out my thoughts and escape the pain. Yet, every morning delivered the same cruel reality: a bitter hangover and the relentless knowledge that I was spiraling further from the person I once was.