“Mila fucking Hawthorne, tell me where the fuck you are right now,” Coralie snapped. “Do you have someone with you? Put them on the phone. You’re so drunk you can barely talk.”
“I loved you, you know that?” I blurted, opening my bleary eyes to stare at the brick wall across from me. Coralie sucked in a sharp breath of surprise at my confession. Brittany sighed, frowning at me. “I loved you, and you just… tossed me aside. Left me at that party like I was nothing. Why did you leave me, Coralie?”
“Mila, sweetheart, come on. Hang up the phone,” Brittany gently urged, sadness bleeding into her eyes on my behalf. I kind of hated it. I didn’t want anyone to be sad for me.
“Brittany?” Coralie asked. “Where are you two? Are you sober?”
“Not enough to drive,” Brittany confessed. “We were going to order an Uber.”
“Don’t,” Coralie told her. “Get outside and get her some water. I’m on my way. Drop me a pin with your location.”
Brittany pulled my phone from my hands just as Coralie hung up the phone. I frowned at her. “Coralie’s not coming to get us,” I told her. Coralie didn’t give a shit about me. Not anymore.
Brittany sighed. “You brought this on yourself, girl.”
What the fuck did that mean?
She locked my phone and shoved it in her pocket before helping me up from the floor. I groaned and leaned heavily against her, dragging my feet with every step we took forward. I barely remembered getting outside, but as soon as I was sitting on the ground with my back against the building, my eyes slid shut, and the world faded to black.
Four
Coralie
“You’re what?” Jessica demanded, her voice incredulous.
I sighed, hitting the indicator to turn onto the next street I needed. I was about five minutes from the club now, and I was extremely worried. Mila had been beyond drunk. She was wasted. And Brittany wasn’t sober either. Didn’t they know how dangerous that was, especially without someone sober to be there with them? What had they been thinking?
Clearly, they hadn’t been.
“I’m going to pick them up,” I repeated, annoyed. I was tired and just wanted to crawl back into bed, but the thought of leaving Mila out at that damn club while she was so out of her mind made me sick to my stomach. I knew I would spend the rest of the night keeping watch on her, but as long as she was safe, I didn’t care.
And right now, she wasn’t safe.
I loved you, you know that?
Those words sat on repeat in my head. I’d known she’d loved me. We’d been best friends. Had spent every moment we could together. But the way she’d said it… it was like she loved me in a wholly different way than I’d thought she did.
I’d been so fucked up inside when she told me she had a crush on Brittany, but had she just been reaching out? Tentatively seeking information about if I loved her in the same way she’d apparently loved me?
If so… Fuck. Guilt churned in my gut. I’d known Mila better than anyone else. I knew she would never come out and say whether or not she truly liked someone. That should have been my first flag that she was trying to tell me something else. Mila was too shy for something like that.
And I’d… walked away. Left her there at that party with a girl she hadn’t known at the time so I could lick my wounds in private. And something that night had shifted between us, turning us into enemies. Mila, who had always been calm and level-headed, had always avoided confrontation, had turned into a blood-thirsty monster that following week.
But I hadn’t been any better. I’d been hurt and furious seeing her with Brittany, and when she’d ignored me all weekend, those feelings had festered and burned until I only saw red when I saw her again.
“You’ve lost your fucking mind,” Jessica snapped, dragging me back to our conversation. “Why are you bending over backward to help her, Coralie? She doesn’t deserve it.”
I swallowed thickly. “She said she loved me. Asked me if I knew that.” Jessica was stunned into silence. She’d been best friends with Mila, too. Had known how she was like back then. “I’m starting to think I misunderstood something along the way,” I confessed.
Jessica sighed. “And if you did?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Then I’m going to fix this. I have to.” And I was going to have to fucking grovel, which was something I never did. But there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for Mila, even now.
“Mila, baby, come on. Wake up for me,” I coaxed, lightly tapping her cheek. She moaned and turned her head away, almost falling over. I quickly caught her, frowning, concern tightening my chest. I pushed her pink hair out of her face and then glanced at my car parked at the curb.
Fuck. It seemed so goddamn far away.
“Brittany, help me get her up and to the car,” I ordered.