Brittany nodded and rushed over, helping me get Mila onto her feet. I stumbled when she sagged against me, forcing me to take her weight. After a moment, Brittany and I managed to somewhat evenly distribute her weight between the two of us, and we hefted her to my car, easing her into the passenger seat. Brittany silently slid into the backseat while I buckled Mila in.
The ride back to campus was quiet and tense. Brittany didn’t utter a word—probably because she knew I was on the verge of lashing out at her for letting Mila get this wasted. It was so dangerous. What if Mila hadn’t called me? How was she planning to get her and Mila home? A fucking Uber? At this time of night? No. Mila wasn’t even awake. How had she expected to navigate that issue?
“Help me get her up to our dorm room,” I told Brittany as I shifted my car into park in one of the parking stalls in front of our building.
Getting Mila’s deadweight to our room was pure hell. She was barely conscious, which meant she wasn’t cooperating with us. “Did she fucking take anything?” I demanded, only making it as far as my bed. I deposited Milas as gently as I could before working on pulling her shoes off.
“No,” Brittany told me immediately.
I sighed, not looking at her. “You can go,” I said rudely, dismissing her. But she still didn’t say a word—just quietly left the room, shutting the door behind her with a soft click.
“Thin’ gon’ sick,” Mila mumbled, looking a little green as she looked up at me through slitted eyes.
I quickly grabbed my trashcan and thrust it in front of her right before she vomited. I cringed at the smell but pushed her hair back from her face, wishing I could do more to make her feel better. I knew how she felt. Her stomach was churning, and everything felt hot and uncomfortable. The world was spinning too much.
Why had she drank so much?
For the next few hours, she slept, occasionally waking up to vomit. I stayed by her side, using a cool, damp cloth to sponge the sweat off her skin. After her fifth time of vomiting, she rolled over and looked at me through bleary, drunk eyes.
“I got arrested that night,” Mila told me, her eyes closing. Her words were still slurred but nowhere near as bad as she had been. My eyes widened in horror at her confession. “My parents hate me. You turned your back on me.”
“Mila…” I breathed, but she was already passed back out, her lips softly parted. Soft snores left her lips.
A tear slid down my cheek and landed on her throat as I stared down at her, guilt swirling through my veins like poison.
“Mila, baby, I am so sorry,” I whispered. “So fucking sorry.”
How had I let things get so fucked up?
Five
Mila
Coralie had been missing for two damn days. The day after the club, I woke up on her bed around lunchtime with a pounding headache, a dry mouth, and the acrid taste of vomit lingering on my tongue. When I called Brittany, she informed me of what had happened the night before. When Coralie still hadn’t come back that night, I thought maybe she was just hanging out with Jessica somewhere.
Only I found Jessica in the food court getting breakfast for just one person. And she was by herself. When I’d asked her where Coralie was, she’d seemed as alarmed as I was. And Jessica wasn’t one to be shocked by much. She was always either pissed off at the world or cool as a cucumber. She hadn’t even bothered sneering at me like she usually would have. Instead, she’d stormed off from me while lifting her phone to her ear.
Something wasn’t right. And I hated that I was so worried about the girl who’d broken my heart and fucking abandoned me.
It seemed even my own feelings were out to destroy me.
I tried calling Coralie all day, but I didn’t receive an answer. It just rang through, and at about five in the evening, her phone started going straight to voicemail. I’d prowled campus looking for her car, but it was missing, too.
Sighing, I stared at the ceiling, knowing I needed to begin getting a move on, but how was I expected to get through my first day of classes when I was worrying about Coralie so much? Today was a vital day for our college career, and she was missing in action. Just… gone. With no word to anyone. I was a hairsbreadth away from calling the police and filing a missing person’s report. The forty-eight-hour mark was coming up anyway, which I knew was when the police tended to finally take missing person reports seriously.
The door to the room suddenly opened, and Coralie stumbled in. I sat up, staring at her in horror. She looked a mess. She was still in the same clothes she’d been wearing the day I’d gone to the club and gotten wasted. Her blonde hair was greasy and tangled, and dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes. She looked at me and paused, her hand on the door handle.
Pain resided in the depths of her eyes, cutting me to my core.
“Cor?” I softly called, crawling off my bed and making my way to her. She reeked of sweat and body odor, but I didn’t say anything. Just gripped her forearms and tugged her away from the door. “Cor, talk to me,” I pleaded. “I’ve been so worried. We all have. Where have you been?”
She didn’t say anything—just cast her gaze to the floor. I swallowed thickly. I’d only ever seen Cor spiral this far once before, and that was when the cat she’d rescued as a little girl passed away. He’d lived a happy life, but he’d been old. But it hadn’t made his passing any easier for her to bear.
She’d been mute for weeks. That cat had practically been her emotional support animal, and he’d been her comfort on many lonely, dark nights when her parents were fighting or they were lashing out at her and claimed they didn’t want to even look at her.
“You need a shower,” I said quietly when she refused to answer me. “And you need to go to your classes, even if you don’t feel like going.” When I moved away from her, she snapped her hands out, clenching my hoodie in her fists. My heart wept. What was going on with her? She was scaring me. What had happened between her bringing me back to our dorm room and now?
I covered her hands with my own, my chest aching for her. “Okay,” I said softly, my heart in my throat. “I won’t leave you alone.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “Let’s get you some clothes, okay? I’ll help you shower.” She didn’t look capable of doing anything on her own at the moment anyway.