I hold my breath for a moment.
"He was," I say, locking eyes with her.
"I've got a whole bedroom," Liam offers. "Upstairs, first door on the right, help yourself to anything inside though I don't think there's anything left after our little celebration Saturday night."
"What happened Saturday?" she asks me.
"I went to a movie."
"We drank a handle of whiskey and then went out in Hollywood," Liam says.
"That didn't fucking happen-"
"-These two girls gave us some pills and I've no idea what they were but I swear they slowed down time-"
"He's lying," I tell Marisol, my voice desperate and pleading.
"-I lost Gavin for a bit and when I found him, he was in the men's shoveling something up his nose, dunno what it was, some girl on her knees in front of him-"
She turns and runs back up the stairs. I grit my teeth and follow her, stepping on more broken glass, but I don't care. Behind me, Liam's laughing near-hysterically.
"People don't change!" he shouts.
"Marisol, I swear to God he's lying," I say. Every step is agony - I think there's still glass in my foot - but I ignore it, following after her.
She doesn't answer, but she goes to the guest rooms and yanks the doors open one by one until she finds Liam's.
It's a fucking mess, of course, and it reeks of unwashed sheets and the vague smell of cigarettes, every surface covered with dust and ash, the bedsheets simply in a pile in the middle of the bed. Marisol just stands in the doorway for a moment, staring at it, her shoulders shaking.
"I haven't done a single thing, I haven't had a drink, you have to believe me-"
She goes in, grabs something off a dresser, and comes back out, her face tear-streaked and her eyes flashing fire. As she walks past me, she shoves a piece of paper at my chest.
It's the final page of our fake-girlfriend contract.
"It was him," she shouts over her shoulder, then disappears into my bedroom again.
40
Marisol
I shove my feet into my shoes, my whole body shaking. I have to get out of here, run away, leave before I completely fly apart into a sobbing, hysterical mess, and the floor's covered in glass so I can't do it barefoot.
"I'm sorry," Gavin says from the bedroom door for about the thousandth time, but I ignore him and dodge past, rushing back down the stairs. My feet crunch and squeak across the glass as Liam watches, slumped on the sofa, drinking something from a plastic bottle.
"I've saved you plenty of grief, you know," he calls out.
I grab my purse and open the door.
"And you as well," Liam says as I close it behind myself.
I take a deep breath of the cold night air as I cross Gavin's front yard, pulling out my phone to call an Uber. I know I'm crying and I think I might be sobbing, nearly hysterical, but at the same time I feel strangely detached from myself, from everything that's just happened, almost like I'm watching myself from above.
Liam lives with Gavin and Gavin lied about it, I think, over and over again. He's living with the person who dragged him into addiction in the first place, years ago, and he lied to me about it.
Tears drip from my chin to my neck, and I wipe them off furiously, almost to the gate. The front door opens behind me, but I don't turn around.
"Marisol, please," Gavin says, his footsteps crossing the yard. "Don't go, I'm sorry, I should have told you-"
"I feel like a fucking idiot," I shout. "I just believed everything you said and this whole time you've been-"
I swallow and grit my teeth together against a sob, but it wracks through my body anyway.
Gavin's behind me, and he reaches for my shoulder but I step backward.
"I don't know what you lied about," I whisper, my hands balled in fists at my sides. "Everything you said about wanting to get better, about having a new life and leaving that one behind, about moving to Los Angeles to get away from your old friends? Did you mean any of that? Or were you out getting high with Liam and using me the rest of the time?"
Gavin looks broken.
"I meant everything," he whispers. "Every single thing I told you I meant, Marisol, Liam's a fucking liar."
I just shake my head.
"He's got a bedroom," I say, swallowing hard. "How long has he been there?"
"Since you kissed me on the cheek," he admits.
"A month?" I ask, my voice dropping to a bare whisper. I didn't think it was that long, and now I feel like even more of a gullible idiot.
"I've also not done a single thing I shouldn't have in a month," Gavin says, his jaw flexing. "Everything else he's lying about, getting drunk, getting high, talking about my ex-"
"How am I supposed to believe you?"
"Does it seem like I've been doing that?" he asks, flinging one arm in the direction of the house, pointing at Liam inside. "Or does it seem like I've been sober as a nun? If Liam were going to drag me back down he'd already have done-"
"He did!" I whisper-shout, since my voice won't work quite right. "He already did once, Gavin, and it only ended because that roadie died-"
"Allen."
"-because Allen died and the record company forced you into rehab, not because you wanted to get better."
I turn my back and hit the button on the gate. It starts rolling open.
"But I do," Gavin says. "Marisol, I swear to God."
I slither through the gate as soon as I can and walk out into the road, hoping that Gavin doesn't follow me.
He does, limping onto the asphalt.
"Don't leave," he begs. "I've meant everything I've said and should never have lied, only I-"
Headlights shine around the corner, and I glance down at my phone. It's the Uber.
"-I wanted you to think I'm a better person than I am."
The car slows in front of me, and I look at Gavin, then at the bloody footprints leading through the still-opening gate.
"Please," he whispers.
I wipe tears off my face and shake my head.
Then I get into the car and close the door behind me, burying my face in my hands.
"Uh, is everything okay?" the driver says.
"Please just go," I whisper.
We drive off.
41
Gavin
I can only watch as the tail lights of the car drive away and disappear around a bend in the road, a hollow space opening up in my chest, threatening to swallow me whole.
You did lie to her, a small, ugly voice whispers in my head. You had a thousand chances to tell her the truth and you never did.
Could be that Liam's right.
I walk back through the gate, pain shooting up both legs from the broken glass. I hit the button to close the gate, then collapse against it, sliding down until I'm sitting on the ground, eyes closed.
Marisol's gone. I took in Liam, I lied to her, and now she's gone. I didn't want to tell her because I didn't want to admit to her that sometimes I'm weak, I didn't want her to think I wasn't serious about recovery, and now she's gone and I don't know if she'll come back.
Everything around me turns to shit, I think. I can't stop fucking up, I can't fix it, and it doesn't even matter if I try.
Because I did try. Holy fuck did I try, and now she's gone after I've walked through broken glass to get her back. Not that I can even blame her. It was only the smart thing to do.
There's a flat, empty blackness inside me, threatening to spill over. I want to crawl into a deep, dark hole and never come out, never bother fucking trying to do anything right again because I clearly can't.
Liam's right. He's a fucking monster and I hate him, but he's right. People don't change, least of all me.
The front door opens again. I don't open my eyes, because I can't even fucking look at him right now, but I hear his footsteps come up to me and stop.
"Fuck off," I say.
"Heads up," Liam says.
I open my eyes just in time for a plastic bottle to come flying at me, and I catch it reflexively. It's a flat rectangular bottle of Popov vodka, half empty.
"You seem like you could use it," Liam says, pulling out his own flat bottle and taking a long drink.
"I don't want it," I say, leaning back against the gate again. "I want you to fucking leave me alone and get out of my life."
I'm not even angry, though I should be. I'm shirtless in my front yard, feet shredded, and I've just fucked up the best thing that's ever happened to me, and I want to slide into a black hole and forget all about everything.
"She was always going to leave, mate," he says, sloshing the bottle to his lips again.
"Fuck off."
"If this is all it fucking took? She was going to leave anyway. You ought to be thanking me."
I throw the bottle at his head, but it's small and plastic and it bounces off his shoulder while he laughs.
"You don't want to get rid of that just yet," he says, tossing it back at me casually. "Take the edge off. Here, I'll leave for a bit so you haven't got a witness."
Liam walks back to my front door, weaving unsteadily, and walks into my house, leaving the door wide open while I look at the bottle in my hand.