Chapter 12: Chapter 12
The vodka bottle glinted in Alex’s hand, a clear, cruel promise. He cracked the seal with a twist that sounded like a bone snapping. No one spoke. The only movement was the slow pass of the bourbon, now almost empty, and the faster, more desperate grab for the new bottle.
Leo’s mouth tasted of ash and oak. He watched Alex tilt his head back, his throat working as the clear liquid disappeared. When Alex lowered it, his eyes were glassy, fixed on nothing. He handed it to Reed without a word.
Reed took it, her fingers steady now. She didn’t look at any of them. She drank like it was medicine, a long, shuddering dose, then coughed, a harsh, wet sound. “Smooth,” she rasped, irony coating the word like silt.
Emily snatched it from her. “My turn.” She was all sharp edges now, the earlier challenge in her touch hardened into something brittle. She drank fast, some of the vodka tracing a clear line down her chin, dripping onto her chest. She passed it to Leroy, who had been quiet, watching from his corner of the ruined bed like a spectator at his own wake.
Leroy took it. He didn’t drink immediately. He stared into the bottle, his face unreadable. “Remember that party at the lake house?” he said, his voice low and rough.
“Which one?” Alex mumbled, rubbing his face.
“The one where we built the bonfire so big the park ranger came. Leo tried to convince him we were a pagan study group.”
A faint, ghost of a smile touched Leo’s lips. It felt strange on his face. “He bought it for like, five minutes.”
“Because you were wearing that ridiculous cloak,” Emily said, a real laugh, short and surprised, escaping her. She took the bottle back from Leroy’s still hands and had another pull.
“It was atmospheric,” Leo said, the words coming easier. He accepted the vodka. The burn was cleaner, sharper than the bourbon, a glacial fire. It didn’t warm the hollowness; it just made the edges more distinct.
“You looked like a soggy, depressed druid,” Reed said, leaning her head back against the wall. She closed her eyes. “It was raining.”
“The fire still lit, though,” Leroy said, finally taking his drink. He swallowed. “We got it lit in the rain. That was something.”
The memory hung in the toxic air, a fragment of something whole. For a few seconds, the room wasn’t just a crash site. It was a place where people who knew each other’s stories were drinking.
The bottle moved again. Slower now.
“I miss that lake,” Emily said quietly, almost to herself.
“We could go back,” Alex said, the words slurring slightly. He was sliding down the wall, his energy seeping out. “Next month. Maybe.”
No one agreed. No one needed to point out that they wouldn’t. The promise was as empty as the bottles piling up on the floor, but it was a different kind of emptiness. Softer.
Leo felt the vodka unspooling his thoughts. The sharp panic of the earlier hours was blurring into a thick, woolly numbness. He looked at Reed, her profile sharp in the dim light, at Emily drawing patterns in the condensation on the bottle, at Leroy’s distant gaze, at Alex’s heavy-lidded eyes.
“We’re a mess,” Leo said. It wasn’t a revelation. It was an observation, flat and simple.
“Yeah,” Reed agreed, opening her eyes. She looked at him, really looked, for the first time since they’d collapsed. “A grade-A, catastrophic mess.”
“The best kind,” Emily added, but the bite was gone. She sounded tired.
Leroy passed the vodka to Leo, their fingers brushing. “To not being done,” Leroy said, but the old mantra had shed its desperate skin. Now it just sounded sad. Resigned.
Leo took the bottle. It was half empty. Or half full. He couldn’t decide which lie he preferred. He drank, the liquid no longer tasting of much at all.
Outside, a siren wailed, distant and mournful, cutting through the Portland night. It faded, leaving only the drip of the faucet and the sound of their breathing, uneven but synchronized. A different kind of intimacy, forged in the aftermath.
Alex’s head lolled forward. “I think I’m done,” he mumbled into his chest.
No one argued. No one said they weren’t.
Emily carefully screwed the cap back onto the vodka bottle with a definitive click. The sound was a full stop. She placed it on the floor, upright, a small monument to the night.
Leo let his head fall back against the wall. The hollow ache was still there, a familiar tenant. But for now, the frantic knocking had stopped. There was just the quiet, the dark, and the shared, burdensome weight of their own company.