Chapter 127: The End of My Delusion Era
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Turns out walking requires way more focus than I remembered.
Someone danced right into my shoulder. Another person spilled something across my arm that was sticky and bright purple and seemed determined to stick around.
I weaved around a group taking photos, dodged a beach ball by a narrow margin, and then walked smack into a guy juggling three full cups.
The warmth from the drink spread further, loosening my limbs and my inhibitions, but it did nothing to dull the ache in my chest. If anything, it made the feelings louder, more vivid, until I could barely think straight through the storm raging inside me.
Finding the bathroom took longer than it should’ve, involving two wrong doors and a hallway that seemed to stretch longer in one direction than the other. When I finally pushed through the right door, relief washed over me so intensely that I almost thanked the room.
Quiet. Or pretty close to it.
I went to the sink, cranked the cold water on full blast, and splashed my face until the shock started doing its thing. Water dripped down my neck and soaked into my shirt collar as I leaned over the sink, staring at my reflection.
Bright red cheeks. Glossy eyes. The general look of someone who had made several questionable choices that evening and was due for a reckoning.
"Damn...you look terrible," I told my reflection.
It was in complete agreement.
I gripped the sink and shut my eyes.
Then, the image hit me, as it always did when I wasn’t actively trying to push it away.
Her laughter. Her hand resting on his chest as if she’d decided that’s where it belonged.
Damien was sitting there, calm and polite, not pushing her away, because why would he? She was beautiful, confident, and relaxed, fitting right in with the other people who looked like her, and it made so much sense for her to be next to him in a way I was trying hard not to acknowledge.
My stomach churned.
"Stupid fucking idiot," I whispered wiping my tears, not really directing it at her or even at him. Just at the whole mess, at that part of me that clearly hadn’t received any of the memos I’d been trying to send.
Because Damien wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t someone I had a fucking claim to!
He was just my roommate...my annoying, ridiculously handsome, inexplicably kind roommate who made me breakfast, folded my laundry, and somehow learned how I liked my coffee without making a big deal out of it.
He bought hockey tickets before I had even agreed to go, waited in dark apartments with cold coffee, pressed his forehead against mine, against my neck, and did and said things in the dark that I’d been trying for weeks to convince myself were meaningless.
He kissed me like he meant it, more than once, in ways I kept replaying when I should’ve been doing literally anything else.
Slowly, I lifted my fingers to my lips.
Maybe I’d imagined how those kisses felt. Perhaps every moment we shared only meant something to me. Maybe Damien was just naturally this way with everyone...warm, attentive, infuriating, and present, and I had just been too close to mistake proximity for something more significant.
A tear slipped down before I realized it was happening, and I wiped it away with the back of my hand, quickly, like I had strict rules about crying in strangers’ bathrooms at parties.
"No," I told the mirror. "Absolutely not. We’re not doing this here."
My reflection didn’t look convinced.
"I mean it."
Still skeptical.
"You don’t get an opinion. You’re a mirror. Your job is to reflect, not to judge."
I sniffed loudly once and stood up straight.
Then something clicked. The warm, hazy feelings from the alcohol, the way it softened everything and turned down the volume... it had also turned down the usual defenses that kept certain thoughts at a safe distance.
Standing there in that bathroom, face wet, chest heavy, I suddenly realized with striking clarity that I was done pretending.
Not tonight. Not anymore.
I had no idea what was waiting on the other side of that decision. I didn’t know what Damien would say, what he actually felt, or if everything I had been reading into our interactions for the past several months was real or just wishful thinking mixed with proximity and shared moments during power outages.
But I was through with guessing and pretending.
I swung the bathroom door open and stepped back into the chaos.
The music hit me like a physical force. The yard was a blur of lights and movement, the pool flashing in silver and blue, someone shouting because another person just did something crazy in a swimsuit.
I scanned the crowd.
Blue eyes. There he was...still near the same group, still surrounded, that girl still close enough to make my jaw clench.
Something hot surged through me, and I stopped trying to label it. I started walking before I could second-guess myself.
Someone tried to hand me a drink. Nope. Someone called my name from somewhere in the madness. Ignored.
Joey shouted something from about fifteen feet behind me...I only caught the gist of it. Also ignored.
The crowd began to thin as I moved closer. A few heads turned, drawn to whatever was happening on my face, probably, which I had zero control over in this state.
Damien’s friends spotted me first. Conversations around him stalled. Eyes flickered between us with a curious intensity, like they sensed a scene unfolding.
Damien looked up.
As soon as his eyes landed on me, something shifted in his expression. The calm, composed demeanor he usually wore in social settings fell away, replaced by something more intense and focused. I noticed the familiar furrow between his brows set in.
"Oliver?"
I stopped right in front of him. He was still seated, but it felt like in that moment, despite everything... the girl still nearby, the crowd, the alcohol, and the whole complicated situation, he looked at me like I was the only one that mattered.
Fucking asshole...looking at me like that.
"Can we talk?"
"Right now?"
"Yes." A brief pause. "Privately."