Chapter 408 - House

Chapter 408: Chapter 408 - House

Roxie tried the door and found it locked. For half a second her stomach dropped before she remembered Karen had her own key. She pulled hers from her pocket, unlocked the door and stepped inside.

The bungalow was quiet and mostly dark, with the curtains still closed from when Roxie left for Tennessee. A small lamp beside the couch was on, casting enough light across the living room for Roxie to see the takeout containers scattered over the coffee table, two bottles of water, an empty soda can and someone curled beneath one of her blankets.

Karen.

She was lying against the corner of the couch with her knees pulled up, scrolling through her phone as if she had spent the afternoon doing absolutely nothing unusual.

Roxie stopped just inside the living room. After seven hours of imagining Karen unconscious somewhere, drunk, hurt or lying inside another car where nobody could find her, seeing her quietly scrolling through her phone almost made Roxie angry before Karen even noticed her.

Karen finally glanced up. Her thumb stopped against the screen, and for several seconds they only stared at each other.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Roxie could barely answer. She crossed the room before Karen had time to react and grabbed both sides of her face.

Karen jerked backward. "What the hell?"

Roxie leaned close enough to smell her breath before staring directly into her eyes. "Did you drink?"

Karen pulled her head back. "Are you smelling me?"

"Did you?"

"No."

"Did you take anything?"

"No, Roxie. I’m fucking sober."

Karen pushed her hands away, but Roxie kept studying her for another few seconds. Under the light from the lamp, she could see that Karen looked tired and irritated, her eyes slightly swollen like she had cried earlier, but she was alert. There was no smell of alcohol on her breath, nothing strange about the way she spoke and nothing on the table except food, water and soda.

The relief hit Roxie so hard that her legs suddenly felt weak, and almost immediately that relief became irritation.

"You’re just sitting here?"

Karen frowned. "What else am I supposed to be doing? What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Your parents have been looking everywhere for you. The police are looking for you."

Karen’s expression tightened. "My mom called the police?"

"You walked out of treatment and turned your phone off."

"I wanted everybody to leave me alone."

"For seven hours?"

Karen glanced at the time on her phone and actually looked surprised. "I didn’t realize it had been that long. I fell asleep for a while."

Roxie sat beside her as the exhaustion finally caught up with her. All the adrenaline that had carried her through the airport, the drive back into Briarwick and hours riding around with Ethan seemed to leave her now that Karen was sitting right in front of her perfectly conscious and sober.

Karen watched her for a moment. "How did you even know I was here?"

"I didn’t. We went everywhere looking for you."

Karen leaned back against the couch and pulled the blanket closer around herself. "I figured nobody would check here, so here I am."

"That part worked."

Karen almost smiled, but then she looked at Roxie properly. Her eyes moved over the clothes Roxie had traveled in before returning to her face, and Roxie saw the moment something finally clicked.

"Wait. Why are you here?"

"I’ve been looking for you."

"No." Karen sat straighter. "Why are you here?"

Roxie understood what she meant this time. "I flew back."

Karen stared at her. "From Tennessee?"

"Yes."

"You got on a plane because I left treatment?"

Roxie felt irritation rise again. "Because nobody knew where you were."

"My mom called you for this?"

"For this?" Roxie repeated, staring at her. "The last time you disappeared while drinking, you ended up in the hospital with a dangerous arrhythmia. Nobody knew if you were drinking again, if you took something or if somebody was going to find you unconscious somewhere. What exactly did you expect her to do?"

The defensiveness slowly disappeared from Karen’s face, but Roxie had spent too many hours scared to soften any of it now.

"Your dad has been driving all over Briarwick. Your mom looks like she hasn’t stopped crying since you left. Angela has been losing her mind from New York, and I spent the entire flight wondering whether I was coming back to find you alive."

Karen looked down at the blanket and rubbed her thumb along the edge. "And you really came back."

"Yes."

"You just moved. College starts soon, Zac’s in Tennessee and you literally just started your life there."

Roxie looked at her. "And you’re my best friend."

Karen went quiet.

That seemed to reach her more than everything else Roxie had said. Karen could handle people yelling at her. She could fight back, make jokes and say something worse. Being reminded that people cared enough to drop everything for her was apparently harder because she looked down at her phone and stayed quiet for several seconds before setting it face down beside her.

"I didn’t think they would call you."

"Why wouldn’t they?"

"Because you left. I figured my parents would deal with me."

"Leaving Briarwick didn’t mean I stopped caring whether you’re alive."

Karen pressed her lips together and looked away. "This is humiliating."

"It should be."

"I’m sorry you had to come back."

"I’m not mad that I came back. I’m mad that you scared everybody enough that I thought I had to."

Karen pulled the blanket higher around herself and stayed quiet for a moment before finally saying, "I needed to get away from them. They were exhausting. My dad started telling Mom she should have noticed everything sooner, Mom told him maybe he would have noticed something himself if he actually spent enough time around me, and then they started fighting while the therapist kept asking how it made me feel. Suddenly everybody was discussing which parent screwed me up more while I was sitting right there."

Roxie leaned back beside her and listened. She could easily imagine how badly that room had gone, especially after hearing Karen complain about family therapy from the beginning.

"I told them to stop," Karen continued. "They kept going. Mom started crying, Dad got defensive and I got tired of listening to both of them."

"So you walked out."

"I needed some air."

"You needed seven hours of air?"

"I wasn’t planning seven hours."

Roxie glanced toward the coffee table. "You bought all of this?"

"I was hungry."

"At least you ate."

"The treatment food got worse."

"You told me it was surprisingly okay."

"It was okay for like two days."

That sounded enough like Karen that Roxie almost laughed. Hearing her complain normally helped more than she wanted to admit. Karen was sitting beside her bitching about food, which was far better than anything Roxie had imagined while flying home.

Her eyes returned to the containers before she asked the question she had been avoiding. "Did you want to drink?"

Karen looked at her, and the hesitation answered before she spoke.

"There was a liquor store near where I bought the food. I stopped outside."

Roxie felt her stomach tighten again but stayed quiet.

"I had money. I could’ve gone in. I stood there thinking about it for a while."

"But you left."

Karen nodded. "Yeah."

"Why?"

Karen picked at the edge of the blanket before looking away. "I thought about the hospital. I thought about waking up and everybody staring at me like I was going to collapse if they looked away. Then I thought about how stupid everything got afterward."

Roxie kept watching her until Karen sighed.

"And I thought about you."

Something tightened in Roxie’s chest, and Karen immediately pointed at her.

"Don’t."

"I didn’t say anything."

"You were about to."

"I was breathing."

"You were about to make it emotional."

"It already is emotional. I flew across states because of you."

Karen groaned and leaned her head back against the couch. "You’re going to use that forever."

"Absolutely."

That finally made Karen smile.

After a few seconds she looked around the dim bungalow and spoke more quietly. "I left treatment. I didn’t go back to drinking."

Roxie let herself sit with that because it mattered. Karen had handled almost everything else terribly. She had walked out, turned her phone off, terrified her parents and made everyone fear the worst, but when she stood outside a liquor store with money in her pocket and nobody around to stop her, she chose to walk away.

Roxie moved closer and wrapped her arms around her.

Karen immediately started squirming. "Oh my God. Get off."

"I’m proud of that part."

"Only that part?"

"The rest makes me want to strangle you."

Karen stopped fighting long enough to laugh. "That seems fair."

Roxie finally released her and noticed movement near the entrance. Ethan was still standing outside with both helmets in one hand, apparently waiting to make sure Roxie had actually found Karen safe before leaving.

Karen followed her eyes toward him. "Why is Ethan here?"

"He helped me search."

Karen looked mildly surprised. She and Ethan barely knew each other beyond the mess surrounding her overdose, and Roxie could see the awkwardness hit once Karen realized somebody who was almost a stranger to her had spent hours helping look for her.

"Thanks," Karen said.

Ethan nodded. "Roxie sounded worried."

Karen looked back at Roxie, and there was that uncomfortable expression again, like every new person who had worried about her made the whole situation harder to laugh away.

Roxie reached for her phone.

"My mom?" Karen asked.

"Yes."

"Can you wait?"

"No."

"Roxie, she’s going to come here crying."

"She has been crying."

Karen leaned her head against the couch. "Great."

"You did that."

"I know."

Her mother answered almost immediately, and Roxie barely finished telling her that Karen was safe, sober and sitting at the bungalow before the woman started crying hard enough that Roxie had to wait for her to calm down.

"I’m coming."

Karen immediately shook her head.

Roxie turned slightly away from her. "She wants to stay here tonight."

"No."

The answer came loudly enough for Karen to hear.

"Mom," Karen called from the couch. "I’m going back tomorrow."

Her mother immediately started talking again, and Karen rubbed her forehead before looking at Roxie. "Tell her she can come here. I just can’t go back tonight and sit through another fight with both of them. I’ll go back tomorrow morning. I swear."

Roxie studied her face. "You’re actually going back?"

"Yes. I hate the place, but I know I need it."

There was no sarcasm in the answer.

Roxie believed her.

She put the phone back against her ear and told Karen’s mother she could come to the bungalow, but Karen wanted one night away before returning to treatment in the morning. The conversation went back and forth for several minutes before her mother finally agreed after Roxie promised she would stay with Karen and personally take her back.

Karen muttered that apparently she needed a parole officer now, but Roxie ignored her.

Her mother arrived less than twenty minutes later. The moment she stepped into the bungalow and saw Karen on the couch, she stopped, and Karen slowly pushed herself upright as they stared at each other.

Then her mother crossed the room and pulled her into a hug so quickly Karen barely had time to move.

"Mom."

Her mother held her tighter. "I thought you were drinking again. I thought something happened to you."

"I’m fine."

"I didn’t know that."

Karen’s expression changed when she heard how badly her mother’s voice was shaking.

"I’m sorry."

Her mother pulled back and held Karen’s face between both hands, checking her eyes before leaning close enough to smell her breath.

Karen looked toward Roxie in disbelief. "Seriously?"

Roxie shrugged. "I did the same thing."

"You people are insane."