they say they watched us fall apart

but couldn't find u s . . .

〰️〰️〰️

Without even having to open my eyes, I knew I was in Gus' room. I could feel it in my gut that I did something incredibly stupid last night. Something like get belligerently drunk at my sister's wedding and sleep with my ex-boyfriend.

I wasn't even sure if drunk was the right word for it. Trashed? Plastered? Nineteen sheets to the wind? Absolutely out of my fucking mind? Either way, it wasn't good.

In my defense, I was so far gone that I couldn't even keep track of what day it was, let alone keep my hormones and emotions under control. Sensible Bayla checked out the second I took my first shot of Patrón and started fantasizing about Gus and I in ways I hadn't done in years. Whoever took her place was someone I hadn't met and hoped to never see again.

If I thought my hangover was bad on the morning of my flight – when I still had to finishing packing after Collin and I drained all the whiskey from the bar the night before – this was on an entirely different end of the spectrum. This was hell.

It took me a few minutes to gain some sort of consciousness, eyes still sealed shut as the scrambled remains of my brain recognized the aching in the lower half of my body. I could barely shift positions or even begin to fathom what was happening between my legs. The throbbing pretty much explained it all. As if that wasn't enough, the churning in my stomach that caused an outbreak of sweat on my forehead told me I'd encounter my good friend tequila again all too soon.

I considered keeping my eyes closed for the rest of my life, leaving the bed only if the hotel staff physically removed me from it themselves, but I was too curious and I couldn't remember a single thing about my night. I needed to assess the damage, no matter how ugly it was about to get.

Gulping as if that was going to somehow make me not want to throw up on myself, I peeled open my eyes and let my vision adjust to the dark room. The only source of light was a sliver of morning sun coming through the space where the blackout curtains didn't quite meet in the middle. The windows were directly in front of me and it was the only thing I could look at with my crusty eyelashes still caked in leftover makeup from the wedding.

Once I regained the ability to see and feel, I noticed that I was swaddled beneath the comforter, but I wasn't completely naked. I was wearing one of the fluffy white robes that belonged to the hotel. Though it was diminishing in no time, at least I had a shred of dignity left.

A single, ragged snore sliced right through the deafening silence that hung in the room. Shit.

For as long as we'd been together, Gus and I had assigned sides of the bed. Mine was the left, his was the right. That being said, I found it odd that I was sleeping on the right side.

Now that I knew he was definitely in the room with me and we were sleeping in the same bed, I was dying for some recollection of last night. Even if it was the tiniest trace of a memory just from seeing his face. I figured I was already at rock bottom, so how much worse could it really get?

I was struck with the realization that yes, it could get so, so much fucking worse when I rolled over and saw Collin's sleeping silhouette on the other side of the mattress.

All I could do was gape at the shirtless golden boy sprawled out next to me, immobile and looking utterly at peace. I was transfixed by the fact that for the life of me, I couldn't remember anything that happened after Gus and I had our anticlimactic slow dance at the reception. The only clues I had were Collin and I in the same bed, both likely naked or close to it because frankly I was too scared to find out if he had anything on under the covers, and that tenderness in the center of my body that only meant one thing.

Before I knew what I was doing, I sprung up with an adrenaline rush at the suspicion that I may have slept with my asexual best friend last night. Sleeping with Gus suddenly sounded a lot better.

"Hey, Coll. Wake up. Collin," I hissed, my hands clamping down on his arm, shaking it with as much force as I could manage.

Nothing. Not even a tired grunt or twitching of a muscle. It made me go from a little frantic and confused to downright berserk.

"Collin!" I screeched at the top of my lungs, startling him awake with a gasp. I followed it up with a violent punch to his shoulder that almost knocked him off the bed.

He cried out in pain and grabbed at the spot I hit, groaning, "Fucking hell, what are you doing?"

I think every screw keeping me together had fallen out. I was off the wall. I didn't care. I needed answers.

"Why am I in your bed with nothing but a robe on?" I asked through clenched teeth.

"I don't know, you tell me!" He yelped as his eyes finally opened, squinting at me in a combination of outrage and exhaustion.

The tension in my jaw loosened and my eyebrows knit themselves together. His lack of knowledge was both settling and alarming.

"What do you mean?" I urged.

He scoffed, still clutching his arm like if I stabbed him with a butcher knife while adjusting himself to sit up against the headboard. "You came to my room at four in the morning dressed like that. No phone, no shoes, no explanation. You started pounding on my door and I thought you were gonna wake the whole hotel up, so I let you in and you literally just stumbled to my bed and passed out. I know just as much as you do about whatever the fuck happened last night, which obviously isn't much," he told me, the irritation in his croaky voice at my idiocy as clear as day.

"So... we didn't..."

"God, no," he denied instantly, his face twisting in disgust.

"Alright, relax. I'm not the worst person you could ever sleep with," I sneered, rolling my eyes.

"Please, just the thought of that makes me remember why I'm asexual."

"Shut up," I chuckled. I almost shoved him again, but he flinched away from me the moment I lifted my arm.

Shaking his head, he smoothly switched topics. "What happened to you last night? You were drinking tequila like you were about to go into surgery with no anesthesia. Next thing I knew, you were gone. Somebody else was missing at the same time too, but I don't know if I'm allowed to say his name."

I sighed and put my hands over my face as if sudden darkness would help me reassemble any remnants from the last twelve or so hours. It didn't. It was nine o'clock on Saturday morning and it very well could have been any time, any day, any year. I wouldn't have known the difference.

"I don't know," I mumbled into my palms before bringing them down and meeting Collin's wary gaze that was searching mine. "I can't remember anything. I just... totally blacked out. It was worse than my twenty-first birthday and you know how bad that was. That night is the reason why I can't drink cranberry vodka's anymore."

"Yeah, that was quite a shit show," he snickered to himself.

To this day, I didn't remember it. Collin, Gus, and my friends from college all went out. I was the last to turn twenty-one out of all of them, so they took me on a tour of various bars in the city. The only thing I learned was that I couldn't eat for the following two days because I was too busy barfing. Other than that, my twenty-first birthday didn't exist in my mind.

"I hope I didn't do anything to embarrass Sutton. It's bad enough that apparently I had drunk sex with Gus. The last thing I need is my sister slitting my throat for doing... God knows what at this point," I grumbled.

Collin didn't answer me. I was gazing across the room, lost in my thoughts and the struggle to revive my memory, so I looked over and saw him staring at my hands. They were just resting on my lap, but the rapid darting of his pupils told me he was inspecting them for whatever reason.

"What's that?" He asked, jutting out his chin to me without breaking his stare.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I glanced down. A bad tattoo, a mangled nail, a nasty scar, an unexplainable stamp from wherever I ended up going after supposedly leaving the reception. Literally anything but what I actually saw.

The infinity band on my right ring finger wasn't alone. There was a new, unfamiliar band complimenting it on my opposite hand. My left ring finger, to be exact. The one finger I knew I always left bare on purpose.

The nausea was back and it was just begging to make an appearance.

"Um..." I squeaked. That was all I had to offer.

"It's okay," Collin exclaimed, but I didn't believe him because the hitching of his voice practically said he was freaking out. He sat up straight and tried to get me to look at him. I couldn't part ways with the plastic ring on my finger. "It's fine. What... uh... w-what do you think it is?"

Everything was spinning. My skin prickled. My mouth watered as a warning that I was on the brink of vomiting. I couldn't fucking breathe.

"I-I don't know," I stuttered with a shake of my head that I couldn't stop. I also couldn't stop my spiraling into a detached state of denial and delirium, cackling as I said, "You... you know what? Sutton probably gave us these to get us into the wedding spirit or some shit. You know? She's cheesy like that. She'd do that. I mean, it's a piece of plastic. She probably bought these at the dollar store. All the bridesmaids definitely have them. She totally did it. It's nothing. It's definitely nothing! It has to be nothing."

Collin was quiet, again. I finally looked up at him and he was already watching me, taking in my trembling and bulging eye sockets and disjointed monologue like he'd never seen this type of behavior before. Like I launched right past insanity and demanded an exorcism right here, right now.

If that was the only way to erase whatever the hell happened last night, then maybe I really did deserve an exorcism.

"It's all good. Whatever, right? It was Sutton... I think. I don't know. I'm going back to sleep for a year; don't wake me up."

I couldn't – wouldn't – deal with this. Not now, not ever.

"Oh no you don't." Collin wrenched the blanket off before I even had a chance to pull it over myself. "You have to fix this situation now"–he wildly gestured to me as a whole to describe the situation–"and shower, for fuck's sake."

Unfortunately for me, he was right. He always was. I couldn't just ignore this, whatever this was. Sleeping would only solve so much, and it wouldn't give me any answers to the endless list of burning questions I had. Plus I knew if I didn't do it myself, Collin would personally lock me in a room, most likely with Gus, until we figured this out. Whatever this was, which was definitely nothing.

"Fine," I reluctantly whined, dropping my shoulders in defeat.

He smirked, all too proud of how easily he could get me to do things I didn't want to do. "You'll be alright. If you need me, don't. I'll be sleeping right here," he said, nuzzling himself back into his pillow.

"Must be nice," I sang sarcastically over my shoulder while I inched my way off the mattress. It was pathetic how long it took until I was standing up. Crouched over as if that would alleviate my pain, I winced, "I'm off to shower. But first, I have to puke."

〰️〰️〰️

Both rings came off once I crept back to my room to shower. Only one made it back on my hand after I spent a lifetime under the scalding water. The one that actually meant something to me and had a story behind it that I knew of. The other newcomer stayed in my clenched fist as I made my way down to the lobby, hoping I wouldn't run into any family members along the way.

I changed into some real clothes, those coincidentally being Gus' t-shirt I slept in and my flip flops. My hair was still damp, my phone was still missing, and there wasn't a speck of makeup left on my face. All of that was the least of my worries, for the time being.

I told myself I was wearing his shirt because for one thing, it was comfortable. Secondly, I was trying to make it as easy as possible for him to find me. I knew what kind of power I held by wearing his clothes, especially in public given the fact that we were technically broken up. He wouldn't even have to think twice about it before coming up to me.

The elevator doors opened and I made a beeline for the buffet room where complimentary breakfast was being served for about another fifteen minutes. I assumed that would be the best place to start, considering Gus would never pass up free food no matter how hungover he may have been. There were a handful of eyes on me as I wandered aimlessly around the room. Plenty of families were trying to enjoy their meals while watching a strange girl resembling a corpse walk in circles.

On the outside, I looked clean. It didn't matter. Whatever explicit things happened last night were branded on me like an invisible scarlet letter that everyone but myself could see.

Not that I really wanted to eat, because just the smell of food was enough to make me run back to my room for another round of hugging my toilet until my stomach was void of every substance, I decided to take a gander at the breakfast options. There was a line of kids waiting for the waffle maker, a stocky old man piling up strips of bacon on his plate, and an employee bringing out a fresh stack of steaming pancakes.

I didn't mean to stare at her as she swapped out the pancake tray, but she was right next to me and only a quarter of my brain was functioning. She smiled uncomfortably at me before walking away, and then I was alone with a heap of pancakes and my disorderly thoughts.

Just for a few seconds, until someone popped up beside me like an apparition. A physical indicator that he sensed I was looking for him.

"Morning," Gus crooned in my ear. I couldn't but squirm at the sudden sound of his voice. I wasn't sure if it was because of how he said it, or how he materialized out of nowhere right before my eyes. He was rubbing his hands together and surveying the food before us. "Did you eat yet? Everything smells great."

He was acting too normal. It was freaking me the fuck out.

Speechless with a blank mind, I slowly turned my head to look up at him. As soon as I saw his face, bits and pieces of the night came back to me in the form of heat rushing to my cheeks and straight down the center of my body like a bolt of lightning.

Kissing in the elevator. Goosebumps from the cold air of the room. His lips on every square inch of my skin. His face between my thighs. My nails in his back. Our eyes locked. So many I love you's.

I was flustered, to say the least. At the fact that we definitely had sex last night and how weirdly similar it was to our first prom together. The dress, the hotel room, the flowers, the whole scenario. Every part of it was like some kind of bizarre symmetry I didn't ask for.

I didn't know what to say and he was gazing down at me expectantly. My mouth opened and closed a few times. How the hell do I start this conversation?

"Do you have my underwear?" Was the scholarly question I ended up going with.

Gus just smirked knowingly. He reached his hand down into the pocket of his sweatpants and when it resurfaced, I saw the flesh-toned string bunched up between his fingers. "You mean this?"

"Yes," I snapped, feeling testy and utterly embarrassed at him holding my underwear in the middle of the breakfast buffet.

I was too overwhelmed. I had no plan anymore. I didn't even know what I was doing or why I wanted to find him.

I tried to pluck my thong from him, but was too slow. He veered away from me and shoved it back in his pocket, chuckling at me. "Hey, you left these in my room. They're my property now."

"Whatever," I mumbled with a roll of my eyes. "Do you have my phone? I have no idea where it is."

"Yeah, it's in my room. So is your dress, and pretty much everything else you own," he said, lifting a hand to scratch his jaw as his eyes drank in the sight of me. They lit up, almost as much as Sutton's did when she walked down the aisle yesterday. "Nice shirt, by the way."

My face flushed, again, as I shyly wrapped my arms around myself. "It's comfy and I like to sleep in it."

"I didn't say it was an issue. You can take anything from me, always."

What he said probably would have registered as sweet, endearing even, had I not caught the glinting piece of plastic around his left ring finger as he rubbed at the stubble on his jawline.

It hit me then why I wanted to find him.

"Did... did Sutton get you that?" My voice shook as the words left my quivering lips.

The skin between his eyebrows puckered as they drew together. "What?"

I was still clutching the ring I found on my finger. It sat flat on my palm as I opened my hand to show him, his eyes protruding and the color draining from his face when he saw it.

"Did Sutton get you that ring as a wedding favor? Does everybody have them?" The theory made sense in my head, but the more his expression fell as I kept speaking, the more I second-guessed myself. "Please tell me that it's just a coincidence we both have these and it's not what I think it is. You can tell me that, right?"

Gus nodded, a hand cupping his mouth as he sighed. I wouldn't feel relieved until he spoke. There was so much I didn't understand, so many puzzling parts of last night that I couldn't possibly wrap my mind around. Miscellaneous clues swarmed me like a blind guy throwing darts at a wall, but I refused to believe anything. All I needed was verbal clarification from Gus and it would reassure me that maybe the unthinkable didn't happen.

"I could..." he eventually said under his breath, avoiding my gaze as he finished with, "but then I'd be lying."

"Oh my God."

"Okay, listen–" he tried to interject, but my manic babbling continued like he wasn't even there.

"Oh my fucking God."

He gnashed his teeth together. "Can we go somewhere private and talk?"

"This cannot be happening. Holy fuck, this isn't happening to me."

My voice was high and horrified. His was deep and demanding. We were fire and ice crashing together, annihilating everything around us, including ourselves.

Gus grabbed onto my arm and started guiding me out of the buffet room, a strong hold that meant I wasn't going anywhere if it wasn't with him. I couldn't even if I wanted to. I was reeling; blazing with rage that I couldn't see straight or feel his hands on me.

My reaction to waking up in bed with Collin was tame to what this was like. I was practically foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog when I realized we stopped walking. Gus was blurry in front of me, the two of us standing in some random alcove near the lobby as I ripped my arm from his grip.

"Gus, what the fuck happened last night? I know we slept together. I can feel that. But whatever happened after, I can't remember," I rambled, my words coming out so rushed that I was struggling to understand what I said.

He grimaced as he rubbed the back of his neck. "It was before. Us hooking up was pretty much the end of the night," he said tentatively like he didn't want me to know the truth.