Walking Disaster

cheeks flushed red.
    Oh, shit. It must have been worse than I thought.
    “Are you serious?” she asked.
    “What?” I asked, but the second the word came out, I’d regretted it.
    America giggled, clearly amazed at my memory loss. “You pulled her out of Parker’s car, seeing red when you caught them making out like high schoolers. They fogged up the windows and
everything!”
    I pushed my memory as far as it would go into the evening. The making out didn’t ring a bell, but the jealousy did.
    Abby looked like she was about to blow her top, and I recoiled from her glare.
    “How pissed are you?” I asked, waiting for a high-pitched explosion to infiltrate my already throbbing head.
    Abby stomped to the bedroom, and I followed her, closing the door softly behind us.
    Abby turned. Her expression was different from what I’d seen before. I wasn’t sure how to read it. “Do you remember anything you said to me last night?” she asked.
    “No. Why? Was I mean to you?”
    “No you weren’t mean to me! You . . . we . . .” She covered her eyes with her hands.
    When her hand went up, a new, shimmering piece of jewelry fell from her wrist to her forearm, catching my eye. “Where’d this come from?” I asked, wrapping my fingers around her
wrist.
    “It’s mine,” she said, pulling away.
    “I’ve never seen it before. It looks new.”
    “It is.”
    “Where’d you get it?”
    “Parker gave it to me about fifteen minutes ago,” she said.
    Rage welled up within me. The I-need-to-punch-something-before-I’ll-feel-better kind. “What the fuck was that douche bag doing
here
? Did he stay the night?”
    She crossed her arms, unfazed. “He went shopping for my birthday present this morning and brought it by.”
    “It’s not your birthday, yet.” My anger was boiling over, but the fact that she wasn’t at all intimidated helped me to keep it in check.
    “He couldn’t wait,” she said, lifting her chin.
    “No wonder I had to drag your ass out of his car, sounds like you were . . .” I trailed off, pressing my lips together to keep the rest from coming out. Not a good time to vomit
words out of my mouth I couldn’t take back.
    “What? Sounds like I was
what
?”
    I grit my teeth. “Nothing. I’m just pissed off, and I was going to say something shitty that I didn’t mean.”
    “It’s never stopped you before.”
    “I know. I’m working on it,” I said, walking to the door. “I’ll let you get dressed.”
    When I reached for the knob, a pain shot from my elbow up my arm. I touched it, and it was tender. Lifting it revealed what I’d suspected: a fresh bruise. My mind raced to figure out what
could have caused it, and I recalled Abby telling me she was a virgin, me falling, and laughing, and then Abby helping me to get undressed . . . and then I . . . Oh, God.
    “I fell on the stairs last night. And you helped me to bed . . . We,” I said, taking a step toward her. The memory of me crashing against her while she stood in front of the closet
half naked rushed into my mind.
    I had almost fucked her, taken her virginity when I was drunk. The thought of what might have happened made me feel ashamed for the first time since . . . ever.
    “No we didn’t. Nothing happened,” she said, emphatically shaking her head.
    I cringed. “You fog up Parker’s windows, I pull you out of the car, and then I try to . . .” I tried to shake the memory out of my head. It was sickening. Thankfully, even in
my drunken stupor, I’d stopped, but what if I hadn’t? Abby didn’t deserve for her first time to be like that with anyone, least of all me. Wow. For a while there, I’d really
thought I had changed. It only took a bottle of whiskey and the mention of the word
virgin
for me to return to my dick ways.
    I turned for the door and grabbed the knob. “You’re turning me into a fucking psycho, Pigeon,” I growled over my shoulder. “I don’t think straight when I’m
around you.”
    “So it’s
my
fault?”
    I turned. My eyes fell from her face to her robe, to her legs, and then her feet, returning to her eyes. “I don’t know. My memory is a little hazy . . . but I don’t recall you
saying no.”
    She took a step forward. At first she looked ready to pounce, but her face softened, and her shoulders fell. “What do you want me to say, Travis?”
    I glanced at the bracelet, and then back at her. “You were hoping I wouldn’t remember?”
    “No! I was pissed that you forgot!”
    She