—
Lucky left the bathroom with Riley feeling high on adrenaline. This was more like it. As they returned to the table, the fight with her sisters felt very far away. She took a seat, casting around for a cigarette, as one of the models slid a frosted pint of beer toward her.
“Hey, we ordered this for Petey, but he had to bounce. You want it?”
Suddenly, she couldn’t remember why she had made such a big deal about stopping. Who was she trying to prove herself to, anyway? Bonnie? Avery? They didn’t care about her. Avery had quite literally told her she would have preferred Lucky to die instead of Nicky. And Bonnie would always choose Avery over her. Why was she torturing herself trying to be something she wasn’t to earn the love of people who didn’t want her? Fuck it, she thought, and grabbed the glass. It tasted just as good as she remembered.
Beers turned into shots at a karaoke bar in Chinatown, which turned into bottle service at a club in SoHo they entered through the kitchen of a Mexican restaurant, which turned into warm tequila on the roof of one of the models’ lofts, which turned into a four a.m. deli run for more booze, which turned into dancing and doing lines while one of the models played the latest single from his kind of cringe but quite fun band, which turned into Riley trying to get Lucky to put the Spice Girls T-shirt back on that she’d torn off her body while screaming Fuck the Spice Girls! and glugging half a bottle of cheap deli wine, which turned into Lucky telling Riley he was a fucking square who was trying to control her, which turned into Lucky making out with the owner of the loft right in front of Riley to show him just how little she cared, which turned into Riley threatening to leave, which turned into Lucky making a fake weepy face while giving him the middle finger and demanding the loft guy cut her another line, which turned into Riley actually leaving, which turned into Lucky drinking even more deli wine then projectile vomiting all over the loft guy’s fancy cream Berber rug, which turned into him kicking her out, which turned into her standing on the corner of Greene and Grand at that totally dead hour between five and six a.m. when only the garbage trucks were out, which turned into Lucky realizing her phone was also dead and slumping down over a sidewalk grate determined to just sleep there, which turned into her looking up to find Riley walking toward her looking tired and sad, explaining that he had come back because he didn’t think that model with the loft was such a good guy after all and he was worried about her getting home safely, which turned into her telling him that she had no home, and no one who loved or cared about her anyway, so he should just leave her here on this sidewalk grate to die, which turned into him taking her back to his place and tucking her into his bed with a glass of water and her phone charging next to her on the nightstand, which turned into her crying into his pillow while apologizing again and again saying I never cry, I never cry, which turned into him saying that it was okay and she probably just needed some sleep and it would all feel better in the morning.
—
It did not. Lucky woke up in Riley’s bed and immediately wished she was dead. Sunlight pierced the dark curtains with pinpricks of light; even the slightest brightness felt like an assault on her eyes. On the bedside table, next to a stack of books that included Sapiens and The Power of Now, her phone was fully charged. She checked the cracked screen to find it was almost midday, then lay back on the pillow with a quiet groan, pressing her palms to her eyes. What had she done? How could she have drunk after all that she and Bonnie had been through together the past week? She’d ruined everything. Worst of all, she had proven Avery right. She was a fuckup. The shame wave that followed this thought was so violent, she involuntarily brought her hands to her mouth to stop herself from crying out as it washed over her.
She’d heard once that guilt was for something you’d done—you could feel guilty for a certain behavior or action but still fundamentally know you were a good person—but shame was deeper, shame was for who you were. Lucky didn’t simply do bad things, she was bad, she saw that now. If the real her came out when she drank, then the real her was clearly a nightmare. She was like some vicious, snarling animal caught in a trap, swiping at the hand that tried to help. No one who had seen her last night, or on any of the hundreds of nights she’d been drunk the past few years, would want anything to do with her. And now not even her sisters would either. Avery already hated her, and after last night, Bonnie would too. She had no one.
She couldn’t hide in Riley’s bedroom forever, much as she longed to, so she unplugged her phone—three missed calls from Bonnie, none from Avery—and crept out of the room, wincing at the light as she entered the living room. Riley lived in a loft apartment in Williamsburg with floor-to-ceiling windows and the kind of functional, soulless furniture in stain-concealing neutrals found in fully furnished rentals. The open-plan kitchen had a whiteboard magnet on the fridge on which someone had written Be More, IRL! Definitely a model apartment, Lucky noted.
Riley was sitting at the dining table, shirtless, bent over his laptop. He looked up as Lucky entered without smiling. She was struck for the first time by what a beautiful man he was; golden-haired and golden-toned all over, with cinnamon freckles scattered from his cheeks to his shoulder blades. With an unfamiliar self-consciousness, it occurred to her that she must look like absolute shit.
“Hey,” he said, his voice registering neither warmth nor coolness. “You want coffee?”
Lucky shook her head. The only thing she wanted was to get out of there as quickly as possible and then, preferably, curl up somewhere and expire.
“I should be going.” Her voice came out in a raspy croak. She swallowed. “I’m really sorry about last night.”
Riley shook his head.
“It’s okay…” He paused. “Actually, it wasn’t okay, Lucky.”
There it was again, that shame wave, so alarming in its physicality that Lucky had to dig her nails into her palms and wait for it to pass like a contraction.
“I know—” she began.
“But,” he interrupted her, “I get the sense maybe you’re not okay.” He looked at her and his face softened with concern. “So…are you okay?”
Lucky had not expected that, this kindness in the face of her badness. She didn’t deserve it, yet here it was, simple as the offer of morning coffee. It was so surprising, it didn’t even occur to her to make up a plausible lie.
“No,” she blurted. “I’m not okay. I’m…” She may as well just say it, she figured; at this point, she had nothing left to lose. “I’m an alcoholic, Riley. And an addict. And I really think I need to be sober, but I have no fucking clue how.”
Riley took a long gulp. Lucky instantly regretted saying it. Unvarnished like that, it didn’t sound great.
“I’m not sure I’ve met too many of those,” he said eventually.
Lucky gave him a thin smile.
“Give it another few years in fashion.” She gestured to the door. “I’m gonna go. Thanks again and, um, sorry for burdening you with all this. Please just forget about it.”
She made it to the front door, which for some inexplicable reason had three different types of locks on it. She attempted one combination, then another, but could not get it to open. She was trying, unsuccessfully, to remember which bolts she had already turned, when she felt Riley’s arm reach around her.
“Let me help you with that.”
He flicked the locks with practiced efficiency and pulled the door open. Lucky gave him an embarrassed smile.
“Everybody thinks they’re a genius until they try to open someone else’s front door,” she said.
Riley laughed.
“Or use their shower,” he added. “The hot water is never the direction it should be.”
“True.” Lucky gave him an awkward wave. “Okay. Bye then.”
She was about to slip out the door when Riley caught her and pressed her to his chest in a hug. He smelled of soap and something vaguely sweet, too, like honeysuckle. Lucky was rarely shorter than anyone, but her crown fit snugly under his chin.
“You got this, Lucky,” he murmured into her hair. “Ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it.”
She looked up at him.
“Is that a southern saying?”
Riley smiled and shook his head.
“Maya Angelou.” He let her go. “My mom’s a high school English teacher. And Miss Angelou? That lady knew what she was talking about.”
—
Lucky headed to the Marcy Avenue station, then changed her mind and kept walking toward the entrance of the Williamsburg Bridge. She was too shaky and hungover to be enclosed on a moving train and, anyway, she was in no hurry to return to the apartment and face her sisters. The sun was high in a cloudless, chlorine-blue sky, and a stultifying heat had settled over the streets. Outside a coffee shop, a stout bulldog lay spread on its belly on the hot asphalt, lazily lifting its jowls to follow Lucky with half-hooded eyes as she passed. Lucky reached the entrance of the bridge and was relieved to feel a light breeze lift off the water. The familiar red railings and graffiti-scarred path stretched before her like time; a cyclist whooshed past, then the bridge was empty.
She set off across the water, metal balustrades swooping and crisscrossing overhead. With no headphones to allow her to escape into music, she was left with her thoughts. Her mind darted through the same closed circuit of memories, as a bee trapped indoors will pound again and again at the same windowpane, looking for escape. Nicky’s wish scribbled on a strip of paper in her palm. No more pills. Why hadn’t Lucky pushed her when she denied writing it? Why hadn’t she told someone? Their last phone call. Find out what makes you happy, then go fucking do it. The final pane that stopped her was always Nicky’s funeral. Lucky replayed it again and again, as if returning could somehow change it, could fling a closed window open.
