“It’s not babysitting. It’s being there for my best friend when she needs me, just the same way you’d do the same for me.” She smiles brightly. “And now we’re roommates again.”

“Thank you, Tess.” My throat feels tight. “You’ve done so much for me, I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

She hisses, hands raised palms out. “Stop, stop. Don’t make me cry. Right now, let’s get practical. We’re going to need supplies: several boxes of tissues, lots of ice cream, and lots of wine.”

“Not wine,” I say. “Anything but wine, and especially not red wine.”

I don’t have to explain to Tess, of all people, that red wine was Adrian’s and my thing.

“Know what you do want to drink, then?”

What was it we used to drink in college?

“Remember the parties we used to throw back in college?” I ask. “We’d buy six bottles of the cheapest vodka we could find, a bunch of two-liter bottles of soda water, and a bag of limes. And we’d mix it all together in a punch bowl.”

She snickers. “Hell yeah, I remember. Un-punch, everyone called it.”

“I’m going to need that, I think.”

She frowns at me. “Nadia, love. I’ll enable you only up to a certain point. But eventually, you have to grieve. I know maybe you’re not there yet. And I grant that you have the right to deal with this however you need. And if that means going on a bender, I’ll be there with you every step of the way. But you have to deal with it, at some point.”

“I don’t know how. It’s like the ability to feel it, to let grieving take over is…stuck. I can’t. I just can’t. Like when you’re hammered and need to throw up but can’t.”

“Okay, let’s get wasted then, huh?”

I manage to give Tess a small smile. I need to feel something besides this emptiness, this drowning nothingness.

Something. Anything.

18 days

I’ve spent the past three and a half days drunk. It was glorious at first. We’d watch stupid movies and stand-up specials and laugh our asses off, and I know I was faking laughing harder than was necessary.

I’m drunk right now.

But it’s not so glorious.

I’m splayed sideways across my bed, and I can’t get up. The room is spinning. I’m delirious. I wonder if I’ve slept more than two or three hours at a time since…That Day.