Chapter 29 Cardinal Sins
Cardinal Sins
Coco
The drunkenness is hitting me more and more the farther I get from the club. We haven’t even gotten to the campsite when the image I saw of Marín and Aroa starts to warp into something else. Two people holding each other even more intimately…
“Wait here for a sec.”
Gus leaves me perched on a stone planter on the sidewalk and runs across to the other side. He vanishes into another bar and then comes back, I have no idea how much later, with two beers. He smiles at me.
“There’s no gathering worth going to without a nightcap.”
“I don’t want any,” I say, slurring my words.
“I know. They’re both for me. We have water in the room.” He puts his arm around my waist and heaves me to my feet. I lean on his shoulder, and in that moment, I’m grateful for him. “Thanks, Gus.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
“Of course you do. I’m dead weight.”
“No. Your legs still work.” He smiles. “You’ll see that when you get in the shower still in your clothes, which always feels so good.”
Through the haze of alcohol I realize that Gus is smiling sadly. “Where were you?”
“In the bathroom,” he replies. “And then I couldn’t find any of you.”
“You didn’t see anyone?”
“No. Why?”
“I saw Blanca and Loren. They were at the other end of the bar.” And “bar” sounds really slurry on my tongue. I cringe. “Fuck. How did I get this drunk? This isn’t me.”
“No, it isn’t you. Getting tipsy and giggling at everything is more your style. What happened to you?”
“What about you?”
We stare at each other as we walk into the hotel lobby. He sucks his teeth, like he’s asking me to drop it and keep walking to his room. The walk seems to take forever, I’m not going to lie.
I know this room already. I took a nap here. With Marín, who almost kissed me, who was so sweet, who came closer, who seemed happy to be with me and…
Gus props me against the wall and stands in front of me, really close. At first I’m a little scared, but then I realize that he has one leg between mine to hold me up so I don’t fall.
“I’m not that bad,” I say with a half smile.
“I don’t trust you,” he teases. “Can you stand?”
“Yes, dummy.”
He puts the beers down on the bedside table and then crouches down in front of me. I don’t understand what he’s doing until I feel immediate relief in my feet. He’s taking off my heels.
“Enough of those, dude. They make you taller than me.”
I giggle, walk past him, and flop onto the bed. He sits next to me and opens a beer.
“Water…” I plead.
“I put one next to you, you dope.”
I fumble around next to me until my hand runs into a cold bottle of water. I sit up, grab it like it’s the last one in a desert, and drink it. I’m lucky it all falls into my mouth, because I’m hammered.
“It’s so dumb that I’m this drunk, for fuck’s sake,” I groan, hurling the empty bottle at the trash can opposite the bed and missing, of course.
“You drank really fast.” He takes another sip of his beer, takes his phone out of his pocket, checks it, and then puts on a Spotify playlist featuring Marín’s favorite song.
“What’s going on with you, buddy?” I pat his thigh over his jeans.
“What about you?”
“Stop putting the ball back in my court. I know you, and something’s going on with you.”
“I was getting hella overwhelmed.” He rubs his eyebrows with the thumb and forefinger of the hand not holding his beer. “I hate those places. You know that.”
“I’ve seen you clubbing a thousand times.”
“I have to be in the right mood.”
“Did you talk to Aroa in the bathroom?”
“What?” He shoots me a confused look and then seems to catch on to what I’m saying. “No. I didn’t even see her.”
Huh…didn’t she say…?
“What happened to you?” he insists. “Come on…if I’m remembering right, confessing our sins does us good.”
“Are you getting nostalgic, Gus?”
“I am nostalgic. Don’t change the subject. What happened?”
“I saw her with Marín.”
“Aroa?” His brow furrows.
“Yeah. They were hugging. Like really hugging.”
“They were probably…I dunno, talking about their relationship. Getting closure.”
“They’ve been getting closure for…what? Nine months? Shit, Gus, I can’t take it anymore.”
“Or maybe you can, right? It’s him.”
“Was there really any doubt?”
“One or two. Sometimes I could swear you were still making eyes at me.”
I cackle and slump back on the bed again. The ceiling is spinning a little. My stomach flips. “I’m probably going to barf up pizza in your bed.”
“Our bed. I’m sleeping here with you, champ. Try to keep the pizza in your stomach, please.”
I turn, and he’s sitting, leaning back, staring straight ahead, propped up on his elbows in the bed. His expression… There’s no mistaking it.
“You feel like shit.”
“That’s not true,” he retorts.
“Of course it is. You never say it.”
“When I feel like shit, I say it. But I don’t right now.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you down this bad.”
“Thanks, Coco.” He sighs and adds, “You’re a huge help.”
“Of course I am. Just like you. You’re always…” I turn a little—God, I’m so dizzy—and I nuzzle my cheek on his arm. That makes him smile. “You’re always there, Gus.”
“I told you I’d always be here, right? I keep my promises.”
“You’re the only one.”
“Don’t fuck with me!” He laughs. “Not you, for God’s sake. I treated you right. I think you’re the only one who can say that. I was faithful. I just flirted in the DMs with a few girls and that’s it… Don’t look at me like that! I treated you like a queen!”
“And I treated you like a king.”
“I wasn’t complaining.”
It’s true. He never complained. We both treated each other well, we took care of each other, we worried about each other… It made sense. Even though we didn’t love each other. Neither of us went out of our way for each other, it’s worth pointing out, but that’s just how we were.
I’m getting really dizzy. Lying down isn’t a good idea. “You know your problem, Gus?” I say as I try to lurch up to sitting.
“Surprise me,” he sighs.
“You swallow everything down, and in the end, that means you can’t see past your own belly button and the tangled web of feelings you must have down there.” I point at his chest. “Half of them must be rotten, fermenting.”
“Fuck, Coco.” He nods. “You don’t sound that wasted.”
“I’m all better! When you give me a shower, I’ll be…fantastic!”
“You want me to give you a shower?”
It sounds like he’s a little too into that idea. “If you tell me what happened, I’ll let you give me a shower.”
“That sounds suspiciously like prostituting yourself for information.”
“Who said anything about sex?”
“Meh.” He takes another sip of his beer. “Nothing really happened to me. I just got kinda bummed, you’re right, but I was bummed for no reason.”
“Right…”
“I mean… Look, listen, the thing with Marín… It’s stupid. I’m sure he—”
“Wait, he was gonna call me when he came back,” I suddenly remember.
“See?”
“No. You’re not listening. He was going to call me when he came back from dropping Aroa off. It was supposed to be ten minutes.”
“Why don’t you call him?”
I don’t answer. I curl up in a ball, staring at the wall, like he was a few minutes ago.
I turn back to Gus. “They’re hiding something from me, you know? They’re hiding something, and that’s why they left together. He’s playing me, Gus. What if he’s playing me?”
“Marín isn’t like me,” he says in a thread of a voice.
“You didn’t play me.”
“Not you, no. You’re the only one.”
“He’s playing with me, Gus. Maybe he doesn’t know it yet, maybe he doesn’t even realize, but…”
“All this just because you saw them hugging?” He sighs, “Come on, Coco…”
“It was a just a hug and a bad, sloppy, drunk reaction from me…until I saw the time.” I look at my phone again. “It must have been an hour at this point, Gus.”
“Not quite.”
“What have they been doing all this time?”
“You think they’re fucking?”
Gus’s question catches me off guard, even though it’s the most logical answer to mine. Thick saliva swirls in my throat. I need more water. I stand up, but he predicts what I want, puts a hand on my shoulder, pushes me back down, and goes over to the mini-fridge himself.
I’m looking right at him when he throws the mini-bottle my way, but it thuds into my lap without me even trying to catch it.
It’s not lack of coordination from the alcohol—I’m picturing them together.
Exactly how I heard them a thousand times.
Right there, Marín, keep going… Right there, don’t stop.
And Marín’s moans couldn’t be heard. They just made everything shake… the wall, the paintings, even my chest.
“Hey.” Gus clicks his fingers in front of my face. “You okay?”
I struggle to my feet and stumble into him as he jumps to catch me. All I want to do is cry and sleep and be done with being this drunk and this whole trip. Gus doesn’t understand. How could he?
“They’re not fucking, Coco. Get a grip.”
I grab my phone and show it to him. Gus looks at me with a furrowed brow.
“I’m gonna call him,” I say.
“Sounds good to me.”
“Are you sad, Gus?”
“You’re being super weird, Coco,” he moans. “Not like you haven’t always been weird, but…”
“Gus.” I grab his shoulders and hug him. I feel so empty, so alone. “Just answer me. Are you sad? Tell me.”
He looks at me. He looks at me, and his brown eyes are shining. Is he sad? All you have to do is look at him. Sad, deserted, abandoned.
“You are,” I say.
“Empty,” he mutters.
The call starts ringing, with the phone on speaker. Gus looks at me.
“I hate that you feel empty. You’re not,” I say.
“I am because I force myself to be empty, Coco.”
“Why?”
“How can I not? I’m terrified of actually living. I’m a bottomless well of disappointment for everyone around me.”
“That’s not true. Stop thinking like that.
” I’m suddenly angry. Marín’s not answering, Gus doesn’t love himself like he should, I’m an idiot.
I’m pissed off, and I punch him in the arm.
“You’re worth more than all that shit you say.
Tell me, what can I do to make you believe it? What can I do to make you feel better?”