CHAPTER 9: No Van Gogh

The pain in my nose numbed down a couple of vodka shots later. I didn't even remember how many I've had. Maybe somewhere between 5 and 20? Vague, I know. Could you blame me?

I was about to down another shot when it got snatched out of my hand.

"Hey!" I slurred, but my expression lightened when I saw a familiar Asian girl on the stool next to mine.

She was a hard contrast to the grimy bar that we were in. What with her baby face and childlike features, you'd never know she'd be in these types of clubs.

"Cassie!" I garbled, slinging an arm over her shoulders as she took the shot.

"You're drunk," she said, stating the obvious.

"So observant," I commented sarcastically, beckoning the barkeep for one more drink.

When the drink arrived, Cass quickly snatched it and gulped in down in one go.

"Fine, we can do this all night," I said, signaling for another glass, but Cassie caught my arm before I could.

"Trev, whatever it is that you're going through, alcohol isn't the solution," she said.

I chuckled. "Technically, alcohol is a solution."

She sighed. "What happened?" This time, she was the one who ordered the drinks.

I didn't speak up until I had a shot in my hand. "Louie found out," I said.

Her eyebrows shot up. "About you and--"

"London?" I cut her off. "Yup."

"Oh, boy."

"My sentiments exactly," I said, gulping down the devil drink. "Hey, wanna get out of here?"

Cassie easily caught on to the suggestion. Of course, she would. We've been playing this game for a while now. But she snickered at my suggestion, saying, "Alcohol might technically be solution but I don't think sex is."

"Why don't we try it and find out?" I proposed, twirling strands of her black hair on my fingers.

She leaned in closer. "Hey, Trevor?"

"Hmm?"

"Your inner fuckboy is showing," she whispered, pushing me back.

"Oh, come on, Cass," I whined. "Why you so uptight tonight?"

"I'm not," she replied. "But you're being an asshole."

"I'm always an asshole." I shrugged.

"Not always," she commented. "That is why I am taking you home. Come on."

She hopped down the barstool and tugged on my arm. Seeing the Asian girl's efforts to get me to stand, I humored her and stood up. Only, I stood up too fast with too much alcohol in my system.

My legs wobbled the moment I tried to take a step. And the next thing I knew, I was face plant on the floor.

How Cassidy got me home that evening, I didn't even know. But I woke up the next morning with one hell of a hangover and in my bedroom. There was a glass of water and a note on my bedside table.

"Fubus take care of each other," Cassie wrote with a winky face emoji at the bottom. I reached over grabbed a green notebook from my bottom drawer and held it up along with the note.

The cursive penmanship on Cassie's note was way different than the one in the diary. It was final. Cassidy Sijin-Franck wasn't the diary writer. But even though she wasn't the one, Cassie was still a special girl for me.

I sighed, sinking back on my bed, recalling what happened yesterday. Louie. London. Sage. The whole mess of it.

Then I realized how it was all because of this stupid diary that I had in my hand. The notebook had an artsy design on the skin. It looked so simple, so harmless. Yet, it was able to tear me and my best friend apart.

I know it's pathetic, blaming a notebook for a fight between Louie and me. I couldn't help it.

In a fit of rage, I hurled the notebook across the room. It hit the door with a thud and pieces of paper flew out of it. I paid no mind to them and got ready for school instead.

Our dad had already taken Lally to school so I got to use all the hot water in the shower. When the water hit my face, I winced. Only then did I realize that I had a pretty nasty cut on the bridge of my nose. Oh, well. Nothing a band-aid couldn't fix.

I toweled myself down before putting some clothes and slinging my backpack over my shoulders. I made sure that I took my shades, too. Couldn't risk getting blinded by the sun.

I walked up to my bedroom door and I almost forgot that the diary was lying there on the floor. Picking it up, I realized there was a secret pocket envelope on its jacket. I sighed. I gathered the pieces of paper that flew around and only then did I notice that they were drawings.

They were all pen sketches, no Van Gogh or anything. They were simple and all portraits. There were sketches of Bruno Mars, Matt Healy and Troye Sivan. Those were the only ones I identified. The others were portraits of a specific, unknown long-haired guy that the artist was so fond of drawing. They were good.

I scanned through the drawings until my eyes were caught by a specific one. It was me, half-asleep with my hair sticking out.

I flipped the sketch over and there was a caption written on the bottom left on the paper, all scrawled in small caps:

"a sketch from memory: the night innocence was lost
name of suspect: trevor s. jettison
wanted for: theft
what he stole: my virginity"

The mystery writer's an artist.

I've never been sketched before. Of course, this girl wrote the caption as if I were some criminal, but still. I smiled at the picture. Looking closer, I saw a mark on the bottom left corner of the drawing. It was like a cross attached to an arrow.

I figured it was the artist's insignia since all the other drawings had it, too.

I tucked the drawings in the diary's pocket again. As I skimmed through the pages, I stopped at one specific page. The diary writer had a very soft handwriting, but on that page, it darkened. And not just with the hue of the ink. The letters looked like they were engraved. I could feel the rage coming from them. And for the first time, I was relieved that the topic of the diary entry wasn't me.

"September 27, 2016"

"Soccer wasn't enough of an exhaust for all the shit I'm feeling right now. So, I'm writing it all down here, hoping that it'd be enough to vent me out empty.

Diego's leaving for Italy."

I paused. Diego. I checked the drawings again.  The guy with the long hair.  It was her ex.  My GPA was far from 4.0 but it wouldn't take a genius to realize that. But, for the sake of verifying, I read on.

"I got to hear about it from a friend! Un-fucking-believable!  The fact that he couldn't even tell me himself proves how little I mean to him.  I should have expected someone like that from him. 

He's running away.  He's a fucking coward, which is ironic because I used to think he was the bravest person I've ever met. Used to.  Now, if that phrase isn't the most disappointing combination of words in the English language, I don't know what is. I used to smile whenever I heard his name. I used to think he wouldn't leave me. I used to think he couldn't. Turns out he could. What's more disappointing? I used to believe he loved me."

In my head, the words were screaming, until word by word, they became whispers. I could picture the girl writing this. And I could see tears. And then I read the next sentence hit hard.

"Why am I so easy to leave behind?"

I could only stare at the page. I've never felt heartbreak before. And I'm thankful because it didn't seem like rainbows and sunshine from what she wrote. I shut the notebook. There was a weird sensation in my chest. It didn't feel good. Not even a bit.  

But no matter what I felt for the diary, or the girl, or the mess she'd gone through, I had to put the search on hold. I still had a friendship to fix.

Huge thanks to wherewithal- for the awesome sketch!

p.s. - prepare for some LouVor bromance in the next chapter. ^_~