“Yeah?” I knew he was lying, just
trying to make me feel better. He wasn’t going to miss the last big party of
the year. Not even for me. “You could join me and Lukas in the library
tomorrow. I’m sure we’ll be studying late.”
“Is the library even open on
Saturday nights?”
“Until 11, yeah,” I said.
“I didn’t know that. You
gonna study for sociology?”
“Of course I am. Lukas has
Mr. Hernandez, too, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So we'll both be studying for
it.”
“Hmm.” Evan cracked his
knuckles, looked out the window. “Maybe I’ll stop by.”
“What are you two talking
about back there?” Melanie asked, turning her head toward us.
“Nothing,” Evan said. “Are we
there yet?”
“Yep, next street over!” Zach
shouted, and barely ten seconds passed before he pulled to the curb.
I stepped out of the car and
winced. This wasn’t some intimate gathering; this was a large-scale house
party, the same as all the others. Evan helped Melanie out of the car, and held
her hand as they walked toward the entrance. They were such a cute couple, so
complimentary to one another. I hated that about them.
Zach didn’t accompany me like
a gentleman, but ran past Evan and Melanie, and started jumping up and down,
like he was on fire. I wasn’t even to the front porch when I heard him scream
from the backyard, “LET’S GET THIS MOTHERFUCKER STARTED!”
Ugh. What an ass.
Melanie and Evan stayed close
to me for a minute or two, but that all changed when her sorority sisters
surrounded them and guided them toward the backyard.
I was thirsty, so I headed to
the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator, the cabinets. I searched through the
empty twelve-pack cases. They didn’t have soda. They didn’t even have bottled
water. I grabbed a plastic cup and ran the faucet. I didn’t like tap water, but
it was better than nothing.
“What are you having?” a familiar
voice said to my left.
I turned around. “Oh, hey!
Robert, right?” I took a sip of the water. It tasted safe, hopefully toxin-free.
The tall, ginger-haired sophomore
opened the fridge. “Yeah. And you’re Sydney.”
“That’s correct. Glad to know
someone
knows my name.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” I rested my back against
the counter. Watched as he perused the fridge. I hoped he was looking for soda,
too; it’d give us something to bond over. “How many classes have we had
together now?”
“Jeez, I don’t know. At least
three, right?” He grabbed a Fat Tire from the bottom shelf. “Ahh, here we are.”
“They don’t have a keg in the
back?”
“No, they do. It just tastes
like cat piss.” He tore off the cap and took a sip.
I thought he’d leave the
room; he got what he came in for. But he huddled up next to me, a pleasant
surprise. A communications major like me, Robert was five foot ten, pale white,
and super cute, with endless freckles, a thin pair of glasses, and a mop top of
dark red hair. He was also gay. At least, I assumed he was.
“Who’d you come here with?”
he asked.
“I was going to ask you the
same question.”
He tilted his head to the
left. “My friend Bradley. He always talks me into coming to these things. I’m
not much of a party guy.”
“I’m not either,” I said. “I
hate to admit it, but sometimes I prefer studying in a quiet room somewhere,
than going out and getting wasted.”
He narrowed his eyes, and
said, “Oh, I’d prefer this over studying.”
“You would?”
“Yeah. What I’d rather be
doing right now is laying out on my couch, naked, eating a big bowl of
chocolate chip ice cream, and watching
The
Walking Dead
. Now that's my idea of a good time.”
I laughed. “Naked? Really?”
“Sure. If it was warm
enough.”
I finished my glass of water,
then filled it up again. I leaned back and looked at Robert from head to toe.
Goofy red pants, long-sleeved collared shirt with little hearts decorated all
over it. He was so perfect for Lukas. They were both dorky, both wore glasses.
They even looked kind of alike.
“Would your friend Bradley be
joining you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. When you’re naked
on the couch.”
He leaned his head back. “Why
would he do that?”
I looked away from him, embarrassed.
I wanted to run to the backyard and hide under the biggest rock I could find. “Oh,
I'm sorry. I thought you were... you know...”
“What?
Gay
?”
“Yeah. I'm so sorry, I
just...”
He chuckled. “No, no. You're
right, I am. But Bradley's as straight as they come.”
I laughed real hard, and slugged
him softly on the shoulder. “You tricked me. I was gonna be so mortified!”
“Sorry. If I can ask... what
gives it away? The way I dress? The way I talk?”
The way he talked, for sure. But
I didn't want to tell him that, and make him feel self-conscious. “You just
have way too much style to be a straight guy, that's all.”
That answer seemed to do the
trick, as he scooted even closer to me and displayed an impeccable smile.
“Thanks. That's sweet of you to say.”
I leaned in closer to him,
too. “Say, you wouldn’t be interested in dating anyone, would you?”
He pursed his lips real wide
and goofy. “I don't know,” he said. “Maybe. Why, do you know someone?”
I smiled. “Actually, I—”
“Well, well, well…” a voice
said from the corner of the kitchen, the most ill-timed interruption of the
day, if not the week. It was Todd, of course. His eyes were focused on Robert,
not me. “Look who we have here.”
Robert stepped away from me,
and didn’t even say good-bye. “Uhh, hey Todd.”
He tried to walk to the front
door, but Todd blocked him. “Where do you think you’re going? All the fun’s out
back!” He put his arm around Robert and started guiding him down the hallway.
Todd glanced at me, and shot me an exaggerated smile, like a comic book
villain. “And Sydney, wow, what a surprise to see
you
here. Glad you’ve mellowed since this morning.”
I set my glass down, and went
out the side door; I didn’t want to follow his sorry ass. Barely anyone was in
the house any longer, so I figured something of interest had to be going on in
the backyard.
I emerged under the night
sky. Nope, there was nothing. Just drinks. Lots and lots of drinks.
“Sydney! There you are! You
disappeared!” Melanie ran up to me and hugged me tight, too tight. Was she
seriously already sloshed? “You’ve met my friends, right? This is Daisy, Kendra…”
The line of blonde cattle
walked up to me, then past me, to chat up someone they found more interesting.
“Yes, I believe so,” I said.
“Oh Steve! Hey Steve!”
Melanie waved frantically, nearly popping me in the face with her hands. “Sorry,
I have to say hi to somebody.”
“It's... not a problem.”
She ran over to the grass and
hugged three different guys. One passed around shots of tequila. I put my hands
against my hips and watched as Melanie downed one of the shots like it was
water, then grabbed another, and downed that, too.
“Woo hoo!” she shouted.
“Yeah! All
right
!”
I shook my head. “Oh,
Melanie. What the hell are you doing?”
I didn’t want to see her take
a fourth shot, or a tenth. I turned around, looked for Evan. He was chatting up
some frat guys, near music speakers that were blasting a loud rap song. I
turned the other way, and saw Todd and Zach standing over Robert as they made
him guzzle a gallon of beer. “Chug, chug, chug!” they shouted. Robert downed as
much of the alcohol as his slim body could take, then landed on his knees and
started throwing up in the bushes.
Zach immediately waved me
over. “Sydney, hey! You wanna go next?”
“Yeah!” Todd added. “It'll be
fun!”
Their obnoxious voices mixed
in with the defeaning music. I blinked a few times, as my head started to hurt.
I focused on Robert. Focused on helping him.
“Get away from me, you
jerks
!” I said, and pushed past Todd and
Zach. I helped Robert up to his feet. “Come on, I’m walking you home.”
“I’m not… I’m not feeling too
good…” Robert leaned forward, and blew chunks again, this time at my feet.
I stepped back, tried to
avoid the stench. But it got to me right away, and a nauseating dizziness took
hold of me.
“Oh no…” I said.
Zach and Todd walked toward
me. Reached their arms for my neck, like hungry zombies, or vampires, or both.
The music intensified. The stench worsened. Todd and Zach stopped right in
front of me.
The whole world started
spinning.
“No,” I said, too quiet,
under my breath. “Stay back... please... oh God...”
My knees hit the grass.
And everything went black.
Chapter 7
I came to. My head pounded. I
looked up at a dozen faces.
“Sydney, you okay?"
Melanie asked. “Evan, help her up.”
Evan pulled me to my feet,
his arms wrapped around my waist. He guided me through the house, out the front
door, his hands right above my ass. Under different circumstances, this might
have been more exciting.
“Kendra, give me your keys,” Melanie
said from inside the house.
I leaned up against the blue
Prius in the driveway. Brought my hand to my forehead, and breathed through my
nose. I tried to relax, but nothing worked.
“What happened?” Evan asked.
“I don’t know. I just… I
panicked.”
Robert appeared beside me. He
was deathly pale, but walking by himself. “I shouldn’t have had all those
shots...”
“Shots?” I said. “You mean, you
had more than the beer?”
He didn’t answer me. He sat in
the back seat, and rested his head against a pile of dirty clothes.
Evan pulled me away from the
car, opened the passenger door, and said, “Here, get in.”
I didn't budge. “Wait. You
haven’t had anything to drink, right?”
“I've had one beer. Why?”
I trusted him. More than
anyone. But I trusted James, too. And it almost killed me.
“You know what? I'll just
walk.”
“No, no, no,” Evan said. I stepped
toward the sidewalk, but he raced past me and blocked me with his chest. “I
don't think that's a good idea.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Get in the car, Syd,” he
said, firmly. “I'll talk to you later, okay?”
“All right. But please... drive
carefully.”
I walked around the back of
the car, and opened the passenger side door. A few people stared at me from the
porch of the house, but I ignored them, and took a seat.
I shut the door, rested my
head against the window. When I closed my eyes, I was finally able to relax. I wanted
to get home. I just wanted this night to be over.
The car pulled out of the
driveway.
“You doing okay back there,
Robert?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s
fine
.”
My jaw dropped. I almost
screamed. It wasn’t Evan’s voice to the left of me, but Melanie's.
“He’ll just want to chug a
ton of water when he gets home, that’s all,” Melanie added. She smiled at me.
“How are
you
feeling?”
“Stop,” I whispered.
“What?”
I pushed my head away from
the window. “Please stop the car.”
“What? Sydney, I can’t hear
you.”
She rolled through a stop
sign, then sped down the neighborhood street. The speed limit was 25. She had
to be going at least 40.
“I thought Evan was driving,”
I said.
“I told everyone I'd take you
home, don't worry about it,” she said, and tapped her hand against my knee. It
wasn't as special when Melanie did it.
“You shouldn’t be driving. I
saw you. I saw you take those tequila shots.”
“Don't worry. It's not like
I'm drunk or anything.”
“Melanie! Goddammit, slow
down.”
She sighed. “All right, all
right. Jesus.” She went from 40 to 30 in a matter of seconds. “Don’t be so
paranoid," she said, and shot me a condescending smile. "It's not
like anything's gonna happen—”
“Oh my God!” I pointed out
the windshield. A teenage boy skateboarded across the street.
“What?” she said, but I
didn’t wait for her to react. I leaned over, grabbed the wheel, and jerked the
car to the left.