Page 104 of When Stars Collide
The table cleared, leaving Alex and I trailing behind. “I’m not drunk enough for all this,” Alex said.
“That makes two of us, except you will be soon enough, while I will unfortunately not be at all.”
More shots were passed around as the evening wore on, but I found it easier to hide the fact that I wasn’t imbibing right along with the rest of the party when everyone else’s level of inebriation began to rise. Kirsten dropped first, bumping into me on the dance floor, causing me to almost lose my footing a time or two.
“I’m sssssoooo schlorry,” she said, grabbing onto my arm as she spoke.
“Nothing to be schlorry about.”
“You’re really drunk. You’re slurring your words.” She giggled, stumbling over her own two feet.
“Yes, I am totally wasted.”
By the time we reached the last bar of the evening, Alex was smiling, dancing alongside Elle on the dance floor with a drink in hand. Seeing the two of them next to each other, their resemblance was astounding, like I was looking at two Elle’s with only subtle differences between them. One of those differences was highlighted when the strobe light hit Elle’s face. At this point in the evening, she should at least look like she was trying to have a good time, but her expression was stoic. The corners of her lips tugged upward by only millimeters when Vera brought Walter over to dance with her. With her forced smile, she took the inflatable cowboy and proceeded to slow dance with him. Every once in a while, especially when she thought the others were paying attention, she would take a drink from her glass and sway to the music, laughing along with whomever was next to her.
“Here,” Violet handed me a shot of something green in color from a tray in her hand. “Some dude at the bar bought us all one.”
“Why don’t you go ahead and take mine. I’ve had plenty to drink tonight already.”
Violet’s eyes widened, and she quickly downed two shots from the tray, instead of the one in my hand. “You know, I thought you’d be a crazy drunk,” she said, swaying back and forth a bit. “But you’re really calm. Zen-like, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s me. The picture of serenity. Such is the magic of alcohol.”
“What’s going on over here with you girls?” Elle asked, a slur to her speech.
Not to be outdone, I feigned stumbling forward a couple steps when Elle rested her arm on my shoulder, deliberately taking a drink from my own glass once I regained my footing. “Primrose and I were just discussing what an amazing drunk I am.”
“She’s so great, Elle,” Violet said, her face contorting as she began laughing for absolutely no reason. “The three of us need to hang out more often. Oh …” She moved forward, catching the tray of drinks balancing precariously in her hand right as they were on the verge of toppling over. “We should do a girls’ trip to New York sometime.”
“Sounds wonderful.What do you say, Elle?” I plucked one of the green shots from the tray and handed it to her. “Drink to that?”
Elle took a whiff of the shot, her face turning its own shade of green. “Here,” she said, placing the glass back on the tray while shoving the other drink she was holding into my free hand. Confused, Violet and I watched her run impressively fast and steady in heels to the back of the bar.
I smelled Elle’s drink and put the glass to my lips to take a sip. Soda. It was nothing but soda.
“She must really have to pee.”
“Oh, Daffodil, bless your heart.” I placed the glasses in my hand on Violet’s tray and headed in the direction Elle had gone.
The crowd was sparse near the back of the bar, and even more sparse in the bathroom where I surmised Elle must have gone. In fact, it was completely empty, save for one stall containing someone who was unmistakably puking her guts out.
“Elle? Are you okay?” I asked.
The toilet flushed and an abnormally lengthy amount of time passed before she emerged from the stall no worse for wear. “I’m good,” she answered, heading over to the sink to wash her hands and check her makeup. “You know me, never one to handle her liquor.”
“Yeah, about that …”
“Elle, we gotta head on out of here.” Vera and Kirsten burst through the door. “Come on, the party bus is here. Choo choo!”
“You realize that choo choo is the sound a train makes, right?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Both Kirsten and Vera cracked up.
“Let’s go, ladies,” Elle answered them, walking right past me as she threw away her paper towel in a nearby receptacle. “The night is young.”
I’d seen this side of Elle before; secretive, even a little cold. It was the way she’d acted right before she broke up with Luke and withdrew from Cogsworth—the day after we’d fought in our dorm. We didn’t speak for months afterwards, and our friendship had nearly been destroyed because of it. Nervous, I knew I needed to talk to her before whatever was going on erupted into something much worse. The sooner the better. Unfortunately, fate stepped on my toes when we boarded the party bus and I was stuck seated between Violet and Kirsten, with Elle seated near the front next to Candy.
“Okay, ladies.” Candy stood up to make her announcement. “I just want to thank you all for coming out tonight. I hope you all had a good time—” A knock appeared on the door, and a confused Candy got up to answer it. “Anyone expecting someone? Did we forget somebody?”When Candy opened the door, a police officer stepped onto the bus.
