I carefully lowered myself onto the passenger seat, trying not to jostle the few brain cells I had left while Peyton positioned herself on the driver’s side. She slid on her oversized sunglasses and sighed in relief – even though it was barely light enough to see without headlights.
When we arrived home we crept silently up the stairs and closed our bedroom doors behind us. I stripped out of the T-shirt and shorts, not wanting them touching my skin a second longer, and tossed them in the trash before slipping on a pair of boxers and a tank top. I pulled the covers over my head and passed out.
‘Emma?’ Peyton beckoned softly. I was jarred slightly when she sat down next to me. ‘Are you alive?’
‘No,’ I grumbled from under my blankets. ‘I was hoping for death.’ I pulled the blankets tighter around my head. ‘Drinking sucks.’
Peyton chuckled. ‘The way you drank does. It’s almost noon. Let’s get breakfast. It will make you feel better.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I griped without moving. ‘I think a decapitation is the only thing that will make me feel better.’
‘Grease is a hangover miracle cure,’ she promised.
I peeked out from under the blankets. Peyton’s hair was a tangled mess, and her puffy eyes were smeared with mascara. I could only imagine what I looked like. Glancing in the mirror above my dresser, I ran my fingers over the nest that was once my hair and wiped the black streaks under my bloodshot eyes. My mouth was pasty with the lingering taste of something putrid.
‘Let me take a shower first,’ I conceded.
Peyton stood up and headed towards the door. ‘I need one too. I’ll meet you downstairs when we’re done.’
I grabbed random clothes from my drawers and faltered blindly towards the bathroom, unable to open my eyes beyond a squint. I turned on the water until it was almost scalding and stood under the cleansing streams. The night was slowly coming back to me as the water pelted my skin, turning it red.
You’re fucking disgusting. Carol’s hateful voice rang through my head. With my eyes clenched tight, I forced her away and scrubbed harder.
I tried to scour away the feel of his hands on my body and the taste of his tongue in my mouth. When I turned off the water, I was still repulsed with myself.
After dressing in jeans and an oversized grey hoodie, I tucked my hair under a baseball hat and found Peyton slumped on the couch. She stood up, and just as we turned towards the door, Meg walked in. She looked tired, but not near death like we did.
Her eyes flipped from Peyton to me, and then back to Peyton.
‘You got her drunk,’ Meg accused.
‘She did that all on her own,’ Peyton countered. ‘We’re getting breakfast. Wanna come?’
I lowered my head in avoidance. I could still feel Meg looking at me when she answered, ‘Sure.’
‘Good.’ Peyton held up her keys. ‘Then you can drive.’
A line awaited us when we pulled into the parking lot of the local breakfast spot. The busy restaurant was occupied by a mosaic of pale faces, trying to piece together their New Year. Thankfully, the line progressed quickly, and we slid into a booth fifteen minutes later.
Meg studied me from across the booth and shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you drank. I mean, you never drink. What happened?’
I shrugged and mumbled, ‘Pandora.’ As Meg’s eyes dipped in sympathy, I redirected my attention out the window.
‘What does music have to do with getting drunk?’ Peyton questioned, not understanding my reference. ‘Do you mean the musician you hooked up with last night? Were you trying to be cryptic or something?’
‘Wait. You slept with someone?!’ Meg’s voice rose, drawing the attention of a couple of guys walking by. I sunk into the booth, pulling my hat over my eyes when I heard them chuckle.
‘Meg!’ Peyton said sternly. ‘Why don’t you just announce it to the whole diner?’
‘Sorry,’ Meg grimaced. ‘But I –’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I interrupted firmly. They both opened their mouths, and then closed them again. Our food arrived, thankfully, allowing us something to do other than dwell on my drunken indiscretion.
‘Where did you end up, Peyton?’ Meg interrogated.
‘On Tom’s couch,’ she stated. ‘Alone. He disappeared around three, and I couldn’t find Emma, so I fell asleep on his couch.’
Meg filled us in on her night as we ate our bacon and egg sandwiches – it wasn’t nearly as eventful. And, as it turns out, grease really does have miraculous effects. At least my body felt one step closer to rejoining the human race when we left the diner.
My phone rang as we reached the front steps. I knew what was about to happen, and I wasn’t ready. I took a deep breath and answered the phone anyway. ‘Hi, Sara.’
‘Happy New Year!’ she bellowed. I winced and pulled the phone away from my ear.
‘Not so loud,’ I begged.
‘Uh, okay,’ she replied in confusion. ‘Wait. Did you go out last night?’
‘Yeah,’ I answered softly. ‘But I’m not talking about it.’
Sara was quiet for a moment. ‘Does Meg know?’
I sat down on the couch and rested the back of my head against the cushion. ‘Yes.’
‘Can I ask her about it?’ she requested cautiously.
I paused and swallowed hard. ‘As long as you promise we’ll never have to talk about it.’
I could hear her thinking on the other end of the phone. ‘I promise.’ She hung up on me, and within thirty seconds Meg’s phone rang. She shot a glance at me from the other end of the couch.
‘Sara wants to know what happened to me last night, and I told her I wasn’t talking about it.’
‘But I can tell her, right?’ she confirmed.
‘Not in front of me.’
Meg stood and began to climb the stairs as she answered her phone. ‘Hi, Sara.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Peyton called after her, taking two steps at a time. She was obviously feeling better.
I chased two aspirin with a Vitaminwater and remained on the couch, watching movies all afternoon.
I slunk away to my room in the early evening, leaving the girls with some horror movie that I really had no interest in. Sleep and I had taken way too long to finally find each other, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that with a movie.
Someone knocked lightly on my door. ‘Come in,’ I answered.
Meg poked her head in. ‘Hey.’ She sat at the end of my bed. ‘Still feel like shit?’
‘Tell me it goes away,’ I begged, my eyes closed.
‘You’ll be better tomorrow,’ she assured me. ‘Peyton told me how much you had to drink, or what she saw you drink anyway.’
I remained silent. Then she finally said it. ‘I know you don’t want to talk about it, and we won’t. I promise to never bring it up again. But before you drown in shame, know that everyone makes mistakes. And as far as I’m concerned, Ev–’
‘Don’t,’ I shot out before she could finish his name.
‘Sorry,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘I meant that it didn’t count. It was a mistake, and it doesn’t count.’
I’d never told Meg about my life in Weslyn. I didn’t explain why I almost never went out or why I refused to drink – or had, before last night. But I let Sara tell her when she came to visit after I’d moved into the house this past summer. She never mentioned what Sara had told her, but it helped her understand why I kept everyone at a distance. I trusted Meg.
I’d met her on the first day of soccer conditioning during our freshman year. She’d flown in from Pennsylvania, so we were both transplants. Meg accepted my withdrawn demeanour, and instinctively felt the urge to look out for me. This reminded me of Sara, and we bonded instantly.
Over the season, we found Peyton gravitating towards us. Truth be told, Peyton gravitated towards everyone. She was in your face and refused to be ignored. People either hated her or loved her, and she couldn’t care less either
way. I think her brazen attitude is what made me like having her around.
And then there was Serena. She was from California, as was Peyton, and she was currently spending winter break with her family. But when she was with us, she completed our mismatched quad perfectly. Serena was genuinely the kindest person I’d ever met, but it was laced with a straightforward attitude that would tell a priest where to go if he crossed her. I responded to her cutting-edge Goth lifestyle with equal measures of intrigue and respect.
As much as I was grateful for Peyton’s and Serena’s patience with me and acceptance of who I was (although Peyton did have moments of being a little too … well, Peyton), it was Meg who I trusted with the truth about a past that we’d never actually talked about. Meg became my voice of reason, vying to keep me sane. When I was tiptoeing along the edge, Meg was there to make sure I didn’t fall over.
So when she told me that my one-night stand could be erased, I wanted to accept her assurance and swallow it whole, letting it salve the guilt like an antacid. But I knew there was no use in trying – everything had begun to crumble the moment she opened that box. My shameful encounter was just one more destructive choice I’d made that couldn’t be undone.
3
New Year, New Experiences
CLASSES FOR THE NEXT QUARTER BEGAN the following week, allowing me to continue into the new year consumed with books, lectures and studying. Everything seemed back to how it had always been. But it really wasn’t the same, and I knew it.
Meg and I drove to school together. Since we were both angling for acceptance into the School of Medicine, we shared several classes, but while she was gearing towards the hospitals, I was seeking refuge in the labs.
Peyton flitted through the house as usual, not knocking when she entered the bathroom or bedrooms. She wasn’t bothered by what she could be potentially walking in on – except with Serena, the only one of us with a boyfriend. Serena had little tolerance for Peyton’s invasion of privacy – not to mention that Peyton annoyed the hell out of her.
‘Okay, listen.’ Peyton approached me while I was in the kitchen making a sandwich before heading to the soccer field with Meg. ‘I know the party a few weeks ago was a bit of a disaster, but I think you should go out with me again. I promise to keep a better eye on you and help you gauge your level of drunkenness.’
I laughed at her absurd proposal. ‘Peyton, the drinking was a one-time thing. I’m all set, thanks.’
‘Em,’ she implored passionately, ‘you had one bad night. It doesn’t mean that you should give up your entire social life. We’re in college. This is the time when we discover who we are … and flirt with our tolerance for alcohol. I swear to you, there is a way to have a few drinks and not end up in some random guy’s bed.’
I whipped around and threw a piece of bread at her. ‘Shut the fuck up, Peyton.’
She deflected the bread to the floor. ‘Sorry. Really, that was stupid. I’m sorry,’ she grovelled. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’ Before she walked away, she begged, ‘Will you at least think about it?’
‘Fine,’ I responded impatiently, just wanting her to stop. ‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Great! There’s a party this Saturday,’ she chirped, and whipped around before I could object.
‘You’re going to that party at College Green?’ Meg questioned as she rounded the corner, a soccer ball tucked under her arm.
‘I’m not –’
‘You’re going too, right?’ Peyton interjected before I could finish.
‘I guess so.’ Meg shrugged, then looked to me. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll have fun.’
I blew out a defeated breath. ‘Okay,’ I caved.
Peyton produced a triumphant smile, and proceeded to bang on Serena’s door.
‘What?!’ Serena hollered from the other side.
‘Are you going to the party with us on Saturday? Emma’s coming too.’
Serena poked her head out and raised her eyebrows in my direction. ‘You are?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Okay. I’ll go,’ she replied and slammed her door in Peyton’s face.
‘Please tell me that’s not what you’re wearing.’ Peyton scowled at my worn jeans and faded concert T-shirt over a long-sleeved shirt.
‘You want me to go?’
She huffed before returning to the bathroom to finish her make-up while I went downstairs.
When I reached the bottom step, Serena walked through the front door with a paper bag in her arms, wearing form-fitting black pants, a black tank top under a cropped leather jacket, and black combat boots. Her short black pixie hair flipped out stylishly around her powder-white face. Dramatic liner framed her large brown eyes. Serena’s look was more than a style: it was a statement.
She returned from the kitchen with a beer in each hand and offered one to Meg, who was leaning over the coffee table, painting her nails.
‘I’m driving,’ Meg told her with a shake of her head. Serena eyed me and held out the bottle.
‘Umm, I can drive,’ I offered.
‘That’s okay,’ Meg said. ‘I don’t mind. Go ahead if you want to drink. You’re going with us, not just Peyton, so we’ll watch out for you.’
‘Hey!’ Peyton shouted down the stairs in offence.
I contemplated the bottle in Serena’s hand carefully. The first time I drank had nothing to do with the alcohol. And I never wanted to be that drunk again … ever.
‘Okay,’ I agreed, taking the bottle. Meg flipped her eyes to me in surprise. But she went back to painting, trying to appear unfazed by my decision.
Serena acted like we drank together all the time. But then again, Serena was pretty accepting of just about everyone and everything, taking all that came her way without blinking. I’d yet to witness anything that surprised her.
I took a sip and grimaced. Yeah, I didn’t like beer. ‘This tastes horrible.’
Serena grinned. ‘It’s an acquired taste.’
‘Why would anyone want to acquire a taste for something that tastes like ass?’ I scrunched my nose in disgust.
Serena laughed. ‘I’ll make you a drink,’ she said before disappearing into the kitchen.
‘I’ll drink your beer,’ Peyton declared, appearing at the bottom of the stairs. Her shiny golden hair hung down her back, not a single strand out of place. She was very mindful of her appearance, intently assembling herself from her shiny pink lips to her polished toes. She’d never let anyone other than us see her less than picture-perfect. Just thinking about what she had to go through to keep this up exhausted me.
‘You’ll drink anything,’ Meg teased, twisting the top on the polish. ‘I think you’ve probably tried just about everything there is.’
‘Funny,’ Peyton sneered, tipping the bottle back into her mouth.
‘Here, try this.’ Serena handed me a glass with red liquid in it. My stomach instinctively clenched. Noticing my cringe, she assured me, ‘It’s cranberry and vodka. I made it pretty weak too.’
I accepted the drink and took a sip. It tasted mostly of cranberry with a hint of something else. ‘Thanks.’
While Meg finished getting ready in the upstairs bathroom, we sat in the living room – drinking. Something I quite honestly never thought I’d ever do.
Was I supposed to keep holding the glass, or set it on the coffee table? I watched Serena and opted to hold it. I took a sip, not wanting to drink too fast. I knew I was being paranoid; I just needed to relax already.
‘So, where’s James tonight?’ I asked Serena, needing to distract myself from internally freaking out.
‘He’s working,’ Serena replied, finishing her beer and getting up. ‘Peyton, you ready for another?’
James was a bouncer at one of the clubs that showcased local rock talent. With his shaved head, his broad frame and the tattoo on the back of his skull, he fit the persona. On the other hand, he was a dedicated student at Stanford, pursuing an education degree. The thought of James reshaping the minds o
f adolescents always made me smile.
‘Sure,’ Peyton called.
I’d barely finished half the glass, and they were already on their second. Maybe I was drinking too slow. Or maybe I just needed to get a grip and stop obsessing.
‘There’s a great show coming up in a few weeks,’ Serena informed me. She handed Peyton another beer.
Serena was my direct line to the best shows in the area. I was thankful to have a room-mate who understood my need for fast beats and heavy guitar. Meg and Peyton didn’t appreciate the genre, preferring head-bopping or hip-swaying music, although I’d recently taken Meg to a few shows, with encouraging results.
‘Let me know when, and I’ll check if I have tests or anything due.’ I took another sip.
‘Em, you spent all break reading the upcoming assignments for the next month,’ she accused. ‘You’ll be fine regardless. It won’t be a late night.’
‘Ready to go?’ Meg announced, bounding down the stairs with her spiralling auburn curls bouncing around her. We finished off our drinks and followed her out the door.
It was obvious when we’d arrived at the party, because there was nowhere to park. After circling the block a few times, we were finally able to creep into a spot as another car pulled away. We followed a small group of people through a gated archway into a courtyard.
Meg nudged me playfully. ‘There’s a pool.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ Peyton threatened.
‘Relax, Peyton,’ Meg snapped. ‘We wouldn’t do that here.’
I smirked.
Two floors of apartments wrapped around an inner courtyard. People were mingling on the balconies and throughout the central area. A half dozen apartment doors were open to grant access and a sound system was set up in the open space, blaring the most recent hip hop music.
‘We need drinks!’ Peyton announced, raising her hands in the air and moving her hips to the beat.
We followed her form-fitting green sweater through the crowd. She turned heads as she wiggled by, but she was too focused on her mission to take notice.
Out of Breath (The Breathing Series #3) Page 3