So Much to Learn

by Jessie L. Star

  ~*~

  Wow!

  Life sure was a lot easier when you were a sluttishly dressed stranger with a steely glint in your eye. People in packed bars moved for you, stools were suddenly free and rarely did you have to pay for your own drinks. I didn't shrink into corners as I might have done in the past, I deliberately placed myself where everyone could see me and guys seemed to flock. It was fascinating to realise that any girl can basically pick up a guy if she wanted, but also fascinating was wondering who the hell would want these guys? Short skirt, low cut top and alone seem to be the three criterion most attractive to sleazy try-hards but they didn't bother me that night. In fact it began to be fun inventing cutting put downs for the worst ones or harmlessly flirting with the least creepy ones.

  There was that sense of power again, strong and intoxicating…about as strong and intoxicating as the drinks I was downing as if the Prime Minister was suddenly about to announce a prohibition.

  Several hours later and almost as many bars down I found myself in the uni bar still in dazzling form and holding court over six or so guys who I had collected as I had bar hopped all over town. We were all talking and laughing loudly and, for the first time in a long time, the combination of alcohol and lavish attention from my new friends was making me feel invincible.

  I did wonder, as the drinks kept magically materialising, whether I was perhaps getting a little too drunk but, in one of those catch 22 situations, I was too drunk to worry about it.

  By about midnight I was properly sloshed; all cognitive ability had completely fled. So, apparently, had my ability to stand as, when I got off my stool to go to the loo, I fell straight to the floor with a loud shriek of surprise. Legs akimbo and with a faint throbbing of my tail bone from my ungraceful descent I howled with laughter and heard all my new friends join in.

  "Whoops!" I slurred, trying to get up and finding that my legs buckled underneath me once more. "Help me!" I reached my arms up and waited for someone to lend me a hand.

  I didn't have to wait long as, the next moment, strong hands gripped mine and I found myself being hauled to my feet. As I staggered on my tottering legs and high heels, a strong arm grabbed me around the waist, holding me upright. For one blinding, hopeful second I thought that Jack had come to find me, but as I further inspected the arm that was holding me, I realised, through my foggy brain, that the skin was too fair and the arm hair too light. It was, therefore, only a little surprise when I looked up at my rescuer and saw Adam's anxious face looking back at me.

  "Adam!" I squealed enthusiastically throwing my arms around his neck. "Look everyone," I pulled away and looked round at all the faces which were becoming a bit of a blur, "it's my friend Adam!"

  "Talia, are you OK?" Adam asked, sending my new friends what I considered a rather unnecessarily cross look.

  "Fine!" Everything I'd said for the past hour or so had needed exclamation marks.

  "Really?" Adam's voice was very sceptical. "How about we get you home now anyway? Just in case you're not as fine as you think you are. Is that your bag?" He pointed towards my little bag which was sitting on the bar and I nodded before deciding that nodding was a bad idea as a strange whooshing filled my head when I did.

  "Yep thash mine," I agreed drunkenly, "but I don't wanna go yet."

  "Yeah," the gang around me agreed.

  "Let her stay for a bit longer," someone called out.

  "Who are you? Her father?" Someone else sniggered.

  I smiled at my supporters, thinking what a great bunch of people I'd met that night. All my friends seemed grouchy and boring compared to this lot. All what friends though? The tiny rational part left of my brain asked. Simone isn't talking to you and all your other close friends are firstly friends of Matt and Jack's.

  I looked up at Adam again and tears filled my eyes as I croaked out, "You're my only friend, Adam."

  "Don't be daft," he said, reaching over and grabbing my bag. "You've got lots of friends, but I think it's time we left these ones and went home, don't you?"

  "Noooo!" My bar mates and I howled, but Adam had hold of me tightly and was helping me through the mass of people in the bar before the last vowel had left my mouth.

  One of my stronger admirers, who had been with me since the second bar I'd visited, protested further and got off his stool to come after us but I saw Adam send him such a withering glare that he shrugged and held up his hands in surrender. We paused for a moment on our way outside as Adam told some people, presumably the ones he’d originally gone to the bar with, that he was going home. I waved cheerily at them so Adam's friends wouldn't think me rude and the next second we were off again, Adam virtually carrying me.

  Once we got outside into the car park the crisp air hit me hard on all the exposed bits of skin I had, which were quite numerous, and I shivered violently.

  "Are you going to be sick?" Adam asked anxiously, rearranging my arm to around his neck and his arm around my waist the better to support me.

  "Nope," I answered merrily, watching with some degree of interest as the asphalt passed along underneath me. I felt like I was floating.

  "Give it time," Adam said grimly.

  We reached his car with only one or two stumbles, and he propped me against the back door as he unlocked the front and basically bundled me into the passenger seat. Automatically I grabbed the seatbelt and attempted to slot the clip into the base, but for some reason, I couldn't get my aim right and I kept missing. I giggled weakly and shrugged, deciding that it was too much effort and I'd just do without a belt that trip. The next second, however, Adam reached over me and slotted the clasp closed seemingly effortlessly.

  "You're so smart," I breathed in admiration and I saw him roll his eyes slightly before going round the other side of the car and climbing into the drivers' seat. As he slid his key into the ignition he asked,

  "Will Matt or Jack be there to look after you when I drop you home?"

  "No!" The lovely floating feeling disappeared and I suddenly felt panicked. "I don't want to go home. Can't I come to yoursh?"

  "Of course you can." Adam's tone was reassuring but also, understandably, a bit surprised. Thankfully, he didn't ask any more questions just then and I was able to concentrate fully on not letting the lights of the streetlamps flashing by or the rocking motion of the car make my brain hurt too much.

  Once at his flat Adam released me from the seatbelt and guided me expertly into his building, quickly depositing me on the couch that I'd slept on only that morning (or was it previous morning by now?) before padding into the kitchen and pouring me a large glass of water. I grinned inanely at him as he sat down beside me and steadied my hands around the glass. Although I wasn't very thirsty (after all I'd been drinking all night) I obediently started gulping down the water as he was looking at me with quite a concerned look on his face.

  "You've only taken alcohol tonight, right?" He asked as I took my last swallow. "I don't need to take you down to the hospital to get your stomach pumped or anything, do I?"

  There was enough lightness in his tone to show that he was half joking but that still meant that he was just as much serious. It took me a few moments, as I clumsily put the glass down on his coffee table, to realise what he meant, but when understanding finally dawned, I felt a bit cross that he felt he needed to ask me that.

  "No, I'm not scchhhtupid!" I protested, wishing that 's' sounds weren't so darn difficult to pronounce.

  "I didn't say you were," he responded mildly and I instantly forgave him. Snuggling closer to him on the couch, I rested my head on his shoulder, feeling a twinge of wrongness about it as I did so, but in my heavily inebriated state, unable to pinpoint exactly why that was.

  We stayed like that for a long while, neither of us saying anything, the low hum of the fridge the only noise in the room. My thoughts bounced around like a squash ball in the middle of a frenetic game which was quite appropriate because my head was beginning to feel like someone was playing squash inside it. S
till, in a rare drunken flash of insight, I knew that the thumpings I was experiencing in my head then were nothing compared to how it would feel tomorrow. I brushed thoughts of the next day aside quickly. I wasn't prepared to face that just yet, it was better to live in the present and in the present I was sharing a nice moment with Adam, a guy who had proved to be a most brilliant friend.

  "I like you, Adam," I mumbled and I could hear the small smile in his voice as he replied,

  "I like you too."

  Suddenly, and seemingly without any prelude or warning, I found myself wondering what it would be like to kiss him. He was a nice guy after all and I genuinely, drunk or not, cared about and liked him a lot. Did the lessons I'd had with Jack mean that I wouldn't experience any of my customary awkwardness? Would I get the tingles same as I did when I kissed Jack? Were my feelings when I was with Jack not as unique as I thought they were? Well, there was one way to find out.

  I decided to go for it, lifting my head and reaching a hand up to cup Adam's face. He looked down at me in astonishment and I saw a wary look enter his eyes.

  "Talia, what-?" He began but I cut him off in the next second by yanking his face down and crushing my mouth against his.

  His lips were smaller than Jack's, that I realised off the bat, and my face didn't fit quite so well against his. Also, his nose was much larger and pushed against my cheek awkwardly as I tried to summon up some passion and enthusiasm for what I was doing.

  More obvious than the physical differences, however, were the feelings, or rather lack of feelings, I felt inside as my lips moved against his. Apart from all the alcohol and water sloshing around inside me I felt hollow. No butterflies, no tingles, no rapid heartbeats, no explosion of giddiness…I felt nothing.

  Oh no, wait! Hang on a minute! Suddenly I did feel a great swell of emotion which dredged up every last residue of passion and feeling I had left inside me and exploded painfully in my head and chest. But it was far from positive.

  Ripping my lips from Adam's I just managed to bury my face against his chest before I let out the great howl of misery that I hadn't been able to release back at the flat earlier in the afternoon. My wretchedness was all consuming and I started to sob my heart out, freeing a whole bucket load of fat, salty tears out onto Adam's shirt and unabashedly making loud bawling noises which were something akin to the sound you hear when someone accidentally treads on a cat’s tail.

  Poor Adam!

  To his credit, after only a second's pause as he froze like a rabbit caught in headlights, he patted my back and made awkward hushing noises to try and console me. It was incredibly nice of him, but unfortunately, completely useless as I was well beyond consolable by that point.

  I wanted my mum, I wanted my dad, I wanted my brother, but more than that, more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life, I wanted Jack and it ripped me apart knowing that it was my own fault that I couldn't have him.

  I would reckon over an hour passed as I rode wave upon wave of misery. Just when I thought I was coming down on one I'd get picked up by another and flung back into the deep end. Eventually, however, even my deepest well of melancholy dried up, but feeling absolutely and thoroughly wrung out and drained, I remained flopped soggily against Adam for several minutes after the sobs had subsided. It wasn't just that I was so exhausted that I was loathe to move, there was the added horror of having to look Adam in the face once I lifted myself off him. Poor boy must have had a coronary as a drunk nutcase threw herself at him and kissed him before pinning him to the couch as she soaked his shirt right through with tears and deafened him with howls.

  I couldn't stay where I was forever though so, in due course, I peeled my red, puffy face off his chest and sat back, my vision still a little blurred behind a film of tears. Clasping my hands tightly together in my lap and staring down at them I cleared my throat, raw from my sobs, and said croakily, "I cannot even begin to say how sorry I am about that." It seemed like the tears I had been crying had contained a whole lot of the alcohol I'd consumed throughout the evening as the 's' sounds were no problem to me that time and all the bubbly, carefree feelings had, needless to say, fled long ago.

  "No problem." Adam's voice was, disturbingly, as light and good-humoured as it always was. "My mum always says it's better out than in."

  "Perhaps," I said slowly, looking up at him to see if he really was as cool as he sounded or whether he just had really good control of his voice, "but I shouldn't have got it 'out' all over your shirt."

  Adam pulled at the patch of wet, now almost completely see-through, shirt and I winced as it made a sucking sound as it came away. "Ah well," Adam gave a little shrug and rueful grin, "it needed a wash anyway."

  I gave a little laugh which came out as a sort of bubbly choke as there were still a lot of liquids swirling around my nose and throat. "You are beyond fantastic," I said fervently. And I meant it, despite my predilection to make emotional statements like that while under the influence. How many guys do you know who would handle a clearly hysterical girl that well? I could only think of one and there are no prizes for guessing who I mean.

  "But I've been a real bitch to you as well and I'm so sorry," I continued. "I shouldn't have kissed you like that especially after what you said to me in the café about you and me…" I trailed off uncomfortably, but Adam just nodded to show he knew what I was talking about. "And also especially after you rescued me from the bar because I get now that that was what you did, God knows how much I could've drunk and what could've happened if you hadn't come along. So, yeah, if you’re really pissed off at me don't feel alone, there's a whole bunch of people I've hacked off this year who I'm sure would welcome you into their fold with open arms."

  Careful, a voice inside me warned, that last bit smacked of bitterness. That and my rambling sentences were reminders that despite the improvements in my speech I was still more than a little drunk.

  "Don't beat yourself up about it. It's all cool." Adam's voice was gentler than I’d ever heard it and distracted me from thoughts of exactly how long it was going to take before I sobered up and really had to face the consequences of my actions. I looked at him uncertainly, could it really be that easy? Correctly interpreting my disbelief he gave a little laugh and added, "I'm not saying that it's done my ego any good having a girl I liked kiss me and then burst into tears, but I'll get over it."

  Liked. Past tense. Excellent!

  "Still," I checked one last time, "if there's anything I can do to try and make it up to you…"

  "I tell you what," Adam grabbed my glass, got up off the couch and headed towards the kitchen, "how about we try to head off your hangover as best we can while you tell me what the hell all that crying was about. It can't possibly be because I'm that bad a kisser can it?"

  "Totally unrelated," I assured him with a smile as he came back over to the couch and passed me the now refilled glass of water.

  Then I told him everything because there really was nothing to hide anymore. And, although mine and Jack's secret coming out had virtually destroyed both of us, a small part of me sighed in relief at the lies finally being over.