by Nella Tyler
She sat down with us while I explained how I’d done my hair, and asked if we minded if she smoked. “I know it’s allowed in the club, but I try and check with whoever’s around me when I light up,” she explained. Her name was Marissa, and Ashley, Ty and I all said we were fine with her smoking.
“Have you ever been in here before?” I shook my head. “Oh man, this place is great. I’ve been coming since my eighteenth birthday, and I’m twenty-three now. Best place to come for a really chill night out—no one gets super drunk and rowdy or tries to start fights, and if they do, the bouncers have it under control in a minute.” Marissa started telling stories about her best nights at Ibiza, and I pretended to listen, nodding along with Ty and Ashley—who seemed more interested than I felt.
It wasn’t that Marissa’s stories were boring so much as it was that deep down, even though I had already started to feel better, I was still bothered by running into Dillon at Lucas’ party. I hadn’t even thought that Dillon could possibly have known anyone who went to the school I’d chosen; I hadn’t thought that I would ever have to worry about seeing him again.
It wasn’t that he had been abusive so much as it was that he’d been petty and kind of terrible to me in the last months that we’d been dating. So much so that—just like Ty said—I had worried that he’d been right, and that I was just too lazy, too stupid, too much of everything bad to ever succeed at anything. Dillon had been the person to convince me that cosmetology school was a waste of time; his reasons had alternated between the argument that the schools were all just schemes—that they charged money for lessons and gave useless certifications that no one could actually use—and that a cosmetology certificate, even if I could get a job with it, was somehow not good enough.
When I’d seen him at the party, practically groping the girl that he’d been dancing with, drunk and apparently happy, it had made something in my heart that I’d slowly started to heal open right back up. I felt all of the pains of what Dillon had drilled into my head about how the things I wanted in life were petty and stupid and shortsighted, and how I should be some kind of person I wasn’t. I had thought that I’d done well to get over him as quickly as I had, and that dating Ty was a sign that I was doing the right thing. But he looked so at ease at the party that I thought Dillon had probably moved on even faster than I had.
It’s not fair, I thought to myself, remembering the breakup and how Dillon had told me I’d never find anyone as good as he was. He’s supposed to be miserable. He’s supposed to be wishing that he’d never driven me away by being an asshole. He’s not supposed to be dancing with girls and having a good time and not even caring that I’ve moved on.
“You okay, Nicki?” I shook myself and realized that Ty had been watching me for a while; Marissa had left at some point, heading to the bar to refill her drink.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, smiling quickly. “Can we go back to dancing? I think I’m cooled off enough for now.”
“Sure!” Ty took my hand and helped me onto my feet, and we finished off his drink together before he, Ashley and I all walked the few steps over to the dance floor again. The DJ put on a song—I recognized it after a moment as an old Arctic Monkeys tune—and we started dancing together, jumping around and laughing.
I felt someone’s hands on my shoulders, and the next moment I staggered as someone shoved me away from Ty from behind. I managed to get my balance again and looked to see a woman—maybe twenty-two or twenty-three at the most—had her arms around my boyfriend. She had blonde hair with pink streaks in it, and her body was encased on a pleather corset and pants.
“I knew I’d see you in here again!” The woman was almost shrieking—she was loud enough that I could hear her from a couple of feet away where she’d shoved me. “They’re playing our song, Ty.” I nearly stumbled over my own feet again at the sounds of the words. “Oh man, I’ve missed you, babe.”
I watched with horror as the woman started grinding up against Ty, laughing and trying to kiss him. I shook my head, trying to understand what I was seeing. Ty gave the woman a little shove, but it wasn’t enough to quite get her fully off of him. He looked over and saw me and I shrugged. “Nicki…”
“I think Ashley and I are going to catch a ride home,” I said, glancing at my roommate. “You can—I’ll just leave you to this. We’ll get a Lyft or an Uber or something.” Before Ty could say anything about it, I’d grabbed Ashley’s hand and turned my back on him. I hurried out of the club as fast as I could, feeling nauseated, depressed, and confused.
Chapter Eight
“Kelsey—Nicole, wait!” I shoved at my ex-girlfriend and tried to go after Nicole and her roommate, so I could explain what was happening.
“She’s already gone, baby—come and dance with me.” The drunken slur in Kelsey’s voice was definitely too familiar. I turned to look at her, glaring at her in the flashing lights and darkness.
“Kelsey—Kelsey!” she tried to grab me, tried to grab at my shoulders, at my waist. I shoved her away, and looked around, even though I already knew that she was right. Ashley and Nicole were already out of the club. I grabbed at Kelsey’s groping hands and caught her at the wrist, dragging her away from the dance floor. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? I’m on a date—and we’ve been over for fucking ages.”
“Oh, please, babe; like that little baby could ever hold a candle to me,” Kelsey said, shaking her head. Her makeup was smudged all over her face, half of it sweated off, and she reeked of tequila. “Come on—I think I can get Danimal to play our song again.”
She leaned in closer to me and said in my ear, in what I think she thought was a stage-whisper, “I totally fucked his brains out after we broke up and now he thinks I’m just so fucking hot, he’ll do whatever I want.” My stomach gave a lurch inside of me and I cringed. Kelsey wasn’t just drunk; she was a wreck.
“Who do you have driving you home?” Kelsey gave me a bleary-eyed, confused stare.
“I don’t have anyone driving me home,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m driving me home, sweet-cakes. Come on—let’s dance.” I took a deep breath and scrubbed at my face. My date with Nicole was already just about ruined; I would have to make some kind of excuse as soon as possible, explain the situation if I could manage to work up the courage for it.
“You are about ten minutes away from puking all over the floor,” I told Kelsey. “You need to get home. Come on; I’ll drive you.”
“But I want to dance! Come on, Ty-baby, I spotted you when they played our song, it’s totally fate!”
“It’s not fate,” I told Kelsey, gritting my teeth. “It’s the worst possible fucking luck. Now come on. I’m driving you home just so I don’t have to worry about hearing you’ve splattered your brains all over the highway driving home tonight.” I kept a grip on her wrist and started pulling her through the club.
Kelsey screeched, predictably, trying to call for the club’s bouncers to help her; but as soon as they saw the condition she was in, they started looking at me a little more respectfully. “I’m trying to get her out of here before she hurls all over the dance floor,” I told the big, heavy-set Latino guy in the club’s t-shirt and black pants when he appeared. “She’s totally wasted, and she doesn’t have a ride home.”
“Do you have a ride home, ma’am?” the bouncer looked at Kelsey doubtfully.
“Of course I do!” Kelsey rummaged in her purse for a moment and came up with her keys to her car. “I’m my ride home!” The bouncer rolled his eyes and looked at me again.
“You promise me you’re just interested in getting her home safely?”
“He’s the one who got away,” Kelsey told the bouncer. “He doesn’t know it yet, but I am totally going to convince him to get back with me.”
“She’s my ex,” I told the guy. “I don’t have any interest in getting back with her, I just don’t want to see her kill herself driving drunk.” The bouncer hesitated for just a moment longer and then raised a hand,
his fingers moving in a quick signal to the other bouncers scattered around the club.
“I’ll help you walk her out to your car,” the guy told me. “But I swear, dude—if she comes back crying rape, or I hear about something on the news…”
“You won’t,” I said, though it was—remotely—possible that Kelsey would get vindictive enough that she’d falsely accuse me, especially if she tried to get her way with me when I dropped her off at her apartment. “I’m just going to take her to her place, watch her get into her apartment and then I’m going to leave.”
“Do me a favor,” the bouncer said, taking Kelsey’s other arm and beginning to lead her to the door right along with me. “I’ll give you my number, you send me a picture of you in the car, watching her go up to her place, okay?”
“Sure,” I said, shrugging it off. It was a weird request, but I could understand the spirit behind it; the bouncers at Ibiza were really protective of their regulars, and even of people who only came in once in a while. They wanted to make sure they weren’t sending anyone home with someone to be taken advantage of or killed. They wanted to keep their reputation as a safe and respectful place to party.
The bouncer helped me get Kelsey across the street, and when she pitched over into a planter with some kind of dead shrub in it, he helped me hold her hair back while she vomited. I shook my head, taking a deep breath to suppress the sympathetic nausea I felt at the sounds of my ex-girlfriend throwing up. “Better out than in,” Kelsey said in a singsong voice. “Hey—I could probably do like three more shots now!”
“No more shots,” I told her firmly. “No more anything. We’re getting you in the car and getting you home and that’s final.”
The bouncer helped me get her over to the passenger seat and I cringed a little inside at the fact that she was probably going to make my car absolutely reek. Kelsey had somehow managed to get vomit down the front of her corset, and I hoped it would stay there.
“Keep the windows rolled down all the way home,” the bouncer suggested. “That way if she needs to puke again…”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And also it’ll keep me from needing to puke at the smell.” The bouncer grinned. He gave me his phone number and told me that if I didn’t text him a verification that I’d gotten Kelsey safely home, he was going to have me banned from the club. I agreed to the proposition because I didn’t really see any way around it.
Besides, I had no real reason to do anything other than what I’d told the bouncer I was going to do—what did it hurt to take a picture and send it to him?
I took a deep breath before I got into my car, thinking about Nicole and Ashley. I hoped they were getting home safely. The person that bouncer really needs a picture from is whoever they got into a car with—whether it was an Uber or a Lyft driver, I thought bleakly as I started up the car. I glanced over at Kelsey.
She was sagged over in the seat, her head pressed against the wall of the car. She was barely conscious, humming a song to herself. Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible, I told myself. I pulled out of my parking spot and got the car out of the garage, shaking my head and putting the music on the stereo. I couldn’t even really stand to look at Kelsey as I drove away from the club, even if I knew I should probably check in on her every so often to make sure she hadn’t given herself alcohol poisoning.
I drove from the downtown area, thinking about Nicole and wondering if she was going to get home safely. I would text her as soon as I took care of the situation with Kelsey, and make sure at least that she wasn’t being kidnapped, or raped, or anything like that. I would deal with the situation that Kelsey had caused in the morning, but I had a responsibility.
It wasn’t even that I particularly liked Kelsey; after the way things had ended in our relationship long before, I felt like I had done everything that I possibly could to help her, and that I was more than happy to never, ever see her again. I wasn’t sure why I had even considered going to Ibiza when I knew she went to that club fairly regularly. Maybe it was a sign that I had just about forgotten her completely. Maybe it was some kind of bizarre sign that I had doubts about my relationship with Nicole. I had no idea—but it was the worst luck in the world that put me in that club with my drunken ex while I was trying to salvage the night from a moment where my current girlfriend was trying to get over a sighting of her own drunken ex. At least we have that in common, I thought ruefully. Neither of us wants to have anything at all to do with our exes ever again.
I drove to Kelsey’s house by memory; at some point, the alcohol in her system took over and she slumped against the passenger side door, beginning to snore. I ignored it. As long as she wasn’t puking or dead, I was pretty content to have her be quiet. I didn’t want to hear anymore slurred, drunken words, I didn’t want to hear her trying to justify ruining my date, or tell me how it was a sign we should get back together or at least hook up. I just wanted to get her home and then get my own self home, take a shower, and crawl into bed. I wanted to think about just how I was going to explain to Nicole what the situation had been. I had seen the look on her face: she was hurt and confused. Not an expression I wanted to be the cause of.
It felt weird, driving the streets and roads that I had memorized at one point, back when Kelsey and I had been dating. It was sickening but comforting at the same time. I spotted the dinged mailbox that marked the house at the corner of the intersection where I needed to make a turn; it was as if nothing had changed at all since Kelsey and I had separated.
Nothing has changed for her, obviously. You’re a different person—you’re not the same person you were when you were dating her. I pointed that out to myself again and again and hoped that I would eventually believe it—really and truly believe it.
I finally pulled up to her building and reached over to give Kelsey a shake. “Kel. Kelsey.” She groaned and slowly came around, blinking and looking at me blearily in the glow of the overhead light.
“Oh! Ty!” she grinned. “I talked you into coming home with me, didn’t I?” I shook my head.
“I’m just dropping you off. Get out of the car and go up to your apartment.”
“I know you want me,” Kelsey said, giving me what I am sure she thought was a sultry grin.
“Not for a while,” I told her, shaking my head. “Get out of my car and go inside.” She scrubbed at her face and I worried that she was going to hold out for a half hour, arguing with me. Instead she managed to get the door open and stumble out, patting at her purse and rummaging through it to find her keys. I took my phone out of my pocket and took a picture of her walking away from my car, to send the bouncer at the club. I took another picture when she mounted the stairs outside of her building, and then a final picture of her at her own front door.
I sent all three to the bouncer and when I saw that Kelsey had managed to get her door open, I started the car up again and pulled out of the parking spot. Whatever else happened to her that night was on her, I thought grimly.
Chapter Nine
After I had managed to get home with Ashley—splitting a Lyft ride with her for about fifteen dollars each—I got my makeup off, took my hair out of the intricate style I’d managed to braid and twist it into before Ty had arrived, and crawled into bed. I hadn’t even bothered with washing my face more thoroughly, or brushing my teeth, or any of my usual rituals.
I was too upset from the double-whammy of seeing Dillon and watching some drunk girl who apparently knew Ty grind all over him. I’d told myself that I would somehow make sense of the whole situation in the morning, after a reasonable few hours of sleep.
When I woke up late in the morning I felt like I had a hangover. At first it confused me—I hadn’t even had that much to drink the night before, and I hadn’t been up later than I generally was during the week, studying. I’d had plenty of water. But my head throbbed and my eyes felt dry and scratchy, and I was exhausted. My teeth felt as though they’d been coated in fur, my feet ached, and my lower back might—accor
ding to the stabbing pain that rose up every time I moved—as well have been stabbed the night before.
First things first, I thought as I forced myself to climb out of the bed. I would take a long, hot shower and get truly clean, and I would drink some more water, and brush my teeth, and see how that made me feel. When I stepped out of my side of the dorm room, armed with my shower caddy, robe, and towel, I listened to hear if Ashley was awake yet; there were no signs of life coming from her end of the room, so I figured I was safe from any uncomfortable questions for at least a little while.
I went into the shower room and turned the water on as hot as I could stand, holding my hand under the flow until it came up to temperature. I stripped out of the clothes I had been too exhausted the night before to take off, and got into the shower cubicle, pulling the curtain shut behind me. I stood under the water for what felt like maybe an hour even before I started to scrub myself from head to toe. I shampooed my hair twice and then covered every inch of it with a deep conditioning mask. I bundled it up into a shower cap to keep it from rinsing off while I applied my favorite scrub on my skin, starting at my neck and working my way downward bit by bit until every part of my body tingled. I rinsed off the exfoliating scrub and then slathered a moisturizing shower cream all over to follow it. I didn’t have to shave; I’d shaved the night before, while I was getting ready for the party.
I sat down on the shower bench that Ashley and I had split the cost on and let the water flow over my body while I gave the conditioner ample time to work on my hair, and I thought about Ty. He was such a good guy—wasn’t he? He was at least a hundred times better than Dillon had been.