How All Occasions Do Inform Against Me
I walked to the party with Zac, Whitley and Tay, just like I had the first one. But this was much, much different. Whereas the last trip had been full of wonderful anxiety and butterflies in the stomach, this time I felt like I might just be sick. Tay and Whitley were together, walking a few steps ahead of us. And Zac was quiet and tense, his hands tucked deep into his pockets. He smiled and talked a little, bit I could feel the tension and I was certain that everyone else could as well. I had feared a repeat of our first party, but he seemed to want nearly nothing to do with me.
Some way to treat your best friend, I thought. But I knew I was being just as horrible, if not worse, to him. I just didn’t know how to fix it, without hurting everyone involved.
When we arrived at the party, I didn’t waste any time hanging around with Zac. It had been made obvious to me at the first party that anyone was welcome to sample whatever alcohol they could find, so as soon as I walked in the door, I made a beeline for the kitchen. Wiggling my way through the crowd, I flung a cabinet open and surveyed its contents.
Deciding not to waste any time, I grabbed a bottle of vodka and unscrewed the lid. Grabbing a cup, I dumped in a generous amount of the clear liquid, picking up a can of soda to add to the mix. I took a big swig of the drink and winced at how much vodka I had included, but I knew that would get the job done. Truthfully, I wasn’t sure why I was so keen to get myself wasted. It just seemed like the thing to do.
“Wow, that’s a big girl drink,” I heard Zac’s voice behind me. Of course he had followed me, I thought, rolling my eyes.
I spun around to face him, already feeling the vodka making that movement difficult. My eyes went blurry for a moment, just as I came face to face with Zac. He held a beer in his hand and I wondered where he had gotten it, but I didn’t ask. I thought he didn’t have much room to mock me if he was already on the way to being drunk as well.
I tilted my head to the side, squinting and trying to see Zac more clearly. “Maybe it is. I can handle it.”
“Sure you can,” Zac said, smirking. As if to show his manliness, he took a giant swig of his beer, following it up with a very unattractive burp.
“Well isn’t that just the sexiest thing,” I remarked, hearing my voice begin to slur.
Zac laughed, and tilted his head back to finish off his beer. With another smirk, he replied, “Why yes, in fact; I am.”
I rolled my eyes and shushed myself with another large sip of my own drink. I watched as Zac poured himself a drink nearly as strong as my own and I wondered why he felt the need to get so severely drunk, too. Again, I didn’t ask. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to know, even though I had a sinking feeling I knew why.
Turning back to me with his new drink in hand, Zac spoke again. “So, when were you going to tell me you were dating Donovan?”
I guess he was a bold drunk. I might have figured that out already, I suppose.
I gulped down the rest of my drink, just to buy myself a little time. The vodka burned the back of my throat and I shuddered; that last sip was always the worst.
“Fuck, I don’t know. It’s complicated, you know?”
“No, actually,” Zac spat. “I don’t know.”
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. “Well, I can’t explain it. It just happened. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Part of me, buried deep beneath all the vodka I was consuming, told me there were a million other things to say. But I just couldn’t articulate them. Not then, not in that place, and not in that condition.
Zac mumbled something under his breath, clutching at the sides of his plastic cup so hard that I thought he might spill the drink all over both of us. Finally, he turned and walked away, pushing past the others crowded around the counter pouring their own drinks.
I wanted to just find a corner and curl up in it, then sit there drinking myself into oblivion. I grabbed the vodka bottle from the counter and stumbled out of the kitchen, intent upon doing just that. The crowd around me made it difficult to move very quickly, and I kept getting swept up in one direction or another. When I had finally made my way into the living room, I felt someone grab my arm and I looked up to see Donovan there, looking as drunk as I wanted to be.
“Donovan, I…” I fumbled around for something to say. “I’m trying to find Whitley, I’ll come back and find you soon, alright?”
He nodded and leaned in to place a sloppy kiss on my cheek. “Alright, baby. I’ll see you later.”
When he was out of sight, I sighed heavily. I lifted the vodka bottle to my lips and chugged down a fair amount of it – more than I thought I would have been able to. I supposed that was just a sign of how drunk I was getting. With the bottle still in my hand, I stumbled around the room in search of a place to sit. I finally found a small patch of the floor that wasn’t occupied, and I tried my best to sit down gracefully. It wasn’t all that graceful in the end, but I couldn’t really find it in myself to care.
From my seat in the floor, I could watch everything that was going on around me without having to really participate in it. Okay, so I couldn’t really see all that much – mostly just legs and feet moving around me. But that was fine enough for me. Occasionally when people would move out of my line of sight, I caught more interesting glimpses of the action. I watched the crowd gathered around the stereo, gyrating to some ridiculous pop song. To be honest, it was a bit disgusting to watch, but also kind of amusing to see the lengths some guys and girls were going to just to get someone’s attention for the night.
Through my blurred vision, I recognized the blonde girl who had auditioned for the play, but hadn’t received a part. I couldn’t quite recall her name, but her face and perfectly thin body were definitely recognizable. She was hanging all over some poor boy, and his hand was slipping underneath her glittery tank top.
When she spun him around, I realized that I knew the boy as well. I knew those hands, because I had felt them along my sides as well. I knew the shaggy, dark blond hair she was tangling her hands in. And I knew the soft lips he was kissing her with. I felt my stomach turn and I was certain it had more to do with the scene I was witnessing than the alcohol I was consuming.
Still, I set the bottle down with determination. With effort, I forced myself to stand and walk away without looking again at Zac and the girl. My resolve wasn’t so strong, however, and I glanced over once only to find that she had pinned him to a wall and her hand was creeping into territory I didn’t want to think about.
With that image burned onto my retinas, I tripped and stumbled my way through the living room, in search of the only thing, aside from more liquor, that I thought might help take my mind off of Zac. I didn’t even want to think about why it bothered me so much to see him with her. Maybe it was because she was so unlike me, and so unlike everything Taylor had told me to expect from Zac – the boy who fell for his best friends making out with some Barbie doll. And maybe it was jealousy. But I didn’t want to dwell on that, because I didn’t like the implications.
After pausing to ask a few people if they had seen him, I made my way up the stairs and found Donovan in the hallway. He held a beer in one hand and I could see by the wobble in his stance and the smile on his face that he was just as drunk as I was.
Perfect.
If I said anything to him, I don’t remember. To my memory, I walked straight up to him and pulled him in for the most forceful kiss I could manage. Once I was certain I had him, I loosened my grip on his shirt and instead ran my hands up and down his chest. He wrapped his own hands around my waist, perhaps a bit confused at first by my forwardness, but soon pressing his fingertips into my skin and pulling me closer.
With his hands still on my waist to guide me, he began walking us into an open bedroom. The entire time, I did not remove my lips from his. I needed to keep kissing him. I needed to be as close to him as I could possibly be. Still, the image of Zac and that damn nameless girl would not leave my mind. Only when I felt the back of my knees hit the bed and give way, forcing me to collapse rather ungracefully onto the sheets, did my mind begin to clear at all.
Donovan landed on top of me with a new vigor. He sucked and nipped at my neck, his hands running down my sides to explore the skin under my shirt. I felt him tugging at my bra in a drunken attempt to remove it, but I could not find any way to help him. My hands caressed his back and still I held my eyes closed tight to keep my mind as blank as I could.
Just as Donovan finally managed to work the hook on my bra, I heard the door creak open. It scrambled to sit up and see who was there, feeling my face flush.
It was Taylor.
He looked as though he had seen a ghost and his knuckles went white as he clutched at the side of the door. Donovan turned his head to see who had interrupted us and his eyes flashed annoyance at Taylor.
“What? What’s going on, Tay?” I asked, sounding perhaps a bit more sober than I felt.
Taylor, still rather pale, replied, “I need to get out of here. I just wanted to make sure you’d be alright to get home on your own. Whitley’s gonna hang around with some of her theatre friends. Have – have you seen Zac?”
I shook my head vigorously, cursing the images that had come flooding back as soon as I heard his name. “No. No, I haven’t. Not for a while…”
Taylor stared at us a for a moment, chewing his bottom lip in concentration. Finally, with a small shake of his head, he spoke again. “Well, can you find him and let him know why I’m leaving? I don’t feel like hanging around long enough to find him.”
I could hear the frustration and urgency in his voice, and as much as I wanted to say no, I just couldn’t. Ignoring Donovan’s judgmental gaze, I nodded my head and reached around to adjust my bra. “Yeah, Tay. I’ll find him.”
Taylor nodded and turned on his heel, disappearing from the doorway in an instant. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Donovan at all, or to speak a word to him. I had no explanations. My clothing readjusted, I stood up and walked out of the room, not pausing for a moment to look back at the boy — my boyfriend – who I had left laying on someone’s bed.