AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What are you going to do, hmm?” Tiffany drops down on the couch next to me. “Sit here on the couch scrolling Netflix for hours without picking something like the last few nights?”
“I’ve done all my work. If I want to waste my time, then that’s my business.”
“You’re my best friend. So it’smybusiness too.”
“I don’t know… you know I don’t drink.”
“You don’t have to have a good time.” She smiles, fiddling with her ponytail. “I won’t force you. I think it would do you some good to get out of the house. I was going to meet with Liam, anyway. It’ll be fun.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind me tagging along?”
“Not even a little bit.”
I sit up, knowing I have to do everything possible to pull myself out of this funk. If I don’t, I’ll just sink deeper and deeper until it swallows me whole.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
* * *
We walk into the club, Tiffany hugging close to Liam, her boyfriend, and a few women I sort of know gather around us.
The music pumps loudly, lights flashing, and I already wish I was back home.
I don’t want to be the person bringing down the mood, so I do my best to keep my thoughts from my expression, smiling broadly when a woman called Jeneva throws her arms around me and yells in my ear.
“Ilovethis song.”
“Me too,” I lie, as the unfamiliar pop music starts to play.
The club is full of young men, all seeming smaller and less impressive than Bryson, but it’s not their fault. They could be the same height as him, the same broadness, the same everything.
They still wouldn’t behim.
They wouldn’t come close to being my obsession.
Tiffany and the other women were born for the dance floor, spinning, laughing, and knowing the right moves in the right places. I do my best to join in, Tiffany taking my hands, spinning us in circles with a broad grin on her face.
“Are you feeling it?” she yells over the deafening hammering music.
I’m not sure whatitis, but I don’t want to be a buzzkill. I nod vigorously, spinning around with her, feeling slightly foolish in the sparkly black dress. I can’t help but think what Bryson would make of seeing me here… if he’d want me more or less.
“Do you want a drink?” I shout in Tiffany’s ear, eager for any excuse to leave the dance floor for a little while.
She tells me yes, another vodka and coke. I navigate through the crowd, not liking it one bit when people brush up against me, especially the men. They’re not doing it on purpose. It’s just the general crushing throng, but any contact that isn’t Bryson feels like a betrayal.
I need to stop any thoughts like that and end them before they begin, but it’s difficult when I’d rather be with him, in his arms, quiet and relaxed, andjust us.
After ordering a regular coke for myself and a vodka and coke for Tiffany, I look over at the dance floor, checking she’s in the same spot. I don’t want to navigate through the crowd if I don’t have to.
I wonder if that’s it—turning for maybe thirty seconds—the moment when the man slips something into my drink. One second, I’m at the bar, and then I’m in the parking lot, and a man has his hand wrapped around my waist as I struggle to stay upright.
I moan as I try to push his hand away, and he just laughs.
“Easy, you’ve had too much to drink.” He raises his voice as the world blurs, and I struggle to make sense of what’s happening. “No, she’s okay. She’s had too much… yeah, no, she’s going to be fine.”
I shift against him, hating any contact that isn’t Bryson, wondering where Tiffany is.
“Just lie down there.”
