( 1 )
Panic. The most chaotic asshole on this planet.
It rushes through me, jacking up my heart rate, turning my legs into a tumbling mess. And having frantically trembling limbs while trying to make your way through a crowd of drunk college students at a party isn’t the most excellent thing to go through. Add onto that the fact that I’m drunk myself and the room is spinning like a top is just the cherry on top of the freaking pie.
Or is it cake? Maybe ice cream?
I stumble into a dancing form and my thoughts get shaken away. It’s a good thing too, because I’ve forgotten why I’m trying my damn hardest to get through this crowd. It’s because of him.
“Sky!” his voice cuts above the music.
He stands there, his head towering over the crowd of people. He’s looking for me, but luckily for me I fit right into the crowd. This is the one time I’m thankful for a short height. And the added bonus of the dim lighting of this basement is way more beyond helpful. It’s lifesaving.
The world tilts as another body slams into me. I go flying into someone else. I expect a stranger, but it’s not. It’s the second worse person I could bump into. It’s Jeremy his best friend.
“Sky?” he questions.
He looks at me from head to toe, nothing but worry in his features. He’s the second closest thing I’ve go to a brother on this campus. A wave of gratefulness washes over the nausea boiling in my stomach. Or is that just the warmth from the nine shots that I’ve had tonight? Maybe it’s from the Seltzers? How many Seltzers have I had?
Or it’s from the way he kissed you, a thought sighs.
“Sky, hey,” Jeremy shakes my shoulders gently. “Are you okay? How much have you had?”
Too much. Way too much to get a fully functional sentence out of my mouth. Perhaps that’s why I’m struggling to tell him to let go of me so I can get the hell out of here.
“Okay,” he mutters holding me still. “You’ve had too much if you can’t stand still without swaying.”
I’m swaying? Is that why the world won’t stay still? It is becoming very annoying.
“I’m going to get Derek and we’ll help you get back home,” he states his head beginning to swivel around looking for his best friend.
The best friend I can’t see.
The him I’m avoiding.
Derek.
Derek Mills.
The Derek Mills that’s been one of my best friends for three years.
The Derek Mills that I kissed.
The Derek Mills that I kissed who has a girlfriend.
The Derek Mills that I kissed who has a girlfriend that is on the girls basketball team I manage.
“Derek!” Jeremy’s loud voice rings near my ear.
It’s like watching a horror movie. Derek’s head snaps to us. I can see his eyes narrowing in the dark trying to recognize who called his name. He notices it’s Jeremy. And then his eyes drop down to me and my heart stops beating. I suck in a deep breath as he begins to move through the crowd. Desperate to get away, I begin to jerk in Jeremy’s grasp. I must look crazy. Like a flopping fish out of water. Ugh I hate fish. No, I seriously hate fish. They stink, and they just taste awf—
“What the hell Sky,” Jeremy’s voice says surprised. “Chill out.”
Chill out? My mind focuses for a moment, and I remember why I cannot chill out. Derek’s almost to us and I’m still stuck here. I can’t face him. Hell, I can’t even face myself.
“Let go!” I snap.
I’m not sure it actually comes out in English because he looks at me as if I just spoke a whole lot of gibberish.
“What?”
And as if the world has had enough of laughing at my pain, it gives me a break. A dancing body falls into Jeremy and his grasp on my arm breaks. My brain takes a few seconds to process, a very long few sluggish seconds to realize that I’m free.
“Sky! Wait!” Derek’s voice calls to me. I can see he’s stuck by a small circle of dancing girls. His eyes are lit up by a strand of lights that hang low from the ceiling. They’re not worried, it’s almost like they’re burning.
They looked like that a few minutes ago. When he looked like he was going to devour me just with a kiss.
I’ve got to go. To get out of here.
“Skylar?” Jeremy’s searching voice calls. His head snaps back towards Derek, but he’s still looking at me.
“Don’t—” Derek shakes his head as he begins to speak, but it’s cut off by a bunch of girls squealing when the song changes to something more rapid and upbeat.
I don’t give myself a chance to wonder what he doesn’t want me to do. Instead, I pull my liquid limbs towards the stairs to go to the upper level of the house. I need to find my teammates. I need to get out of here. Away from him. And maybe sober up so my thoughts aren’t so muddled.
The stairs are a constantly flowing stream of people moving up and down. It takes a while to get to the upper level of the house. When I reach upstairs the air is the first difference I notice. It’s fresh and doesn’t smell like straight skunk. It’s a nice change. The second thing I notice right off the back is Ashley. She’s sitting at a table with some of Derek’s teammates. Teammates that look high.
Guilt is the second most chaotic asshole I’ve ever met.
Her eyes land on me and light up with joy. It’s like she’s been waiting for me.
“Sky!” she shouts. She launches herself at me, a tangle of unsteady limbs. I’m quite proud that I don’t fall when she collides with me.
“Where have you been?” she questions pulling backward.
Kissing your boyfriend.
My hand slaps over my mouth in fear that I’ll actually say my thoughts. What the hell is wrong with me?
Her eyebrows draw down. “Are you okay? You look sick.”
“I need to go,” I mumble taking my hand off my mouth.
“Go?” she questions. “But the party is just getting good!”
It strikes me now, the words that my mother always tells me over the phone.
Never try to tell a drunk person the party is over; it doesn’t really end well.
“Do you know where Kayla is?” I question.
Her expression switches up instantly. She’s back to being blissfully drunk. “I saw her go upstairs with a guy.” She leans to my ear to whisper. “Her secret man, if you know what I mean.”
When she pulls back her eyebrows are waggling suggestively.
Usually, I’d let Kayla do her thing, but not tonight. I need someone I know I can count on. I need one of my best friends.
“I’ll see you later Ash!” I call out to her as I draw away towards the steps. Ugh more steps.
Only as I climb these steps there isn’t so much traffic. Only a few lingering bodies. Ones that are making out, but I’m too focused on trying to find Kayla. I check multiple doors, but all I find are more people making out. I’m far too drunk for this. I’m about to give up, about to just go back downstairs and walk back to the dorms, but again the world has given me a break.
“Boy, stop playing,” her raspy voice whispers somewhere down the hall. I’m up in an instant. Her voice leads me to the bathroom door. I waste no time.
“Kayla!” I yell knocking on the door. “I know you’re a little busy right now, but I really need you. It’s an S.O.S situation.”
The conversation beyond the door goes quiet, but I don’t. I continue to knock and mutter non-sense.
“It’s a Save. Our. Skylar. Situation,” I say.
Wait, that was smart. S.O.S means Save. Our. Skylar. The laugh that breaks out of my mouth is a drunken one.
When the door opens, I see Kayla and some guy I don’t know. It’s not for the lack that he could be a popular person, but for the fact that I don’t really know anyone besides my team and little circle of friends.
“Sky?” she asks. Her voice is concerned.
That’s when it happens. The tears break out and I let my limbs go liquid like they’ve been wanting to.
“Kayla!” I cry. “I fucked up bad.”
She’s at my side in a moment. She pulls me into her arms and pushes the hair out of my face while running comforting strokes down my back.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” she whispers. “What’s going on?”
I shake my head as more tears crawl down my cheeks. The words refuse to get out of my throat.
“Is she okay?” a rough male voice asks.
“I don’t know,” Kayla mutters. “I’m going to take her home.”
“Maybe you should get Derek?” he offers.
The name sets a panic off through me like a wildfire.
“No! Please no!”
I’m shaking at this point.
“Hey! Shushhh, relax. We won’t get him,” Kayla says trying to calm me down. “Just me and Trenton will take you home.”
The next few moments are a blur, but when things clear up, we’re outside. The man, Trenton, is leading us to a car. When the panic cools and the tears slowly stop, my mind clears a bit.
I’m an idiot. Maybe it was because it was too dim in the house, but out here, in the streetlights, I know exactly who this man is. It’s Derek’s teammate. Trenton is in our class, he’s a Junior like Derek and I. I see them hang out often. Why am I so freaking unlucky tonight!
“I can’t go with him,” I mumble to Kayla, but it’s too quiet to be heard. Quite honestly, I’m so tired. So very tired.
“What did you say Sky?” She asks.
I shake my head, but the movement makes my stomach lurch. And it’s then I know I’m going to be sick. I rip myself out of Kayla’s grip and make a dash to be out of sight. It’s amazing that when your drunk your body becomes sober enough for you to rush to a place where you can throw up safely. That’s exactly what my body does. It allows me to make it behind the house and to a patch of bushes before my stomach heaves and I throw up all the contents I have consumed tonight.
I don’t think I’ve ever loved someone so much in my life as I love Kayla in this moment. She’s there and holding my hair back from my face. She has nothing but comforting back strokes and encouraging words for me as I wretch in shame.
When I’m done, she’s got a bottle of water for me and a stick of gum. When did she get those?
“Trenton had some in his car,” she mutters. “Figured you’d need it.”
“Remind me to thank him when I don’t feel so sick,” I tell her.
I take the water and swirl a few gulps around my mouth before spitting it out. When I’m done with that, I pop the gum in my mouth and chew silently.
“We have to get you back so you can lay down.” She states.
“Let me help,” Trenton’s voice says in the darkness. I hadn’t even known he was back here. We’re a mess for a few moments while he tries to get me up on my feet. My body doesn’t exactly corporate. It’s sluggish and heavy.
“How much did she have to drink?” he mutters under his breath as he gets me to my feet finally.
“Too much,” Kayla replies.
We trudge through the darkness back to the front to find his car. We hardly walk a minute before we approach a black car that blends in with the night. He pulls his keys out and clicks the unlock button. Orange light flashes across the dark street twice with the sound of two shrill beeps.
“Help me get her in—”
“Skylar!”
I groan, the sound a little tormented. It’s him. He’s found me.
“Get her in,” Trenton says passing me to Kayla. “I’ll talk to him.”
She takes me as he strides over to Derek. I can hear their arguing voices in the background, but Kayla’s voice in my ear wins my attention.
“I don’t know what happened, but we won’t let him near you unless you want him to be.”
She buckles me in and closes the door. I’m left in the backseat for a time. My eyes close in a flutter, I’m not sure why, but they do. They’re hard to keep open. The world is way too spiny. My thoughts aren’t coherent. They’re messy and panicked and I’m sick of thinking. I wish my mind had an off switch. How would that even be implanted in someone’s mind?
“I don’t know what happened,” Trenton’s deep voice says as a car door opens. “He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Even Jeremy didn’t know what happened. It must be bad,” Kayla says. Her voice is closer to me and when she pulls me into her lap to lay down, I understand why. She’s in the backseat with me. “Did you see how panicked Derek was? He’s never like that.”
“I know.”
There’s a jolt and the sensation of moving but staying still all at the same time falls on me. It’s sickening, but I keep my mouth shut. I won’t allow myself to throw up again.
“I’ve been his teammate for three years and I’ve never seen him that panicked before,” Trenton mutters.
Kayla runs her fingers through my hair, and I finally feel myself relax. “I’ve only seen Sky this panicked one time.”
That one time was horrific.
“When was that?”
Kayla scoffs, an amused sound in the action. “She failed her English mid-term in freshman year.”
Trenton’s quiet for a moment before he speaks again. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, after she failed it, she practically lived in the library studying for her makeup test. I didn’t see her for days.”
“I don’t want to sound like a dick, but I’m about to,” Trenton says. “Do you think she’s just overreacting?”
“If it was just her acting like this maybe,” Kayla whispers quietly. “But the way that Derek was acting, I don’t think she is.”
“Yeah,” Trenton’s voice is thoughtful. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow to see what’s up.”
There’s another jolt and I finally feel like I’m still.
“Thank you for the ride,” Kayla says.
“I’m going to make sure you two get into the dorms okay,” he says.
Time moves in a blur. I’m not sure if I’m conscious or not. All I know is that when I hit a soft surface an amazing darkness settles over me.
“Sleep well Sky,” a soft voice whispers to me. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
