“I could kill you!” Whit yells into my ear.
I blink several times and my eyes fly open. “What…What are you talking about?” I shove the comforter off my legs and sit up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. My head is spinning and I feel like a surgeon has removed my brain and put it in the washer on the spin-cycle.
Whit hops out of bed and puts her hands on her hips. “Really? Do you not remember anything that happened last night?”
One memory of last night pops into my head. My moment on the beach with Drake. I exhale as a fleeting feeling whirls through my stomach. I feel weightless. Like there’s no gravity in the room and if I don’t use my pillow as an anchor I’ll float up to the ceiling. “Just kissing Drake on the beach.”
Whit flops down next to me and throws her hands up in the air. “Well I’m glad you had a great time.” There’s sarcasm in her voice.
“Did something happen?” I don’t remember much of anything aside from my moment on the beach.
“Don’t even get me started,” Whit huffs. “First you go all AWOL on me. Then that Sadie spills a beer all over me. And that’s not even where the real fun begins.”
I give her a pleading look. “Well? Tell me what happened then.”
Whit shakes her head. “I don’t need to tell you. I can show you.”
The last part of her comment scares me. “What do you mean you can show me?” She bends down and rummages through her suitcase for a minute and pulls out her laptop. My head starts pounding and nervousness bounces off the walls of my stomach. “Wait a second. Do I even want to see what you’re about to show me?”
Whit doesn’t look at me. “No,” she says as she frantically taps the keys on the keyboard. “But you need to.” Seconds later she turns the laptop toward me as streaming video on YouTube starts playing of a wasted girl dancing around on a table in her underwear.
At first I laugh. Then I focus on the girl’s hot pink polka dot underwear. “No,” I gasp as dread and embarrassment seeps into my blood stream. “No.” Then I lift up the sundress I fell asleep in. My pink polka dot underwear practically poke my eyes out. “That’s me!”
Whit points at the screen as I watch on. “And that’s me trying to get you to come down.” The video continues and I watch in horror as Whit hops on the table yanking on my arm and I stumble, backhanding her across the face accidentally, knocking her off the table. Elliot is in the background and I notice he catches Whitney when she falls.
But where is Drake?
I continue watching my drunken uncoordinated movements and I feel like I’m going to barf. Then I slide in some clear liquid on the table, probably beer, and fall o
ff the table myself.
I slam the laptop closed. “Oh my god!” I’m mortified and embarrassed and one hundred percent I can never show my face around here ever again. “I’m an idiot.”
Whit takes the laptop and puts it back in her bag. “Give her an inch and she takes a mile.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I scoff.
“It means you had way too much to drink.”
“You should talk. I’ve seen you do worse.” Once, at a party in high school Whit took all of her clothes off, wrapped herself in a blanket and passed out in the host’s front yard. Needless to say, she woke up the following morning next to a puddle of her vomit.
“And not only that, but you stick me with a hottie who clearly wants you,” she mentions, changing the subject.
I bolt upright. “Wait…what?”
“The brother, Elliot. Yeah, he wants you.”
A laugh gets stuck in my throat and I grunt. “No he doesn’t.” That’s insane. There is no way Elliot wants me. I’ve only seen him two times. And on top of that he doesn’t even know me. Whit has clearly lost her mind.
“You didn’t spend half of the night with him. He asked me a billion questions about you. It felt like every time I turned around he was asking a different one.” She folds her arms across her chest. “And on top of that, he kept saying how Drake wasn’t right for you.”
“That doesn’t mean he wants me.” Why would Elliot want someone like me? I have hard time believing one Robertson brother might actually like me let alone two.
Sometimes I think that behind Drake’s beautiful face and luminous eyes is a beast with razor sharp teeth, ready to maul me or swallow me. Every time I’m with him I have to remind myself that may be someone like Drake could fall for someone like me. Even though deep, down inside I know I’m living in a dream world by thinking that.
A lot of times I like to think that I’d be perfectly content living in a dream world where everything is blissfully perfect, and people love each other, treat each other with respect, crap daisies, and eat hot fudge sundaes all day, every day, without gaining a pound.
And even though I like to think that way, I know that’s not reality. I’d give anything to step away from reality now and keep on pretending because let’s face it; reality sucks.