Colored lights flash. Red, white, and purple. Music blasts through speakers that are hanging in all four corners of the room. The wide dance floor is packed with couples dancing, gyrating, and swaying back and forth to Jason DeRulo’s Don’t Wanna Go Home. There’s another bar a few feet in front of us with a lit up counter just like the one in the back.
Whit grabs my hand and leads the way, stopping at an open spot at the bar. She faces me and shouts over the music. “I’ve got the first round! What do you want to drink?”
“I don’t want anything!” I shout back then lean in close to her ear. “What if they card us?”
“Chill!” She lifts her hand and dangles her wrist with the pink wristband in my face. “We’re cool.”
The bartender approaches us and I tune Whit out as she orders us drinks. I pay close attention to the couples on the dance floor. Even though I assume most of them aren’t actual couples the way they move so close to one another and touch each other so intimately seems so beautiful. Even if they are grinding together in a drunken haze.
Witnessing the PDA makes me think of the way I used to feel when Elliot’s hand would glide over my bare skin. How his touch would make me shiver in delight and fill me with such an overwhelming sense of joy that I thought I might burst. I miss that feeling. I miss his touch. I miss his smile. I miss the way he used to bit his bottom lip when he was perplexed. I miss every part of him and I’m aching inside because of it. So when Whit hands me my drink, I bring it to my lips and chug it down with one gulp.
“Jesus, Robin!” Whit shouts over the noise. “You’re supposed to sip your drink!”
I face the bar, ready to order another. It doesn’t matter where I go or what I’m doing. Elliot is always there, taunting me with flashbacks of his beautiful face. His poetic words replay in my mind like a skipping record. And at times I swear I can almost feel his hands caressing me. The bartender comes over and I order three more drinks. Two for myself and one for Whit. I tell myself that if I can’t forget about Elliot when I’m sober then maybe I can forget about him if I’m drunk.
So when the bartender comes over and hands me the three drinks. I pay for them and include a generous tip. Then I turn, handing Whit hers and down my next two in record time before ordering another.
After three more drinks I’m not really sure how much time has passed because I’ve reached the point where everything is starting to melt together. People’s faces fade in and out of focus, the lights are a mixture of who the hell knows what color, and I can’t even distinguish if the person singing the song that’s blasting from the speakers is a man or a woman.
Whit laces her arm through mine and she pulls me out to the dance floor. We squeeze ourselves in between a few couples, making our way to a slight opening in the middle. I laugh as Whit takes my hand and spins me around in circle. It’s like we’re in own little world. It’s like the entire club is abandoned and it’s just us, having the time of our lives.
I spin Whit toward me in a sloppy ballroom style move and dip her backwards, trying to be slick. The only problem is that I’m way too wasted to try and be slick and when I dip her I can’t get a firm grip on her and she falls from my grasp onto the floor. Her drink spills all over her shirt and I stifle back a laugh by throwing my hands over my mouth.
I expect her to be extremely pissed, to throw her hands up into the air and should obscenities, causing a scene. But she doesn’t. Instead, she yanks on my arm and pulls me down to the floor with her. For a good ten minutes we both sit there on the dance floor in the middle of that packed club laughing our asses off while several dancing couples stop to look at us.
As I scan some of the disgruntled faces of guys and girls I realize that I don’t care that they are staring. I don’t care that I’m on the floor in the middle of the club laughing my ass off like a drunken idiot. This is the first time since summer vacation where I’ve felt like I’ve had fun. The first time that I’ve forgotten about Elliot, the way he makes me feel, the situation I created between me, his brother, and him, and the drama that came with that situation.
And it feels good.
Whit stands up first and stumbles a little. After she catches her balance she extends her hand to me and helps me to my feet. I stagger backward slightly, but Whit grips my arm tightly, steadying me. I’m still trying to contain my laughter, but I’m slap-happy and silly and so out of breath from laughing so hard that there’s a throbbing pain in my side. I place my hand against my right ribcage, pressing onto it as Whit leans in toward my ear. “I’m going to get another drink,” she shouts. “You game?”
The massive room starts to tilt from side to side and I have to blink a few times to see straight. I think I’m good as far as drinks go. “No,” I tell her. “I’m gonna stay here.”
“Okay! I’ll be right back! Stay here!”
After Whit wanders off a slower song is played and I close my eyes, letting the music infect my soul. It fills me up with relaxation and serenity and I sway back and forth, losing myself in it.
It’s amazing how music can make your mood shift. It’s amazing how one minute you’re bopping around to some pop song and the next a slow seductive number is played and you feel your body start to go limp. My eyes are closed and I snake my fingers through my hair. I’m completely tuned out to my surroundings and If I was sober I’d laugh at someone like me who is in the middle of the dance floor having a slow, romantic dance with herself.
But I’m not sober so who the hell cares.
I stretch my arms backward then do a lil spin, but during that spin my fingers connect with something and I hear a guy scream, “What the fuck?” Oops.
At first I don’t really care that I might have spilled his drink or something. My mind is too far gone to feel any remorse for my actions. But when he rambles on and says, “It’s all over my damn shirt.” That’s when I freeze. That’s the moment when my spine stiffens and my heart plummets to the pit of my stomach.
I know that voice, a voice that has whispered seductive, sweet things into my ear. A voice that could make my heart go up in flames with one word. Elliot’s voice.
Turning slowly, I feel like I’m suffocating when I lock eyes with him. His blue eyes are fierce, filled with anger, and he keeps glancing at the wet spot on his shirt then at my face. Seconds later a blonde girl slinks up beside him and slides her arms up his torso. “Everything okay, baby?”
Her sweet, high-pitched voice is deafening and for me it drowns out the loud music, the assortment of random voices, Elliot’s bitching as he continues to complain about his shirt, and more than anything it cuts into the screaming sound off in my head. Everything okay, baby? I wish she was a radio so I could her turn off. But I can’t. The words keep playing and playing and playing over and over again in my head. They?
??re throbbing in my temples, jabbing at my brain.
And the way Elliot is looking at me makes me want curl up in the middle of the dance floor and cry. My lip starts to quiver, but I’m able to get a hold of myself. Instead, I turn off the emotion and say with a bit of bitchiness, “Are you seriously bitching over a stain on your shirt?” Elliot’s mouth hangs open. “Grow a pair and quit whining like a little bitch.”
The girl he’s with steps forward and scoffs, “What the hell is your problem?”
Can’t he speak for himself?