The room is spinning and Elliot’s girlfriend’s face is swirling around me really fast.
Then she multiplies. There’s like ten of her. I blink and swallow, but I can feel my dinner rising up my throat. My eyes go wide and I clamp my hands over my mouth, but I can’t hold it back. Then I add another stain to Elliot’s attire when I throw up all over his brand new looking white tennis shoes.
~30~
Sometimes we make love with our eyes. Sometimes we make love with our hands. Sometimes we make love with our bodies. Always we make love with our hearts. ~Author Unknown~
“Eww!” Someone groans.
“Did you see that?” Another person adds.
“Dude, that girl just lost her lunch all over that guy’s shoes!” That one was the zinger.
I’m panting and embarrassed, but I think I’m about to be sick a second time. Elliot notices the look on my face, mutters something to the girl he’s with, and then escorts me from the room to the ladies room. I barely make it through the first bathroom stall before I’m hugging the toilet, completely emptying the contents of my stomach. A piece of hair falls into my face and I feel someone’s hands on me as they scoop up my hair and hold it away from my face. “Whit?”
“No.” It’s Elliot. He doesn’t sound happy.
“This is the girl’s bathroom,” I tell him. “You shouldn’t be in here.” He sighs. He sounds frustrated and exhausted and it hurts me that he thinks he’s doing me a favor. I swat behind me and smack his thigh. “Leave.”
“I’m not leaving you. You’re sick,” he says. Normally I think that would sound sweet coming from a guy, but from him it sounds like he’d rather be shoveling shit from a pig pen than standing in the bathroom holding back my hair.
“I can take care of myself.”
“Yeah. It looks like it.”
“Go back to your girlfriend, Elliot. I’m fine.”
“She’s not my girlfriend and stop lying. You’re not fine.”
I try to push Elliot away, but he still he keeps his grip tight on my hair. After I throw up again he helps me to my feet and guides me over to the bathroom sink. “If she’s not your girlfriend why did she call you babe?”
“Can we not talk about this?”
I don’t really want to. The last thing I want to talk about is his relationship or according to him a non-relationship with another girl. I turn on the faucet, scoop some cold water, and rinse my mouth out. My stomach is still a little queasy, there’s still a rancid after-taste resting on my tongue, and I feel slightly dizzy, but I think I spewed out my drunkenness with my dinner.
Seconds later Whit stumbles into the bathroom. She catches her balance and positions herself against the wall, “Oh, heeeey, Robs!” She squeals, slurring her words. Her glazed, red eyes wander over to Elliot. She squints. “Elliot? Is that you?”
Elliot nods. “Hi Whitney.”
“Oh,” she giggles. “I forgot I have to pee.” She stumbles away from the wall and crashes through the second bathroom stall. I turn the water on again so that Elliot doesn’t have to listen to her trickling stream of urine. Plus I know Whit likes to have the water running. She says it helps the flow come out faster. Whit moans in relief and seconds later she staggers out of the stall.
She zigzags over to the sink and rams into it. Elliot grabs her by the arm and steadies her as she washes her hands. “Easy there,” he says.
“Why thank you Elliot,” she says in a sing-song voice as she dips her hands underneath the running water. “Dude, did you guys hear what happened? Some girl barfed all over this guy’s shoes.” Whit shakes her hands drying them and laughs. Then she drops her gaze, staring at Elliot’s shoe. She turns to me. “Oh, shit. It was you.”
****
After Elliot cleans off his shoe he offers to drive us home and I politely decline. “No thanks. I’m pretty sure I can handle it from here.” I’m not cool with drinking and driving, at all, but I don’t think I can handle being in a confined space with Elliot right now. It might be the one thing that pushes me over the edge of insanity.
“You’ve been drinking, Robin,” he assures me.
“So have you,” I shoot back.
“No. You spilled my drink all over my shirt, remember?”
My reunion with Elliot has been anything, but happy and I’d planned on spending the entire ride home listening to sappy love songs and crying my eyes out.
“Just let him drive,” Whit butts in.