Million Dollar Maid ✔

Chapter 24

Surviving the stairs made her feel more proud than she had any right to be and once downstairs she decided to look for the group of girls. The big crowd of people made it hard to see where everybody was and the fact that her vision blurred around the edges didn't help either.

"Ava!" someone called from somewhere to her left. It was Olly again, as it turned out she wasn't as effective in shaking him off as she thought she'd been. Awkwardly, she walked over to him and he stepped back a little to allow her to stand next to him in the little circle of people around him. "I was starting to feel worried there, you were gone for so long!"

"Oh," she laughed nervously. "Sorry, there was a line in front of the bathroom."

It wasn't exactly a lie, when she'd returned from her own bathroom she'd seen the line that had formed for the downstairs bathroom. Olly nodded solemnly at her reasoning. "Don't worry about it. Here, I got you this while you were gone."

She only now noticed he'd been holding two cups in his hands but she couldn't bring herself to take the second one. "Thank you, but I've already had too much to drink."

"One more won't matter, then," he said while wiggling his brows and holding out the cup again.

"I really can't," she said, feeling bad because he'd been nice enough to get her a drink while she was gone but she also knew she wasn't thinking right anymore and she shouldn't have drunk anything in the first place.

"Don't be a buzzkill," another guy complained, making Ava look up to notice the whole group of people had stopped talking and were now staring at her.

"I can't," she tried to plead but another guy shook his head. "That's a waste of alcohol, just drink it."

"Yeah, what's the problem? Why are you at a party if you're just going to be boring?" someone else added.

Her cheeks burned fiery red from the unwanted attention she'd drawn to herself and she quickly turned her gaze back to the cup. It was almost filled to the brim with a dark liquid and she didn't even know what it was.

Just do it, she thought. They'll stop looking at you then.

After a deep breath, she lifted the cup to her lips and took a gulp. The burning in her throat was worse than with the previous drinks and while she didn't cough, she did need a moment to regain her composure. "See? It's not that hard," one of them laughed before their conversation picked up where they left off.

"I'm proud of you," Olly beamed at her. "It's easier to have fun this way, anyway. Who wants to be sober, right?"

"Right," she replied distractedly while the room tilted a few degrees around her. It felt like she was barely controlling her own body as she moved and talked while barely registering any of it. Time flew by until she couldn't keep track of it anymore but to be honest, she didn't care anymore.

"And then I said, what sound would that even make? You know? But then again, I'd never heard of it before either so it could be completely normal." She'd forgotten that Olly was still talking to her, even when the rest of the group had dispersed and she had trouble keeping track of what was going on. No answer was required when he talked, he just went on and on.

Occasionally, she had to shift her weight in order to not fall over, and somewhere along the way she'd lost the entire cup in her hand. When she felt her stomach turn and her grip on her consciousness started fading a little she knew something was up.

"Ava?"

"I'm... I'm going to need a moment," she said while turning away towards the hallway. Everything around her moved in a blur and she stumbled every few steps. It was hard to think about anything but getting to where she needed to go, which was her bed where she knew she couldn't hurt herself.