MESSED UP - completed!

19- Strip it down

"Well," I say. "When you were being mean to me, I imagined you very, very small."

He stays silent for a few seconds and then talks. "I was always mean to you," he says.

"Yeah," I say with a smile, nodding. "Micropenis."

He rolls his eyes.

"Forget about my imagination," I say. "You gotta have fun tonight! Stop thinking about him."

He lifts a shoulder. "Define fun in this situation."

"I'll get the 'big cock' to strip for you exclusively if you stop pouting."

"Big cock? Did you use your imagination on him, too?"

I look at the stripper who has his private part in a weird yellow sock with eyes and a beak that is supposed to resemble a duck. "That big thing inside the duck sock is not a third leg," I say. Smith smiles. "It's his penis, and I don't need imagination. I could see that thing from the moon."

Smith moves the drink away from his mouth and shoots me a glare. "What do you think of me? Desperate for a visual pleasure?"

"Are you desperate for a physical one?"

"I just need to drink," he says and drinks again.

"Suit yourself. But a secret from me, removing your underwear makes you feel a lot less stressed. It's like you're wearing one layer less than everyone and you're superior cause your junk is breathing fresh air." I move away from him, needing some time and space. When he's too attached to the father of my secret child, any second spent around him is torture.

"Whoa!" A woman stumbles into me, and my mocktail spills a little on me. I look up from my shirt at the woman to see who it is. "I'm so sorry," she says. Familiar. Oh.

"Liz?" I ask. She is Jon's cheating fiancé, who keyed my car from the front to the back.

"Miley?" she asks, and I almost feel like I heard it wrong, but I know she said it wrong.

"Mia!" I correct her.

"What?" she asks through the music.

I shake my head. "Nothing!"

"It's nice seeing you," she says louder. I nod and want to say the same thing, but two young girls approach her.

"All done!" One of them says, and they all scream in excitement. They drag her away, and she waves at me and leaves. I roll my eyes and get away from there.

Isla's not in my sight anymore. I'm not worried about her because she most definitely can handle herself. The one I worry about is Zoey. I look for her in the crowd. She is not here. Someone tells me she might be in the VIP room. I move the curtains away, ready to see someone lap dancing or stripping for her, but I find her sitting alone and smoking. She jumps a little as she notices me and hides her cigarette.

"Hey," I say and sit in front of her.

"Hey," she says, forcing a smile awkwardly.

"What are you doing here?" I stretch my arm to grab a peanut from the table in the middle. My mind changes as soon as my hand touches the sticky surface of the plate.

"Nothing." She shakes her head.

"Did you just hide your cigar behind your back?"

She rolls her eyes and then moves the cigar in front of her. "No."

"What happened?"

"I'm sorry. I don't know. It helps me release some of my stress—"

"Zoey," I say, and she looks at me, her eyes so sad. "What happened?"