Deep grooves darkened the length of Melody's brow. "Well? I'm waiting. What do you want?" she asked as she tapped her pearl-white fingernails against her hip. "Is this a joke? I bet Matt put you up to this, didn't he? Look, I don't care what he told you – I've moved on. He needs to accept that and leave me the hell alone."
A sting hid in the tail of Melody's words, and Elise's nails pressed between her stiffened hairs into the skin of her neck. "No, that's not it," she said with a start, clearing her throat in an effort to raise her voice above a mousey squeak. "I don't blame you for wanting nothing to do with Matt, but I'm not here with him. I came with Cade."
"Wait, Cadie's here?" The composure that had defined Melody's every move dissipated in an instant. Her eyes widened as the light of her phone screen clicked away, her gaze lassoing around Elise's captive form. "Fucking unbelievable. Trust Cadie to turn everything into a fucking drama. How the hell did she even find me?"
"Social media's a bitch," Elise muttered, shrugging off the searing heat of Melody's devoted attention. "I swear, she was totally okay with leaving you alone. But then we found something, and she really wanted you to know about it."
Melody tucked her phone into her clutch bag. "Seriously?" she scoffed as she took slow, firm steps forward, peering down her nose through Elise's personal space. Every word she spoke robbed another inch of Elise's height, until the girl threatened to tumble away on the next stiff breeze. "What could possibly be fucking important enough for that two-faced bitch and her quirky cringefail sidekick to crash my team's party? And why should I even care? Because I stopped caring a long time ago, and I never want to hear anything that toxic parasite has to say again. Not now, not – "
"Mel!" Popping up behind Melody's back, Cadence clasped the girl's shoulders and sighed with relief. "Nice work tracking her down, killer. Listen, I've got something wild to show you. It blew my mind when I saw it."
"Get. The fuck. Off me." Melody tore herself free of Cadence's grip and turned to face her former friend, puffs of super-heated frustration swirling from her nose. "What is this, Cadie? Besides the power couple of pathetic and desperate."
Her easy manner remained, yet the soft twitches of Cadence's lips betrayed the alarm the girl's words stirred behind her mask. "I know it looks bad, and I wouldn't be here at all if I wasn't sure this was big," she said, gesturing through the outer fence towards the carpark. "But if you just let me show you one thing, I promise it'll be worth it. One minute to run to my car, Mel, and I can fix everything that went wrong. We can go back to how we used to be!"
With a puzzled stare, Melody shifted her bag in front of her and studied Cadence's swaying stance. "Are you drunk? Do I need to get someone to throw you out?"
A girl in a black-and-white striped top swept past Cadence's side, a tumbler of effervescent amber liquid with a looped straw in her hand. "There you are! I can't believe you're still sulking out here," she said as she wiggled the drink by Melody's side. "Look, we were just fucking around, alright? We'd never literally force you to make out with anyone, obviously. There are other ways to get back at Matt, like dropping the queen bitch act and coming back inside. It's a party, M. Forget about that asshole, take this drink, and have fun!"
Snatching the glass from the girl's hold, Cadence tossed the straw on the ground and downed the drink in one breathless swig. She shuddered and pressed the empty glass back against the girl's chest, jabbing her finger into the stranger's shoulder. "A Long Island iced tea? You mean you don't even know Mel's favourite drink?" she asked as she huffed clouds of alcohol-rich air into the girl's face. "She likes a basic bitch vodka martini, and she'd never drink it with a stupid straw. Know how I know? Because real friends remember shit like that."
"What?" Judging by her tilting tone, the girl had missed every word of Cadence's defiant statement. She pushed the glass back and lifted her chin to indicate her lack of fear, though a slight hiccup suggested that was more the work of booze than boldness. "Sorry, who the fuck are you?"
"I'm the one talking to Mel right now, duh." Cadence spun the girl around and shoved her towards the party, waving her away when she tried to storm back. "Go find someone who actually wants to hang out with you, alright? Mel's busy."
The girl let a string of curses loose, yet a combination of shock and exhaustion ensured she complied with Cadence's request without further struggle. Ignoring the rapid beats thrumming from her heart, Elise carried herself to Cadence's side and placed a soothing hand on her friend's back. "You used to chat with Cade's mum, Florence, about romance writing, right?" she asked, leaving a hesitant pause to judge Melody's mood. "I do too, or at least I try to. She's not the easiest person to get along with."
Melody scoffed, and a flick of her hair revealed the impatient scowl that crept along the ridges of her glossy pink lips. "Maybe not for a wannabe loser like you, but I never had a problem with her when we spoke," she droned, rolling her eyes when Elise flinched in surprise. "Why does it matter anyway? I haven't seen Florence in months. I haven't even thought about her, honestly."
"She's thought about you, Melody – a lot." With Cadence by her side, Elise's confidence emerged from its familiar hiding spot behind her quiet, anxious disposition. Her friend's usual morale boost reached her heart, yet Cadence's willingness to provide an extra target for Melody's irritable energy was another essential blessing. "She keeps asking to see you, or confusing me with you after our visits. At first, I thought it was just because she missed you, but now...I'm not so sure."
"So she's going senile or what-the-fuck-ever. Big deal. News flash, precious – it happens to everyone," Melody snapped, her tongue tripping on the severe strings of her own tone. She stepped back for a mouthful of fresher air, then returned with a perfectly composed expression painted on her face. "Look, I'm sorry about Florence's...struggles, but I've moved on. My life is here now, and her issues aren't my problem anymore."
Seeing the disappointment sprout on Cadence's face, Elise ran her hand down her friend's back and left her side. "I really wish they didn't have to be," she said, crossing in front of Melody's attempt to leave the conversation. "But they are. See, Melody, I think Florence was using your work to finish her stories."
A breath parted Melody's lips. Though delivered on cue, it lacked the breathless urgency of surprise or horror, and it soon trailed beneath the rumbling waves of bassy party music. "Is that what you came to tell me?"
As Elise strained her neck to nod in response, Cadence swaggered up to Melody's side and nudged her elbow against the girl's arm. "See? Flo was totally the one swiping stuff off you, not me!" she said with an optimistic smile that held its ground even after meeting Melody's unenthused eye. "I bet she only wanted me to bring you over so she could steal your ideas. She was really ballsy about it too, apparently, because Ellie here found –"
"I know." Melody's voice shrank to a hoarse whisper, and bleak puddles haunted the crystalline surfaces of her eyes. "Wanderlove, right? I know, Cadie. I've known since it came out."
"Really?" The lengths of Cadence's legs buckled under sudden bursts of relief, resignation, and even anger. Working on them all was a thick, gloomy confusion, its pull ruling her emotions like a cyclone rules stranded ships. "Then what the fuck are we doing? Let's go give her and her stupid publisher a piece of our minds, just like we should've done months ago!"
"Let's not." As she answered, Melody stepped back from her former friend and ran a hand through her hair. The snappy tilt of her head came as effortlessly to her as the irritated fold of her arms, the dual actions combining to reveal her response's finality. "Let's just not."
Cadence's energy whittled away under the night's cold vapour. "What? Why not? Isn't that why we stopped hanging out?"
"No, Cadie. This is why I stopped hanging out with you." Frozen in place, Melody pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. The aura of superiority that had tried time after time to carry her out of the conversation vanished, revealing the lone, vulnerable girl that lay within. "You haven't changed a bit. You're just a jealous, petty, controlling bitch who's only bothered about how you can manipulate people into doing whatever you want."
A choked gasp squeaked out from Elise's throat as she tried to stop Melody's flow. "That's not right! How would you even know that?"
"Because I have eyes and ears, precious," Melody hissed, pushing Elise out of her field of view and closing the space to Cadence's side. "You know, for so long, I was just like your little fangirl here. I used to love doing what you wanted, because I really thought if you were happy, I'd be happy too. Then I grew up and got my shit together. Obviously, you two still haven't."
The night's bitter blanket closed around Elise's motionless form, and its chilled fibres squeezed the life out of every inch of her exposed skin. No clock was in sight, yet the slow seconds still ticked by in her mind, their gaping void crying out for Cadence to fill it with joy, wit, or hope. Even steaming rage would have been preferable to pure silence.
Yet pure silence is all her friend's form produced. Like a forgotten statue, Cadence stayed fixed in place as her colour flaked and burned away in Melody's sun, her arms raised a fraction as if to question why she was erected there at all. She, a relic of Melody's past lives, had no place in the girl's reality now.
Melody flicked an invisible particle from her blouse's shoulder and turned away from Cadence's stunned self. "If that's everything, some of us were actually invited to this party," she said as she strolled towards the double doors into the party. "Au revoir, bitches. See you again...never."
"What the hell?" Elise raced after Melody, blocking her from disappearing into the throngs of shambling dancers. "What kind of friend are you? You two were friends for years, and that's how you're leaving things? Do Cade's feelings mean nothing to you?"
"I didn't ask her to swan in here spouting her bespoke brand of bullshit," Melody answered as she checked the state of her nails. It was difficult to pin down their meaning in the party lighting, yet small pinholes of light pricked through the steely shades over her eyes. "Cadie and I were over long ago. If I need to be a ruthless bitch to spell that out for her, then that's what I'll be."
With a deepening frown, Elise folded her arms and finally met Melody's shining eye. "Are you really spelling it out just for 'Cadie'?" she asked as she checked the girl's attempted advance. "Is the cute nickname part of your 'ruthless bitch' act too?"
The pink shimmer waned off Melody's lips, and her snippy voice lacked the acidic burn in its syllables. "Think whatever you want. I don't care," she said, gesturing for Elise to step aside. When the girl remained rooted to the spot, Melody cast her eyes to the ceiling and caught the overflowing rays of the overhead spotlight along her sweat-streaked brow. "Hello? This conversation is over now. Get lost already!"
Though she heard Melody's words, Elise's attention had flitted from the girl before she opened her mouth. The empty space they had left outside now sat buried beneath a horde of shifting silhouettes, their rows growing and churning beyond the limits of the walkway. They moved and muttered among themselves, all their eyes trained on some fixed point hidden behind their bulk. Through the relentless pounding of the music against her ears, Elise's mind screamed the answer before she had a shred of evidence. "Cade!"
Elise broke from Melody's side and immediately bounced off an unmoving wall of onlookers. As bad as shoving people made her feel, her mind raced around too much for any awkwardness to affect her. The first blow glanced against her heart as the party's layers of synthesised sound peeled away, exposing a raw, analogue stream of choked whimpers that meandered through the frigid air. Bursting between a pair of shambling onlookers, Elise reached the core of the commotion. What she saw all but sent her back into the crowd's meandering maze.
It was Cadence, or what parts of her still clung to consciousness. Slumped on her side, her body twitched and tensed as her eyes flitted around in a frenzied search for safety. Every flailing and clawing effort to pick herself up met with the dual pain of failure and a growing migraine, the endless little shocks accumulating into an inescapable, paralysing ache. She was hurt, she was alone, and in the slivers of silver night light, she looked just as meagre as she had done in Elise's nightmare. This, however, was all too real.
"Oh god, Cade!" Elise cried, scrambling to kneel by her friend's side. "It's me, it's Ellie. What happened?"
"Ellie?" Cadence muttered, her voice little more than a choked slur. She looked up at her friend's face, yet she immediately winced away from the glare of the sports centre's lights. "My fucking head...I feel like shit..."
Elise slipped her hand underneath Cadence's bobbing head, wiping away the saliva that escaped from the corner of her friend's mouth. "It's okay, I've got you now," she said as she blinked back the tears that built up in her eyes. "I shouldn't have left you, not in a place like this."
Swallowing down a bout of audible nausea, Cadence strained to work her fingers around the hem of Elise's top. "Fucking hate...stupid cocktails..." Suddenly, creases cracked through her face, and she flinched as a pained wail tore from her lungs.
"Stay with me, Cade. I'll phone for help," Elise said as she searched Cadence's pockets for her phone, her friend's sputtered words looming large in the air over her. "The cocktail...oh god..."
"What's up now? Acting out because I won't be your little playmate?" Melody's voice split the gathered crowd, paving the way for her elegant strides into the clearing around Cadence's form. Her arms were folded, though the steady flexing of her fingers betrayed her fraying nerves. "Seriously, are you two going to make a fucking drama out of everything tonight? You aren't even supposed to be here."
Grinding her teeth, Elise kept a tight hold on Cadence's body as she turned to glare at Melody. "What's your problem?" she snapped, catching Melody off-guard with her severe tone. "Can't you see Cade needs help right now?"
Melody flicked her gaze to her shoes to regain her composure. "Cadie needs a lot of help, precious. She's a fucking mess."
"Shut up and listen to me, would you?" Though her gut urged her to scream into the girl's face, Elise refused to leave Cadence's side. Instead, she worked her vocal chords as hard as she could to drown out the hum of conversation that encircled them. "I think Cade's been spiked. That cocktail she drank must have had something in it – the cocktail that was meant for you."
"What?" A note of fear twinged at the end of Melody's syllable, matched by a flash of concern in her eyes. After a moment of thought, she shook off her sympathy and hardened her retaliatory stare. "Whatever. She's taken worse stuff by choice, she'll be fine. Serves her right for rocking up where she's not wanted."
"Get over yourself already!" Elise's anger erupted, firing her to her feet and launching her at Melody. The girl had a slight height advantage, yet the discrepancy evaporated in the heat of Elise's fury. "Don't you get it? This could've been you, and I bet Cade would've carried you to the hospital herself if she had to. So, instead of talking shit, get on your phone, call for an ambulance, and help her like she'd help you!"
A heavy hush swept over the crowd, and Melody glanced to see that all surrounding eyes awaited her next word. "I suppose you're right," she sighed as she unearthed her phone from her clutch bag. "Fine. I'll phone for an ambulance."
"Thanks, Melody." As the girl moved to the sports centre wall and dialled for the emergency services, Elise returned to Cadence's side wearing the most confident smile she could muster. "You're going to be alright, Cade. Help's coming, and I'm staying right here until it does."
Laying a hand on Elise's arm, Cadence's grip refused to close, instead sliding down her friend's side and onto the ground. Her gaze searched around her, the whites of her eyes glowing in desperation only to disappear behind the shutters of her eyelids. Without a sound, her body collapsed in Elise's hold, a cold, limp mass.
Tapping her friend's shoulder, Elise studied Cadence's face, desperate to summon a sign of life. "Cade? Oh no, Cade!" she cried, numb to the prying stares of the remaining onlookers. "Tell me you can hear me, please!"
Cadence did not stir. In both dreams and real life, Elise had let her best friend slip far beyond her reach.
"You're going to be okay," Elise repeated as she held the girl in a tight embrace. Shadows of helplessness closed around her, and she relented to let the first scorching rush of tears loose from her eyes. As she buried her face in Cadence's sweat-soaked top, Elise hushed her gasping sobs for long enough to tune into the beat of her friend's heart, its pace as quick and strained as her own. The similarity enveloped her senses with a flawed form of comfort, just enough to catch her anxiety's wild horses before they bolted into the unknown. "You're going to be okay, I promise."