This chapter is dedicated to @wiserambles for the brilliant covers she made above. Thank you!
Oh, Monica.
You'll just have to trust me on this one.
What's wrong with Jack? You simply adored him back when you were here. And are you sure things are okay? You can be more descriptive you know, 'great' isn't much to go by. Is there anything wrong? You can talk to me.
Love, Chloe
As soon as I found a bathroom, I leant over the toilet bowl and threw up the contents of my stomach. My drunken stumbling through the house trying to find one had disturbed my insides, and my hands wouldn't stop shaking uncontrollably.
I hadn't eaten much before the game, and so it didn't take long for the heaving to turn into a painful ripping of the lining in my stomach. It was absolutely terrible.
When the worst of it had passed, I feebly stood to my feet, my knees banging together as they shook. I reached out to support myself on the counter and turned the tap on at the sink. Catching my reflection in the mirror almost made me throw up again, there was a trail of black mascara seeping down each cheek from the tears induced from vomiting, and I was a ghostly pale.
I cupped water in my hands and scrubbed at my cheeks and mouth, trying to rid myself of the horrible, dirty feeling that had crept over me. The ends of my hair felt gross too, so I ran them under water. I searched through the drawer below the basin and found a tube of toothpaste, which I put onto my finger and used to wash my teeth.
My face still looked horrible, and with my damp hair and white trembling limbs I almost looked like something out of a horror film. I couldn't stay at the party looking like a wreck, not around level one. Also, I had no idea where my purse had gone.
I was trying to control the uneven intake of my breath when the door flung open. I hadn't even thought to lock it in my haste to get to the toilet.
Platinum blond hair and ruby red lips told me it was Sophie before her hair fell out of the way to reveal the exuberant expression on her face.
"Oh, sweetie, I knew you had issues, but bulimia?" she asked, closing and locking the door behind us before plonking her purse onto the counter.
I couldn't even find the will power to tell her off. She knew it wasn't an eating disorder, it was the fact that she and her evil friends had coaxed me into drugs.
"Aw," she cooed, cupping my cheek in her hand. "I've got some makeup in my bag, we can touch this up."
I gulped, my focus now kept on containing my stomach to stop it from projecting vomit down the front of Sophie's cleavage.
"You know," she said as she gently pushed me back to sit on the lid of the toilet. "This wasn't exactly a party you could invite your own friends to."
"W-What?" I asked, my words involuntarily stuttering.
Sophie rolled her eyes. "The freckled girl and the Asian?"
Claire and Jack.
"I didn't think anyone would care," I said, my voice frail and slightly slurred.
Sophie sighed, pulling a tube of foundation from her purse and dabbing it onto her fingers. "Well, we do. You're very ignorant, Chloe. There's a lot of things happening around you that just can't be disturbed."
I frowned as she smoothed the creamy liquid over my cheeks. "Like what?"
She laughed. "Oh, honey, I'm not going to tell you, am I? You've shown a few times now that you just can't be trusted."
I was growing too tired to be worried by her words, I was now struggling to even keep my eyes open.
"Listen to me, Chloe," she said, her sweet tone growing sharper. "You might be associated with us while you're with Will, but just know that none of us are you friend. Not even Maddy."
My mouth opened weakly to respond, but Sophie pressed a finger against my lips to silence me.
"You upset Lola. She's so pissed off by you. Just know that we all have Lola's back. You better watch it, because one little wrong move and we won't hesitate to destroy you, little Chloe. Will can't protect you forever."
"Sophie, I—"
"Shh," she hushed. Her electric eyes were wild, as if given a new energy. How could she react this way to the coke, while I was barely able to form a coherent thought? "Lola is so much better than you. We've been friends forever and I'd never leave her side. She's beautiful, you know? So much more beautiful than you. You have no idea how stupid your fat thighs look with that skirt. Everyone's staring, Chloe. Everyone."
I gasped, unable to gain a sufficient amount of oxygen by breathing normally. Sophie let out a sardonic, humorless laugh as she straightened.
"See you later, Chloe," she said, and the next thing I processed was the door closing behind her.
And then I blacked out.
I had no idea how much time had passed by the time I came around. I was slumped against the counter, hugging Will's jacket around my chest with chattering teeth. It took me a while to find the will to get up, I felt like absolute death, and Sophie's words ran sharply through my brain like razors. You have no idea how stupid your fat thighs look with that skirt. Everyone's staring, Chloe. Everyone.
I let out a shaky breath, screwing my eyes shut for a moment. On one hand, I felt a little more sober, maybe enough to dial a cab and get home as soon as possible. But, on the other hand, I was terrified of my mother seeing me like this.
Eventually, I found the strength to push myself off of the floor. At least Sophie touched up my makeup, I thought darkly. One thing was for sure, that bitch was going to pay, I was sure of it.
Sophie had left the lock on the door, which would explain why nobody had stumbled in to find me. What if I was dying? Drugs could do that, couldn't they? Kill you if you had a bad reaction? God, this was such a mess.
I stepped outside of the bathroom with a new thirst for vengeance, despite my wrinkled clothes and tangled hair.
A clock on the wall read almost three in the morning, which disorientated me. If that much time had passed, why hadn't Will found me? Or why hadn't someone been worried enough to think to look for me?
There was a fairly large group of people in the lounge room, people from each of the lacrosse teams and their associates. I wondered if Claire and Jack were still here, or if Sophie had done something horrific to get rid of them. The latter was probably the more likely option.
It felt like everyone was staring at me, the ghostly pale girl with the chattering teeth and messy hair. I step backwards, overwhelmed, and headed towards the kitchen instead.
"Chloe!"
I turned to see William pushing through a handful of people. Relief washed over me.
"God, what are you doing? I thought you went home?" he asked, taking in my appearance with a wary look.
"I-I didn't go home," I said, my voice croaky and dry, as if I'd swallowed a ball of scrunched up paper. "Did Sophie tell you that?"
William made a pissed-off sound before putting a guiding hand over my waist and directing me into the kitchen. He then looked behind him in thought before moving to drag the folded bamboo partition across to separate us from the rest of the party-goers.
"What happened?" he asked, sounding frustrated. "God, you just keep getting yourself into trouble."
"I went to the bathroom!" I said defensively. "And then, well, I just passed out."
William shook his head, clearly worked up about this. "Sophie told me she found you outside and helped you into a cab."
"Well she lied," I said, my tone flat. I wasn't one bit surprised.
"Of course she did." William started pacing. "How are you feeling?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat. "A little better than before. I just need water."
William nodded, opening the fridge to retrieve a bottle. I smiled gratefully, drinking as much as I could without my stomach bubbling over again.
The partition was moved aside to make an entrance for Maddy, who stumbled in with a handful of paper cups in her hand.
"Oh, I hope I wasn't interrupting you two!" she said, looking between us and giggling.
"You weren't," William said sternly.
"Is everything okay?" she asked, and then she took in my appearance. "Chloe, what happened?"
"You girls happened," William said between gritted teeth. "You seriously pressured her into that shit?"
Maddy's face contorted in guilt. "We didn't mean any harm."
Then she stepped over to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "Oh, Chloe, are you okay? I'm sorry."
I nodded, not sure how I felt with Maddy at the moment. She was level one, after all, and it was clear that I was growing much too comfortable with them.
"I really have to go and clean up this mess the boys made – seriously, my mom's favorite bottle of red wine is all over the polar bear rug upstairs." She cringed.
"Polar bear rug?" I asked when she had scurried off with an arm full of cleaning products. "That's insane."
William shrugged, his eyes still lingering on the place where she'd disappeared. "Her family's pretty insane."
I sighed, leaning against the counter. Sophie's words ran through my mind again, about how beautiful Lola was in comparison to me. It brought with it a weird feeling. Maybe William, even though our relationship wasn't real, would always like Lola better. And that didn't even make any sense, he wouldn't like me in that way anyway. My brain was just fried.
"Chloe," Will said, his voice low. "I'm worried about you."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm just worried about you. What if doing all of this puts you in exactly the same position as Monica?"
I was quiet for a little while. I didn't know how to answer that, because he was right. Judging by the way things were going, I was heading down the Monica road fast. "Maybe they wouldn't hate me so much if you didn't flaunt me in front of Lola like bait."
William's lips fell into a straight line. He didn't say anything.
"What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that maybe it's my fault. Everything, and not just everything with you, everything with Monica. I was in a perfect position to warn her, but I just kept encouraging her. Making her comfortable. I should have just been awful. So many times she was about to give up and admit they were destroying her, but I'd always reassure her. Always stick up for them."
"Why?" I asked, as more of a plea than a question.
"Because I didn't want to be like them. They're just terrible to people, and if I shunned her too then I was just as bad. I don't know, I just never thought it would get so dangerous..."
I stood up from the counter to my full height. I couldn't tell him it wasn't his fault. Because, it partially was. That's why he was on the list to begin with. But, things didn't seem so black and white anymore.
"Look, I'm going to call us a cab. I left both of our stuff upstairs with the others, I'm just going to run up and get it."
I nodded, glad that he at least had my purse and it wasn't in the hands of someone like Sophie or Lola.
He folded up the partition wall again and darted through the crowd of people. I followed him out to the living room, looking around at the drunken and high people around me, laughing and passing around a phone which must have had some kind of amusing content on it.
Is this how Mon felt? Confused, and unable to comprehend what was wrong or right?
My thoughts were interrupted when a hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled me subtly into the hallway, too fast for me to process who exactly it was.
"Chloe. I believe we have a mutual issue to discuss," he said.
My heart froze over when I realized it was Francis Greene.