"How was the sexfest?" Collins' snarky voice called from the kitchen as I dropped my backpack onto the floor. "I'm surprised you can even walk, from what I've heard Elijah West is packing some serious heat-" Her voice cut off immediately when she saw my tear stained cheeks.
"I need my keys." I choked and she immediately grabbed the small black fob from the pocket of her shorts and handed it to me.
"What happened?" Her voice dripped with concern, an emotion so foreign to Collins Sarah Adams, that it made me feel impossibly worse. I didn't need my sixteen year old sister's pity for my love life.
"Nothing happened." I responded numbly and turned, walking back toward the front of the house. I knew Eli would come after me, his eyes had said as much, and I didn't want to be here when he climbed the trellis to my bedroom window.
"I'll be back later." I called and climbed into my car, tossing a pair of lacy women's underwear out the drivers side window. It was bad enough I wasn't having sex, but he fact that Collins was...in my car was the cherry on top.
I quickly turned the radio station from the hip hop explicit station to the equally as explicit alternative station and Popular Monster soothed me. Barely. I felt my sorrow shift to something far more cathartic...anger. How dare Eli act as though he wanted me?! He'd said he wanted more, and that we were no longer friends, but he still insisted on treating me like one. What a sadistic, narcissistic, asshole.
Before I knew it, I was pulling up to Marissa's modest split level home in the outskirts of Malibu. Her small gold Mercedes sedan was parked in the driveway and I rolled my shoulders back, wiping my cheeks as I walked to the front door. Marissa's Vietnamese parents would see right through any bullshit, so I needed to play my best game.
I pulled the heavy brass knocker and let it fall twice against the black wooden door. The sound of footsteps against tile resounded from within and I waited patiently, praying her mother Anh wouldn't answer. For the second time today, my prayers would fall on deaf ears as the door swung open and there stood Anh Le. All 4'9" of terrifying woman. Her black eyebrows knitted together, and her hands found her slender hips, already oozing disapproval, despite the fact that I hadn't uttered a word.
"Good to see you Mrs. Le." I lied. "Is Marissa home?"
"Why?" She barked and I glanced past her into the house. I was half tempted to start screaming for Marissa, but I knew all that would buy me is a door in my face.
"Because I wanted to see if she would like to go shopping."
"She doesn't need anything." Mrs. Le began closing the door, but I reached a hand out holding it open, surprising us both.
"Please, Mrs. Le. I've had a terrible morning and I need some time with my best friend. Tell me you understand." I plead and she studied me for another long moment.
"Fine. You have to promise me you won't let her buy anything. She has too much clothing already. Selfish girl." She muttered, turning back to fetch Marissa who looked adorable in a yellow floral romper and white wedge high heels.
"Avery!" She smiled widely, a stark contrast to the rest of the darkness that lived in her house. "This is a nice surprise." She always sounded so annoyingly proper in her mother's presence.
"Yes, Marissa. I was hoping you could accompany me to a few boutiques to find a new Sunday church dress." I replied, batting my eyelashes and laying it on extra thick, and Anh seemed pleased by my response.
"Of course." Marissa looked to her mother. "As long as you're okay with that, mother..."
Anh looked to her daughter sternly before there was a slight crack in her exterior. "Okay. You girls have fun." Marissa smiled wininngly and followed me to my car.
"Thank fuck you showed up when you did. She was about to have me clean the grout..."
"You're kidding." I laughed, already feeling microscopically better. Marissa always had that effect on me, ever since we met at that volleyball camp in seventh grade.
"Totally not kidding. But wait! Aren't you supposed to be legs spread beneath Elijah West right now?!" Marissa unrolled the passenger side window and took a long puff from her vape as I pulled out of her neighborhood. It smelled like blackberries and weed, much like Collins' brand.
"Yeah, about that..." I dove into my story of the disaster that was these past twenty-four hours, and what happened in Eli's shower an hour ago. I cringed extra hard as I recounted the way he said he 'couldn't do me'.
"What a loser." Marissa laughed. "Maybe he has, like, erectile dysfunction or something. Maybe he physically can't." I considered the notion, but was quick to shake it off. There wasn't anything wrong with...that...he'd been just fine in the shower on our first kiss, and in my bed, and in his car...my mind digressed.
"Could be a possibility." I lied, pulling open the car door in front of my favorite boutique in Malibu. My Sister's Closet was a hole-in-the-wall vintage clothing store Marissa and I practically lived in all through high school. Sure, my family could afford every major label, twice over...twice daily, but I had never really been interested in spending over a thousand dollars on a dress I would wear once.
"Good evening, girls. We got some new donations in the back." Margo, the blue haired Middle Aged shop worker called from behind a mountain of clothing she was sorting.
The store was covered in tiny gold wallpaper, which held a mustiness of years of moth balls and dampness. The odd smell usually calmed by nerves, but did nothing to ease the pain I was still feeling over Eli West.
"What are you doing tonight?" Marissa brought me from my rejection in Eli's shower, and back to reality.
"I don't know. My parents are in Santa Barbara for the night, and Collin's will probably be having sex all over our house with Trinity. Which leaves me and Ben and Jerry in a forbidden three some in my bedroom."
"Funny." Marissa held up a green snake print dress that made her emerald eyes pop and her tanned skin glow. "But you aren't doing that. We're going to church."
"Church?" I raised an eyebrow, I was religious and had attended church intermittently growing up, but it was an odd choice for a Saturday night. Marissa smirked, scrolling through her phone.
"Here." She held it out to me and I scrolled through the photos, feeling my cheeks blush at some of the more candid shots.
Church was apparently the newest, hippest, underground bar that blared rock music and was hidden behind a library in an old Montessori. The kind of place that you had to know someone, who knew someone, to even know about it. And you definitely had to be twenty-one.
"I don't have a fake..." I handed her back her phone, but Marissa was unfazed. "Well it's a good thing the bouncer is one of the losers in my small group...and he owes me."
"I don't know."
"Well I do, so put this on." She shoved a long sleeved black latex dress into my arms. "And call Connor, tell him to bring that cute friend of his..."
***************
"I feel like I can't breathe in this damn thing..." I whined, stretching the latex material hopelessly over my ass.
"You don't have to be able to breathe, you just have to be able dance..." Marissa giggled over the empowering girlie music that was blasting through the speakers in my bedroom. It was half past ten, and the boys were due to arrive any moment to drive us to L.A.
Promptly after arriving home after a few hours of shopping, I'd found a purple sticky note on my bathroom mirror with Eli's chicken scratch, and had ripped it off. I threw it away and grabbed a bottle of my parents champagne from the glass wine room downstairs. I didn't want to look at his handwriting and I damn sure didn't want to read his pleads for me to 'call him'.
So, Marissa and I started drinking and hadn't stopped, painting our eyelids dark and our lips a contrasting nude shade atop our skin-tight dresses from the confinement shop. Apparently, the dress code for the club was mistress of the night, and we didn't disappoint.
Marissa's green snake print strapless dress and black spiky heels, and my long sleeved black latex dress and white heels certainly fit the bill.
"Your phone is buzzing..again." She called bored from the bathroom, but I ignored it. I already knew who it was.
"Let it go to voicemail...again." I fluffed my short straight blonde hair in the mirror and my dress rode up showing all my lady bits. There was no way to wear anything beneath this thing. I would have to be careful dancing if I didn't want to get arrested for indecent exposure, even if I suspected no one would bat an eye in Church.
"Your ride is here, you whores!" Collins screamed up the staircase from where she and Trinity were snuggled on the couch like an old married couple. Yet another un-Collins like thing to do on a Saturday night. Maybe she was worthy of Trinity after all...
"Okay. Thanks Bitch!" I giggled, feeling the bubbles float around my brain.
"Your phone's buzzing again." Marissa deadpanned handing it out to me, but I closed my eyes as I shoved the sparkly gold phone case into the confines of my bag. I was tempted to not bring it at all, but being out in LA without a cell seemed beyond idiotic, even to my inebriated brain.
Eventually, we stumbled down the stairs and out the front door, piling into the back of Connor's white Range Rover Sport. It was odd thinking we had the same exact car, just a different color. Something I hadn't noticed before because his was clean and smelled a little like leather, while mine smelled like whatever e-cig flavor Collins was currently experimenting with. I think this weekend she'd switched to Apricot.
"So how did you guys find out about this place?" Tre asked from the passenger seat, looking at me because I sat opposite of him, but talking to Marissa.
"One of my acquaintances works there." Marissa answered vaguely, not looking up from her cell phone to take in Tre's hopeful smile and the new swirling fade he cut into his hair.
"Hey." I poked her. "You're being rude." She rolled her eyes, but shoved her phone into her bag.
"Well, I'm just glad to be invited. You guys look great. Really." Connor always the gentleman smiled, his baby blue eyes meeting mine in the rear view mirror and I blushed.
"You guys do too." I pushed a strand of hair behind my ear. I wasn't lying. Both Connor and Tre wore simple black T-shirt's and dark wash jeans with sneakers. I think Tre's were even of the Gucci variety. I had seen Eli with a similar pair in a paparazzi photo last fall.
My smile slipped a little as I recalled his arm around some tiny brunette's waist in the photo. Yet another one of his actress conquests who, unlike me, he could actually stomach sleeping with.
"Who's being rude now?" Marissa nudged my side. "Connor just asked you a question."
"Oh." I flushed impossibly a shade darker. "What was it?"
"I was just asking if you're going to be living on campus again next year?" Next year. As in Sophomore year. At UCLA. The school where I still had no major, and no idea what I was doing. To be honest, I was kind of dreading going back, not that I could ever admit that...to anyone.
"I'm not sure yet." I answered vaguely, considering how the past two minutes had successfully killed my buzz.
**********
I discovered my buzz again somewhere around midnight, lost in an incredible, alternative version of Salt by Ava Max.
"I'm all outta salt, I'm not gonna cry, won't give you what you want 'cause I look way too good tonight..."
Her poppy voice blasted through the speakers, accompanied by a ripping electric guitar. I threw my head back and shook my hair out, grinding my hips backwards against Connor. He really was a decent dance partner, as my sweaty body and aching feet attested to.
"Come on." He grabbed my hand, leading me back to our small table in the corner. "I need a break."
"Wuss." I teased, pushing my finger into a dimple on his cheek. God he was gorgeous. My blood alcohol content practically screamed.
He grabbed my hand and kissed my knuckles and I blushed bashfully, almost not noticing the way his lips felt like plastic on my skin. Unlike Eli's soft full lips on my own, on my neck, down my body...
I downed the tequila shot on our table without a second thought and Marissa cheered from her position atop a very pleased Tre.
"That's my girl!" She shook her long dark locks to the music which had now changed to an alluring mix of Nine Inch Nails and Rihanna.
"I hope you're not mad at me, but I did something..." She batted her long false eyelashes at me, and I felt my heart pick up speed. When Marissa was drunk and meddling it was never a good scenario.
"What?!" I demanded. She held out my gold phone to me and clicked on my own "story" on Instagram. It was a short boomerang video of me grinding against Connor, but you could only see my hair whipping back and forth with his blonde head in my neck and his large arm wrapped around my waist like an anaconda. The caption typed onto the screen simply read 'When I feel Salt-y I go to Church...'
"Marissa, you bad bad girl." I wagged a finger at her, but wasn't really disappointed. The angle of the shot made me look ultra thin and the arm wrapped tightly around my waist showed that someone actually wanted more than friendship with me.
"You can thank me later." She giggled, kissing Tre square on the lips and I pulled at the neck of my dress uncomfortably.
"I'm going to use the restroom." I yelled to Connor, and he nodded once, attempting to follow me through the pulsing crowd to the ladies room.
I put a hand to his chest. "I think I can manage on my own." I kissed him briefly on cheek. "I'll meet you back at the table. Have a tequila shot waiting for me." I winked and disappeared behind the ladies room door.
As I washed my hands and stared at myself in the mirror. My green eyes looked impossibly brighter and my makeup had miraculously held up with the drinking and dancing. I felt good and I looked even better...
I threw away my paper towel and flung my hair back, squeezing my shoulder blades together. The new posture had me pushing out my boobs a little, and I smiled at a couple of guys that waited for the men's room. That is, until I turned the corner back to our table and saw who was sitting there. Waiting.
"What do you think you're doing here?" I snarled as I approached.
"Looking for salvation." Eli smirked, crossing one leg over the other and sipped on his whiskey drink like he wasn't fucking up my entire life.