CHOICES (Completed)

IT DOES MATTER

“You okay, hey?” Lily chirps beside me and I look up dazed, still trying to recover.

“Yeah. I’m good.”

“How did you like my playlist?” I look around and my eyes freeze on the dancing pair of Hardin with Victoria Secret?

“Personal. I mean, it was amazing Lily, really.”

I keep staring into them as they move together and she smiles excessively wide. I feel sick after tonight.

“Uh, if it’s any consolation, she went to him and not he.” I turn to look at her, and my head hurts too bad.

“Get me a drink?”

“Dell, you sure? You don’t drin-“

“Yeah I’m sure. Get me one, please.” I down glasses after glasses of wine, until I start feeling a bit tipsy. The liquid glides through my dry throat, and burns a bit in my empty stomach.

I feel… hungry. And floaty. And flying. And swimming. I’m high, I can feel it. And bit by bit, I feel my pains decreasing. I feel myself getting distracted.

I’m not here. I’m in my bed, reading Fifty Shades of Grey. I’m going to eat chocolate donuts and sleep my ass off. And when I wake up tomorrow morning, my life will be all sorted out.

“Tessa, stop, you’ve had enough!” I hear Lily’s voice and her hand tugs at my arms as I stumble a bit. It’s no where near enough.

“Tessa, please. Get over i-“

“Is she drunk?” I turn and an angry Hardin towers over me, looking at Lily accusingly.

“It’s my boogly woogly wooshie boyfriend. Hey, Hardinator-chika-chika!” I try to pinch his gorgeous chocolatey cheeks but he just holds my hands on either side of me, keeping me still and balanced.

“Tessa, let’s go.”

“No. It’s a fundraiser! I want to raise money. I want to raise it all the way up to the Eiffel Tower.”

“Okay, that’s enough. Come on.” He tugs at my hand and I make a face.

He looks at me, furious probably, and then holds my wrist tight, whisking me away. We enter the empty hallway, my heels making the only sound that can be heard. He stops once we’re far out of earshot and then leaves my hand turning to look at me.

“I can’t believe you got wasted! What were you thinking? Right, you never do.”I look at him silently and pout, narrowing my eyes.

“I bet you thought so much before you started going all Michael Jackson with Victoria Secret.” He rolls his eyes and pushes off his fringe in irritation.

“She came to me. And what was I supposed to do, especially after you replaced me at the last moment?”

I stand back, shocked and staring into him with a blank expression. The faded pain, starts descending back like a dark cloud. How could he say that I-

“You think I- I replaced you?” I ask softly, almost as if asking myself. I had done so much for him and he thought this?

“I don’t think that, Tessa. I feel like you have.”

I am shocked.

I look at him warily, stumbling a bit and suppressing the hurricane of things I’ve felt tonight. I am drunk. But my life is just not leaving me alone. I should have had vodka, or something hard.

“Hardin, I-I just- don’t get this- thing in your head. It sounds so much like insecurity but I don’t know what it is anymore. I have loved you so hard and lost so much, and it kills me to see that you feel thi-“