The Mistake

Emma

My eyes widened when I saw Emma, standing with her drink and a sly smile on her face. The girl who broke my heart almost three years ago.

I was too stunned to speak. "What, aren't you happy to see me?" She made her way over and sat on the stool next to me.

I looked back at the shot glass in front of me. I couldn't think straight. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, Nick, I still live here. Only one of us made it out of this shithole, remember?" She smiled teasingly, but the slightest hint of bitterness still managed to slip out. "So the real question is, what are you doing here?"

"None of your business." I downed the shot.

"Ouch. After all those years, that's all I get?" She furrowed her brow, looking up at me through her full lashes, green eyes gleaming. She sighed and rummaged theough her purse, took out a tiny jar and opened it. Cocaine.

She took a small amount of the white powder out with her pinky finger and inhaled it, coughing as the drugs went into her system. She held the jar out to me. "Want some?" I grimaced and turned away. It seemed as if it was only a few months ago that we were doing drugs in her mother's basement.

"I don't do that anymore."

She studied me, squinting at me like I was some freak, but then shrugged with a smile and put it back in her purse. "Huh. Living in that perfect little suburbia really has changed you, hasn't it?"

"And you haven't changed a bit. Come on, Emma; still getting high on the same junk like all those years ago? What are you doing?"

Her face fell at that, her expression turning sour. "Hey," she hissed. "You don't get to do that. Just because your mom married some rich guy so you could get out of this shithole doesn't make you any better than me. You got out on luck, I didn't get that same chance. So you don't get to judge me for what I do when I'm still stuck here."

My brain was fogged up, but I knew she was right. She had just as much of a fucked up life as I had. We'd been through it all together when we were kids. She was all I had, and I was all she had. So we escaped, got high together and imagined for just a second we didn't live in this miserable place.

"I'm leaving. My friends are waiting for me." She stood up, grabbing her purse as she turned to leave.

"Emma, wait. I'm sorry." She froze and looked at me with a hard set jaw. I hadn't wanted anything to do with her since a long time ago. Maybe it was the fear of being alone with my thoughts another second, or maybe just the alcohol coursing through my brain, but I said, "You want a drink?"

***

"No way are Jean and Tommy still together." Emma laughed and finished her drink in a gulp.

It had been an hour later, my whole body buzzed and my head swam. I'd lost count of the drinks we'd had.

"Six years and going strong. Of course, they break up every two months but always end up getting back together." She replied. Angie and Tommy were a part of our group of friends we used to hang out with. They've been dating since they were fourteen.

"Shit, well, good for them if they're happy."

"Oh, they're both miserable. I can't remember the last time Tommy has laughed when he's with her, but codependency's a bitch." I chuckled at the thought.

"Hey, remember that summer night we all made a bet on which couple would stay together the longest?" She said as she recalled, her words starting to slur.

"Yeah, didn't everyone bet on Jay and Layla just for them to break up at the end of summer?"

"Actually, most of them had bet on us. But I guess they were wrong about that one, too." She gave a sad smile as she looked through the empty glass, her mind elsewhere. The playfulness in her voice had dissipated. I took another sip. "Nick... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I did."