Messy by Choice

Mess 21 (Ally)

"Cheers to a New Year!" Sharons toasts with her tequila as the rest of us tee up against her with ours. "May our coven keep growing, our enemies keep choking, and Margot Robbie rejoicing!"

"To Margot Robbie!" I add on in confused high cheers.

"To Margot Robbie." Aur and Vee repeat as we all suck down our shots.

Yuck, is this cheap bar liquor rancid. But this rundown joint on Ave Central is a favorite of ours, so we put up with the below par spirts. I've been putting up with below par spirts for a while now anyways.

I've been strong enough to hold out through Christmas and even into New Years without contacting Lenox. Being distracted and busy helps me not think about him. I hope it does the same for him.

But only because I'm wasted after too many New Years shots, and mildly still sensitive by my mother's Christmas remarks, I get the brilliant idea of texting him. 'Happy New Year' is innocent enough. He doesn't reply. Good on him. Too bad it sparks my competitive side.

'I will not be ignored.' I text again.

He leaves me on read.

'Good one.' I text and give up. Lenox has every right to set his boundaries too. So, I get more shots. I do stupid flirting with guys who can't hold up any kind of intellectual repartee. And when a hot guy just my type tries to kiss me, I grimace. Fuck girl Christmas isn't my forte. Damnit.

Well-timed distraction presents itself as Sharon more prances than dances with Vee, her first forced partner of the night. I laugh as Sharon, who is a good head shorter than Vee, suddenly changes all rhythm and pace of their waltz like steps to dip her, full samba style around. Aur looks mortified to think she might be browbeaten next into Sharon's conscription and weaves between the crowd for another round of drinks. Brilliant stem-based Ph.D. candidate she is, she's probably scheming to get Sharon drunk enough to regress into her sleepy inebriated state.

It's so rare we all get the time to go out together, probably to the benefit of civil society since the girls turn into menaces of pack mentality. I think I even just saw Aur bit someone just now. Some guy from her doctorate program with ridiculously pretty white-blonde hair and a snarky grimace that probably prompted the biting.

I'm about to go back her up when I feel an arm snake around my back, and I'm suddenly being lifted feet in the air.

"John!" I scream, whipping my neck around. "I thought I was getting kidnapped!"

John laughs and is so drunk he's barely keeping eye contact. "Not the type I'd kidnap. Too blonde and talkative."

I smile but slap his shoulder for the minor offense. Seeing him out on the Ave was common enough. Almost cyclical and destined to happen at least twice a year because John's a social guy with lots of friends. All of which I access in a second to see none were Lenox, though one of them I recognize.

"Hi, Ally," Pete says with a low hanging head in confidence.

I try not to look at him to long, or with too much pity. "Hey." Pete had been optimistic in his pursuit of me last year. When I was more empathetic and less honest with what I wanted. I just unintentionally played him along while trying to be nice about rejecting him.

"Here by yourself?" He asks.

"That's the wrong opener for the history we have."

"Brutal," Pete laments and drinks.

I shrug. "The truth always is."

Sharon stumbles her way over to us and eyes Pete over the top of the vodka soda Aur's connived into her hands. But not in the sexually suggestive but in a curiously confused sort of way. "Do you struggle when talking to women? You seem the type to," she says.