in the middle of the night ~c.l.~

iii

Chloe threw open the fridge, looking for something to cook up for lunch and contemplating whether or not she should call a plumber.

It had been a few hours since the Cosmic-faucet (Ha. Sounds like an outer-spatial sink.) incident. She had been dawdling around the house, waiting for the clock to hit 4:15 so she could shoot out of the apartment and to work, which was currently a modern-dance show. That went on for three hours. It started at 5:00. But hey, it paid well.

There was two green peppers, guacamole, multi-grain chips she had bought while on a grain-craze, a whole set of waters, some flabby pieces of lunch meat wrapped in Saran Wrap, leftover from her mother's latest care-package ("I've been here five years, Mom, no need for another care package."), and a bottle of Pinot Blanc. Chloe didn't even like alcohol, but Paige did, so whenever her crazy, fellow blond paid her a visit, there she was, forcefully swallowing down white wine.

Chloe had gotten drunk a total of twice. Once, when Paige and Brooke were over, and Brooke brought three whole six-packs of Miller Lite for Chloe's twenty-first birthday, and another time when she and Lucas were hanging around, pre-Kalani. She was nineteen and he was eighteen.

It was a week before Lucas would arrive at college, fresh and clean and naïve. He had come to visit Chloe, who was scared-straight of being all alone in a giant city.

Lucas was the one to get the wine, after finding a way to obtain a fake ID through a friend of a friend. His name on it was Julio Vertex, and he was twenty-three.

It was some sort of cheap, red wine, the kind booze-challenged high schoolers bought for a graduation party. Lucas had snitched some on the ride over from the airport, convincing the taxi driver to wait fifteen minutes while he popped into the liquor store.

Upon opening the door, Chloe grabbed the bottle from his hands, frightened. "Don't want the landlord to see." She whispered, shutting the door quickly behind him.

"How does it taste?"

"What?"

"The wine, you numbskull! I know you drank some!" They had planned this for weeks. Before Lucas went off being a freshman and going to college parties where he was bound to get drunk, they wanted to see if he was a lightweight or not. Chloe, too. An experiment, if you will.

"It's kinda gross, but I've heard it's an acquired taste. Like coffee." Lucas commented, sitting down on the carpet and screwing open the bottle for her. She hesitantly put it to her lips, warm bitterness inching down her throat.

"It's..." She said, hacking at the aftertaste, "Okay?"

They spent that night taking hits at the bottle, discussing life as newly-anointed adults, Chloe stealing a kiss here or there that they knew neither of them would remember the next day. It took them both until the bottom of the bottle until they felt really drunk, really alive and abuzz with alcohol in their bloodstreams.

"Well, guess we're heavyweights? Is that the word?" She asked, pressing her lips into Lucas's mouth. He tasted like wine and strawberries, and his tongue glided like silk with hers.

"Maybe." He replied, but she didn't hear him, because by then she was already rolled on top of him, crashing her lips against his like waves on the coast, like tears on collarbones.

Chloe swallowed and repressed the memory. She missed him too too much.

She took a pepper, sliced it, wrapped it in cold cuts, and grabbed a bottle of water, sitting on her couch and flicking on the TV. She was lucky to have a television. Most of her New York dancer friends didn't even have a pet.

Again, well-paying job.

Cosmic snuggled up next to her. Chloe fed her a piece of ham-rolled pepper. Maybe all she needed was her cat and some green peppers, which was surprisingly good comfort food.

But when she thought about it some more, human company was pretty rad.

(a/n: i'm back bitches

i went camping and oh my god i was eaten alive by bugs

i actually really enjoyed writing this chapter

love you all xx)