I smelled Elle’s drink and put the glass to my lips to take a sip. Soda. It was nothing but soda.
“She must really have to pee.”
“Oh, Daffodil, bless your heart.” I placed the glasses in my hand on Violet’s tray and headed in the direction Elle had gone.
The crowd was sparse near the back of the bar, and even more sparse in the bathroom where I surmised Elle must have gone. In fact, it was completely empty, save for one stall containing someone who was unmistakably puking her guts out.
“Elle? Are you okay?” I asked.
The toilet flushed and an abnormally lengthy amount of time passed before she emerged from the stall no worse for wear. “I’m good,” she answered, heading over to the sink to wash her hands and check her makeup. “You know me, never one to handle her liquor.”
“Yeah, about that …”
“Elle, we gotta head on out of here.” Vera and Kirsten burst through the door. “Come on, the party bus is here. Choo choo!”
“You realize that choo choo is the sound a train makes, right?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Both Kirsten and Vera cracked up.
“Let’s go, ladies,” Elle answered them, walking right past me as she threw away her paper towel in a nearby receptacle. “The night is young.”
I’d seen this side of Elle before; secretive, even a little cold. It was the way she’d acted right before she broke up with Luke and withdrew from Cogsworth—the day after we’d fought in our dorm. We didn’t speak for months afterwards, and our friendship had nearly been destroyed because of it. Nervous, I knew I needed to talk to her before whatever was going on erupted into something much worse. The sooner the better. Unfortunately, fate stepped on my toes when we boarded the party bus and I was stuck seated between Violet and Kirsten, with Elle seated near the front next to Candy.
“Okay, ladies.” Candy stood up to make her announcement. “I just want to thank you all for coming out tonight. I hope you all had a good time—” A knock appeared on the door, and a confused Candy got up to answer it. “Anyone expecting someone? Did we forget somebody?” When Candy opened the door, a police officer stepped onto the bus.
“Oh no, it’s the fuzz,” Kirsten proclaimed. “Act natural.”
“It’s not a real cop,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“How do you know?” Violet asked.
I glanced at her in disbelief, expecting more from her than I did Kirsten.
“Well, for starters, we’re at a bachelorette party,” I replied, ticking away my responses on my fingers like my mother often did. “Also, his badge identifies him as Officer Dong Johnson; his handcuffs are fur-lined; oh, and his pants are assless.”
“She’s good,” Kirsten said, meaning to elbow Violet but hitting me, instead. “You should be a detective, like on NCIS or something.”
“You two are either going to be the turning point in my life where I decide never to drink again, or the reason for my descent into the bottomless pit of alcoholism. I haven’t decided yet.”
“I have a warrant here for the arrest of Elle Sloan,” the hot, young, fake police officer said, holding a piece of paper in his hand with ‘Warrant’ scribbled on it in black sharpie.
“Yeah, you do,” Colleen called with Walter straddling her lap.
That must have been the bus driver’s cue to turn on the music, as club music began streaming inside of the bus, just as the lights dimmed and the LED strip lights mounted across the ceiling glowed bright red.
“Elle Sloan, I’m afraid you’re under arrest for being too sexy.” Officer Johnson punctuated his sentence by ripping off his shirt to a flurry of catcalls from the other ladies on the bus. If I hadn’t already known Elle had been faking her inebriated state, I most certainly would have figured it out now, as the horror on her face was evident when the not-a-real-cop shirtless stripper began gyrating his hips right in front of her.
“Where are you going?” Violet asked when I stood up.
“Elle’s drowning over there, and it’s my duty as the maid of dishonor to take one for the team.”
*****
Alex and I helped prop Kirsten up, while Elle walked with her arm around Violet’s shoulders through the lobby of the hotel.
“You girls are so great,” Kirsten blurted out, darn-near intelligibly, as she swayed to the left. When she shifted, the bulk of her body weight pressed against me, forcing me to take evasive measures to keep my knees from buckling.
“That’s just splendid, Kirsten,” I said, teeth grinding together. “Now could you do me a favor and stand up straight before we all go tumbling to the floor?”
“Sure, just as soon as I do this.” Kirsten grabbed the whistle I’d been given by Officer Dong Johnson and blew it directly next to my ear.
“Son of a …” I held my hand to my ear, causing even more of Kirsten’s weight to shift onto me. It was all I could do to keep my balance. “I swear, Elle. You’re going to be one bridesmaid short after tonight if that happens again.”
“Damn it, Kirsten, don’t piss Mena off,” Violet slurred.
“See, Kirsten. Now you’ve gone and done it and made Violet swear. I hope you’re proud of yourself.” Somehow, I managed to shift her off me and dump her onto Alex.
“It’s like some Weekend at Bernie’s shit up in here,” Alex grunted.
“Alex, has anyone ever told you you’re an amazing drunk?” Heels sliding a little on the vinyl flooring, I helped her right Kirsten to make her weight more evenly distributed between the two of us.
“Thanks, I like you much better drunk than I do sober, too.”
“We’re almost to the elevators, ladies,” Elle announced, needlessly stating the obvious. We still hadn’t gotten the chance to talk, which I hoped to rectify in the next few minutes.
“That’s good, because I’m a fraction of a second away from letting Kirsten sleep on the lobby floor tonight.”
“Psh … No you wouldn’t. You love me.” She ended each word she spoke by leaning more and more of her body onto me, finally finishing the sentence by stumbling forward and tripping me in the process.
As I stumbled, I abandoned Kirsten and Alex while I attempted to right myself. Unfortunately, the force exerted on me by Kirsten had been strong, and I’d built up too much momentum to stop myself short of falling to the floor. Right before I was about to go down, a figure appeared from around the corner, and I fell into them, instead.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized. “My friend has had a wee too much to drink and … Peter?” Aware that my arms were still wrapped around him after stumbling into him, I let him go and took a step back, smoothing out my tank top.
“Maid of Dishonor, huh?” He laughed softly. “That checks out, though I expected you to be the one being propped up.”
“As did I, to be honest.” As surprised as I was to see him, he almost acted like he had expected to see me. “What are you doing here?”
“Luke’s bachelor party. We’re all staying here tonight.”
“Oh. Here? You’re all staying here?” I looked up to see Elle ushering the others into an elevator. She glanced in our direction, and I shot her a look that I hoped conveyed the message that she would have some explaining to do later. “Leave it to Elle and Luke not to be able to spend one night without being under the same roof. Well, it was nice seeing you, but I really need to catch up with the others.”
“Mena, wait,” he called after me.
The door to the elevator began to close. In the middle of the group of inebriated women, stood Elle, giving me the meekest of waves. Seconds later, it was just Peter and I alone in the lobby.
“What is it, Peter?” I turned around to face him, noticing a vulnerability in his eyes that rarely presented itself.
“Like you, apparently, I was also the designated sober person at Luke’s party, and now that everyone is passed out back in the room, I was planning on going down to the bar to get a drink before turning in. Care to join me?”
“I do
n’t know. Elle seems—”
“To have everything completely under control. Please, Mena. These last few months have been … trying, to say the least. I’ve wanted to talk to someone about it, but every time I reach for my phone, the first person I come to is you. I’d like a chance to explain myself, but I understand if that ship has sailed.”
I glanced between the elevator door and Peter, finally conceding. “Okay. But only because you used a nautical reference.”
*****
A lukewarm breeze, cool enough to beckon goosebumps down my arms, but warm enough to keep me from running back inside, brushed my skin as I stood on the terrace outside of the hotel bar.
“Your rum and Coke,” Peter said, handing me my drink. I took it and held it in my hands, resting my forearms on the railing surrounding the empty terrace. Feet away, streetlights glistened off the Roanoke River. I took a drink as Peter moved to stand next to me.
“Why not call Amanda?” The question spewed from me like word vomit. Normally, I would have at least put some thought into it before blurting something like that out. But I wasn’t sorry that I had. “If you need to talk to someone, why not call her?”
“Because she’s Amanda,” Peter scoffed, taking a drink from his glass.
“You two seem to be close. Spending time together with Jackson.” I thought back to that moment months ago, when Elle and I happened upon Peter and Amanda swinging Jackson between them down the sidewalk. “Going out to dinner together.”
“How did you …” Peter began, shaking his head when he decided mid-sentence that the answer to that question didn’t matter. “We co-parent. That’s it. There’s nothing else going on between us. Maybe at one point she thought there would be. But I don’t have feelings for Amanda. Whatever feelings I had for her once upon a time … well, they’re not there anymore. They haven’t been for a long time, and they never will be, especially since you came back into my life.”
“Then it was solely the distance?”
“No, it was partially the distance.”
I took another sip. I hadn’t looked at Peter since I stepped out onto the terrace for fear that doing so may break apart the pieces of my heart that Phineas had helped glue back together. “Partially the distance and partially the fact that I have no business being anyone’s mother.”
“What? Nothing of the sort. I mean, sure, things were a little … interesting, from time to time. But Jackson adores you, and he’s added some extra words to his vocabulary that he’s been told can’t be said outside of the house.”
“Then what is it, Peter? Did you fall out of love with me?”
He shifted his weight from his left foot to his right, something he always did when standing for a few minutes. “Do you remember when I told you that I didn’t want to be your regret?”
“Yeah, I do. It was the night you brought me back to your apartment from the bar after Elle’s birthday. I was drunk. No surprise there. You said that to me when I tried to take things further than I should have.”
“Right, except when I told you that, I didn’t only mean that I didn’t want you to regret sleeping with me that night.”
“You thought I regretted being with you?” I looked up at him, noticing that his eyes were trained on the river, much like mine had been.
“No, not yet, anyway. But I thought you would, eventually. Especially, if you gave up everything you built for yourself in New York for me, a man who literally had nothing but the shirt on his back to offer you. I couldn’t let you do that, Mena.”
“You took that choice away from me, then? Believing what, Peter, that you weren’t enough for me? Well, guess what? You were. You were always more than enough for me; you just chose to believe your own insecurities.” Eyes glistening with tears, I set my drink down on one of the empty tables, preparing to walk back to my room, when Peter reached for my arm.
“I know that wasn’t fair of me. At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing for your sake. But then, with everything that happened with you and my dad dying, I was reminded how short life is.”
“Yes, Peter, it is pretty damn short.” I turned my head, hoping he wouldn’t see the tear making its way down my cheek. “Listen, I’ve had a long day, and I really should check on the goat rodeo that’s going on in my room right now.” As I turned to leave, Peter spoke, stopping me dead in my tracks.
“I love you, Mena Straszewski. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you and what I could have done to make things easier for us to be together. What I could have done to be better.”
I shook my head, tears falling freely down my face. “No, Peter. You don’t get to do this.” Turning around to face him, I noticed a glistening in his own eyes. “You don’t get to decide to break my heart and then turn around and decide it was a mistake. What did you expect? That I would just fall back into your arms like the last five months never happened?”
“Of course not. I just … I just wanted you to know.”
“And now I know.” I wiped away my tears with the back of my hand. “Did you expect I would wait around forever for this epiphany to strike you? Peter, I’ve moved on.”
As soon as I said that, I regretted it. Because from the pain overtaking his face, I knew a part of him had been shattered by it and may always be shattered.
“Phineas?”
I nodded. “How did you know?”
“The way he looked at you when we went out to lunch together. It was the same way I look at you. I knew the only thing holding him back was me.”
“And if you weren’t in the picture, I would be free to be with him? A man who could shower me with the things you couldn’t? Seriously, Peter, do you even know me at all? None of that means anything to me.”
“Mena, I—”
“I have to go.” Without looking back, I left Peter standing on the terrace. My legs moved, my feet struck the ground, making quick, sure steps. But I felt none of it. I was too numb to feel anything.
*****
Anticipating a disaster, I walked into my curiously quiet hotel suite, soon discovering why it was so quiet. Alex was sprawled out on the floor, drool dangling from her lip, clearly out for the rest of the night. On the bed, still in their clothes and shoes, Kirsten and Violet were equally as dead to the world. The only person not in sight was Elle, but the sound of her upchucking in the bathroom quickly cleared up the mystery of her whereabouts. When I opened the door, I found her with her head firmly over the toilet bowl, dry heaving.
“And the Razzie for the best worst drunk performance goes to Elle Sloan. Wait a minute. Are you really throwing up again? Kind of milking this, aren’t you?”
“I wish I were milking this,” she said, sounding legitimately miserable.
“This doesn’t make sense. I know you weren’t drinking tonight, and you didn’t seem to be sick. Are you pregnant or something?” Elle and I locked eyes, and I knew I had hit the nail on the head. “You’re pregnant? Holy shit, Elle! That’s great news. Right?”
“Shh. Not so loud. Luke and I are waiting until after the wedding to announce it. Although, at the rate I’m going, I may be showing by the time the wedding arrives. I’ve already had to make alterations to my dress.”
“First of all, you have nothing to worry about with the Doublemint twins out there, or Alex for that matter. The three of them are all passed out.
Elle nodded, flushing the toilet as she stood up to wash her hands and brush her teeth. “You know, morning sickness is such a misnomer,” she said, spitting out her toothpaste in the sink. “Not only am I sick in the morning, I’m also sick in the afternoon, the evening, twilight, dusk. You name the time of day, I’m probably puking.”
We walked out of the bathroom, where she took in the sight of our three fallen comrades.
“See.” I motioned to the three sleeping forms. “You could literally shout out all kinds of salacious details about your sex life right now, and they wouldn’t hear a word.”
“I swear they were all awak
e only five minutes ago.”
“And now two of them are passed out diagonally on what was supposed to have been your bed.”
“Should we at least pick Alex up from the floor?”
“You’re in no state to lift anyone, and I just plain don’t want to. So, no. Come on.” Elle followed me through the French doors that led to my bedroom. “I guess we’re having a slumber party.”
“Just like back in our dorm days.”
Elle slumped down on my bed. She’d changed out of the clothes she was wearing, donning a pair of sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt that strategically covered her burgeoning bump. She hadn’t smiled much tonight, and when she had, it had seemed forced, like she was only doing it to appease other people.
I sat down next to her. “What is it? Is it the pregnancy? Are you having second thoughts?”
“No, of course not. It’s not the baby. I’m excited for the baby—so is Luke. Yes, it was unexpected. I was on birth control when I got pregnant, but then I began taking antibiotics and, well, oops.”
“And your doctor husband-to-be didn’t think to warn you that could happen?”
Elle looked up at me, unamused. “We both knew the risks.”
“What is it, then?”
“I’m worried about what kind of mother I’m going to be. I didn’t exactly grow up with the best motherly role model. What if I’m just like her?”
“Like who? Wait, you mean like Betsy?”
Elle nodded, staring off into space.
I laughed in spite of myself. “I’m sorry, but you can’t possibly be serious.”
“Yes, I can, and I am serious.”
“Elle, listen to me.” I took her hands in mine, drawing her attention away from whatever unlikely scenario was playing out in her head. “The fact that you’re even remotely concerned that you won’t be a good mom, tells me you’re going to be a good mom. Are you going to make mistakes? Of course, you are. But the difference between you and Betsy is that you will actually learn from yours and you care whether or not you make them to begin with.”
When Stars Collide Page 28
