I glance at the clock on my nightstand. Eight-thirty. Probably everyone is well on their way to wasted. Designated driver.
Boring.
I used to really hate the last party of the season, even if I drank until I was blind. They were always bigger. Louder. More drinks, dancing, drugs, fucking, more fucking around. Last year, Henry totaled his car while driving home. He broke his collarbone.
I change into a black hoodie and jeans—incognito. Running into Anna is inevitable, but I don’t have to make it easy for her to spot me.
“I think it’s nice,” Mom says as I make my way to the door. I stop and turn to her. She smiles. “That you and Josh can still be friends. Have fun at the party.”
“Yeah,” I say.
When I reach Josh’s house, instant sensory overload. Too many sights, sounds, and smells. It’s chilly out, but all the bodies give the illusion of warmth. I pass these crazy girls dancing on the front lawn. They’re in the moment, and the moment is them, and the moment is perfect. The party is here and it’s perfect. Music. Cars. Friends.
I’m not feeling it.
I step into the heart of the scene, and in a minute flat, a bottle of beer is pressed into my hand by some kid who doesn’t know I’m the designated driver. It’s tempting, but I leave it unopened. I have a headache. Already. I cross my arms and stay on the lawn, bored. After a while, Anna, Kara, and Jeanette march up.
“Anyone need a ride home?” I ask.
“Party’s barely started,” Anna says. “We’re not over it yet.”
“Where’s Marta? Is she over it yet?”
“Strip Monopoly,” Kara says.
“Hey—” Jeanette stumbles forward and relieves me of my beer. “You can’t have this. You’re the designated driver.” She cracks it open and pounds it. For a second, I envy her. “This is the best party ever.”
Anna rips the bottle from her hands. “Jesus, Jeanette. It’s too early for you to be this wasted. If Regina has to drive you home before midnight, I’ll kick your ass.”
“Why?” I ask her. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“Yeah, but you don’t want to be here.” Anna takes a sip of the stolen beer. “So I want to keep you here as long as possible.”
Jeanette reaches for the bottle. “Give. Get your own.”
“Kara, get me a beer out of the cooler,” Anna says.
“But it’s around the other side of the house,” Kara whines.
“I don’t care. Get me one.”
She goes. It’s pathetic how she goes.
“Nailed Josh yet?” I ask Anna.
“Later,” she says. “Do you think I should go back there?”
I shrug. “I don’t give a damn.”
She sighs. “Do you think he’d think I was needy? I didn’t call him today or anything. If I went back there, do you think he’d mind? I don’t want to be overbearing.”
“You don’t want to be overbearing?” God, I wish I had a drink. “That’s funny.”
“You should maybe try to get on my good side,” she snaps. “It doesn’t have to be totally miserable for you all the time.”
“It’s never been anything but, Anna.” I study her. “So you really like him, huh?”
Of course she likes him. And the question throws her off, like I want it to. She opens her mouth and flushes, and it’s these small things, these gives that Anna works hard to keep off her face that could be her downfall if anyone just looked closely enough.
But I was the only one who did.
“Why?” she asks. “Going to steal him back?”
“Oh, yeah,” I say. “Watch out.”
She gives me a look like she can’t stand being around me, and then she goes, which is totally great. I watch a group of sophomores force a poor frosh to take an impossible sip from a bottle of rye. Jeanette sucks on the beer. After a while, Kara returns with the one Anna sent her for.
“Where the hell did Anna go?” she demands.
I shrug.
“Did she say where she was going?”
“I think she forgot about you.”
“Fuck off, Regina.”
I cross my arms and stare up at the sky. No stars. Nothing.
“I’m still not sorry, Kara,” I tell her.
“And that’s exactly why you’re there,” she says. “And I’m here now.”
“Right. Enjoy your moment. Doesn’t that bother you? You’ll probably go your whole life and it won’t be this good again. You’ve totally peaked.”
She stares at me. “What if it’s your moment?”
“This isn’t my moment,” I tell her. “This is my penance.”
“For what? For Liz? For Michael?”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Shut up.”
“Isn’t it funny how you tried to get back in good with Michael and Liz, and it didn’t work? I think that means if this is your penance for anything,” she says, “it’s your penance for what you did to me, and it will be until you’re sorry.”
“You think I’d give you that? After all this?”
Her face turns red. “You didn’t even have a good reason. You didn’t even have one single good reason to treat me the way you did.”
“I didn’t know I needed one of those.”
I leave her there. My stomach aches, aches, aches, and this is stupid. It’s stupid because I’m worried what Kara said is true. This is what I get until I pay up, but how can I have gone through everything I’ve gone through and still not be paid up? Sorry, sorry, sorry. I never want to apologize to her. Ever. I hate that idea. Hate it. I make my way around the house and find Josh lurking beneath a tree in the backyard away from the party and the bonfire. Anna-less. He’s nursing a bottle of Jack Daniels. He takes a swig and I try to pass him unnoticed, but he grabs my arm.
“Regina, wait—”
I pull away from him. “You can’t possibly need a ride home.”
He doesn’t say anything. We stare at each other. It’s weird. I move to leave again, but he grabs me by the arm again. His hand stays on me this time.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask.
He takes a long pull from the bottle. The party sounds fill the air. He shakes his head and bites his index finger before speaking. “Regina, I’m sorry I didn’t—”
“Shut up.” I step back, my heart sinking to my stomach. “Who told you—”
“Anna was laughing about it with Kara,” he says. “She said you said he tried to rape you.” He looks away from me. “That’s what you wanted to tell me that night—”
“Yeah, I know. I was there.”
“Fuck. I mean—fuck.” He takes another swig of the Jack. “I can’t fucking believe this. Fuck. I am so—”
“Choke on it, Josh.”
He flinches. “Seriously—don’t. Like—” He twitches, like he can’t stand himself, and I’m glad, that makes me happy because he should know that feeling at least once. “I can’t stop thinking about it. It changes everything—it totally—”
“Are you going to tell Anna it’s the truth?” I ask. He looks away. No. He’s not. “Then it doesn’t change anything.”
He closes his eyes and leans back against the tree. This is what I wanted this whole time, and it doesn’t change anything. No one will ever benefit from knowing this. It’s now completely worthless information, designed to make people feel bad.
It still happened and it was horrible. But it’s worthless.
I am so empty.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats.
“Got any Percocet? Or just Adderall?”
“I’ve got everything.” He takes another swig from the bottle and stares at me. I stare back at him expectantly. “Are you serious?” he says. “You want Percocet?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll really fuck you up. It’s not like you take them every day—”
“One night, Josh. If you’re sorry, you’ll give it to me.”
How can he refuse? He takes another drink, grabs my hand, and leads me around the edge of the house, unseen. We go upstairs, to his room. He digs into his sock drawer, and a second later I have the pills. Plural. He must feel really bad.
He must think they’ll help.
“On the house,” he says. “Unless you want to pay me.”
“No.”
“Peace offering?”
“Sure.” Like hell.
“Regina, I’m really sorry—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I say tiredly.
I leave him in his bedroom and head to the bathroom, where I sit on the edge of the tub and stare at the Percocet. Is this what it was like for Liz? Trying to find a decent ending for herself in a bunch of pills? But I don’t want to die.
I just don’t want to be here. I never wanted to be here.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been here.
There’s something automatic and familiar about the Percocet. I didn’t do pills at parties before. I just drank. Because it made it easier to be here, but—
I catch sight of myself in the mirror. There are bags under my eyes and my face is pale and the corners of my mouth are edging down of their own accord. The pills feel heavy in my palm, as heavy as Donnie’s keys in my palm. But that was different.
I curl my fingers around the pills and close my eyes. I want them. One. That’s how I do these things. Coward. Liz is right. Coward. I want to be better than that someday. If it’s possible. Is it possible. I hope. . . .
I open my hand. I flush them down the toilet.
I stay in the bathroom for an hour and then I decide I’m leaving and I’m not driving anyone home.
I’m making my way out of the house when some sophomore corners me and tells me Bruce is looking for me because he needs a ride. I groan and modify my plans, because I don’t want him to get in a car if he’s totally plastered. I have to make him someone else’s problem. I leave the house and make my way to the backyard, to the bonfire. Henry’s lounging in a chair.
“Is Josh here?” I ask him.
Henry shrugs. “He was.”
My eyes travel to an empty bottle of vodka lying on the ground.
“Henry,” I say.
“He’s inside,” he says, closing his eyes. And then a warning: “Anna’s probably close.”
I go back inside and climb up the stairs. Maybe he’s in his bedroom, but I hope not. If he’s there, Anna’s with him. I don’t want to see them fucking.
Josh’s bedroom door is open. No one’s inside. I make my way back down the stairs, and a sliver of light filtering across the floor from inside the den catches my eye.
My last memories of the den aren’t good.
But Donnie’s not there.
I push the door open. Josh is sprawled on the couch, his right leg dangling off the side, his arm thrown haphazardly across his eyes. I cross the room and stand over him, and his glassy eyes take me in. As soon as he registers my face, he struggles into a sitting position and pats the space next to him. I sit down.
He rubs his eyes. “Is Anna back?”
“Where did she go?”
“She drove Jeanette home because she couldn’t find you. She’s very, very mad about that. . . .”
Good. “I’m going home. Tell Anna I went.” Josh brings his hand up to my face. I brush it away. “Don’t touch me.”
His face falls, devastated, like it’s some leftover from what happened with Donnie, even though it’s more that I still hate Josh. He edges closer to me and says pathetically, “I’m really sorry, Regina.”
“Josh, don’t—”
It doesn’t stop him. He wraps his arms around me, like that’s sorry. Like it makes everything right, even though it’s so far from ever being right again. He tightens his grip on me, like he’s trying to get his apology into my bones, but it’ll never work. And then he pulls away a little and holds my face in his hand and brings his mouth really close to mine. At first, I think he’s going to kiss me, but he doesn’t. He keeps his mouth close so he can apologize into mine. I can smell the booze on his breath.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, resting his forehead against mine. “I’m so sorry. . . .”
“What’s going on?”
Josh lowers his hands. I turn slowly. Kara’s voice is soft and interested.
“Nothing,” I say. “I’m going home.”
She looks me over. “What? Goddammit, you’re the fucking designated driver, Regina. Who’s going to drive Bruce home?”
I shrug. “You look pretty sober to me.”
And then she starts spluttering and I go home.