Carmen:

"Blah, blah, blah, and then he said"-

I took another drink from the bottle, shutting my eyes as peals of laughter rung shrilly through the tiny living room.

Katherine had her friends over, and each one seemed to be duller than the last. They tried to make up for it by trying to outyell each other and see who could take more drinks from the bottles Katherine had laid out, like some sort of liquid buffet.

"Carmen?"

"Yes?" My body felt more relaxed now, and I figured I was good for the rest of the night.

"Katherine says you're dating a rockstar." Melissa...or was it Ashley?...said, tossing her hair back and looking at me with a giant glossy smile.

"I'm not"-

"Ooooh." The girls all said together.

"What's it like?"

"Does he give you the rockstar treatment in bed?"

Everyone started laughing while I stared helplessly at the carpet, the feeling of lightness disappearing as my feet were brought back to the ground and my head felt heavy on my shoulders once again.

"Don't you worry about groupies?" Another asked, taking a shot after. "I'd be so scared I don't think I could even sleep thinking about it."

"Carmen and her boyfriend...aren't together anymore."

"I'll be back." I said quickly after Katherine spoke, straightening up and going to the room I was staying in. I shut the door behind me, leaning back against it and taking a deep breath.

I wondered what he was doing. It was so dumb to think that because I didn't have the right to think about him anymore, but my mind kept drifting to Van on instinct. Katherine had been especially nice, but her idea of cheering me up included getting her friends together for drinks, and most of them I'd barely said two words to for the first time tonight.

Van hadn't tried reaching out to me anymore, and it had been about three days since the heart balloon fiasco. I'm sure he was better without the constant strain that our relationship brought. Or the strain we brought onto ourselves. and each other 

"Carmen?" Katherine's voice called out quietly on the other side of the door. "You ok?"

I straightened up, walking over to the door and throwing it open. "Yeah, I'm fine."

She looked at me in surprise, but then nodded, a small smile coming over her face. "Are you ready for round two of the night?" 

"Round 2?"

"I figured this wouldn't exactly cheer you up for the night." She waved a hand to the living room. "So get your bag, we're going out."

"What?"

She sighed, letting a bit of her usual impatience show through. "Come on, we need to go out, but like for real, we need to do some crazy shit of sorts to get you out of this mood."

"Katherine."

"You can't just wallow in self-pity forever. Because that's exactly what you're doing Carmen. And no offense but I haven't heard much about Van calling you or begging you for anything, so I'm sure he's probably doing not so bad."That stung. A lot. A lump formed in my throat and I blinked quickly, the carpet swimming in my vision. "Carmen, no." Katherine rubbed my shoulders, lowering her voice. "Sweetheart, come on. Let's go out. You need some more drinks and you need to find some guy who'll take your mind off of...he-who-must-not-be-named."

"Fine fine." I said hastily, because if there was anything more painful than the thought of Van, it was the pitiful way Katherine looked at me.

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"Come on girls." The girls were still a mess of squeals all the way out to Katherine's car. I slid into the front, putting my seatbelt on and staring straight ahead as Katherine gunned it out of the parking lot.

"Boys suck!" One of the girls said loudly behind me. "All they're good for is sex."

"Shut up Meghan." Katherine said loudly. "You melt over the first tall white guy you see."

I couldn't help but laugh, rolling my shoulders back and studying the places we passed. I had no idea where we were going, but Katherine seemed to know exactly where she was heading.

She came to a stop right outside a glass building with Electricity panned out in pink bold letters. The place visibly shook with music, and the people lined outside all seemed to be of a different category.

"What is this place?" I asked over the noise of car doors opening and laughter.

"A friend recommended it." Katherine smiled widely, crossing her arms as she checked out the place. We stood in line and I thought it would take forever. I found myself glancing at my phone screen as the line inched forward, but Katherine quickly noticed and took the phone from my hands. "None of that babe." She pocketed my phone while staring straight ahead.

The second we walked in I realized this was not like the other places Katherine had taken us. It was clean, it was high end. Their bathrooms probably weren't graffitied with someone throwing up in the corner . Everything seemed so energetic and shiny and fun, with people sitting on nice velvet couches or dancing on the lit up glass floor. It didn't smell like sweat and body odor, it smelled like oranges and the expensive perfume coming from the well dressed people who carried around elaborate drinks.

"Nice place." I said over the music, looking around.

"Yeah huh?" Katherine smiled smugly. "Come on, lets get some drinks."

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Van:

"Goodbye couch, nice knowing you." Benji patted the armrests, straightening up and looking around.

"We're not leaving today." Bondy cracked dryly from his spot. I crossed my legs and slumped over the sofa, looking at my phone. A new text from Abby, something about grabbing dinner or something. For a second I thought it was her texting me, but I shouldn't bother fooling myself with those types of delusions.

I itched to grab my notebook and write, but write what? My mind was at a fucking blank and it was scary.

"Three more days fellas."

That thought was the only thing keeping me going. We'd get to leave this place and travel the world, just like I'd always dreamed. Now I wouldn't have to picture her sleeping in my bed or standing over the stove to keep an eye on the kettle.

We'd be even further apart now, and it was both a relief and a new type of torture.

I'd avoided Abby for the last couple of days, even going so far as to not answer the door when she knocked. I felt like she'd been getting the wrong idea with me, and I hadn't done much to battle that besides what I'd started to do now. But maybe I needed a distraction, because I'm sure Carmen was plenty distracted already to even remember who she'd fucked with a couple of days ago.

"Japan Japan Japan Japan Jappppaaaaannnnnn!" Benji yelled into my ear. I shoved him away while he laughed, noticing he was checking his phone yet again.

"Talking with Katherine?" Bob asked. Even hearing her friend's name made me cringe.

"No." Benji said slowly. "It's this girl who followed me on Instagram. She's pretty cute." He flashed the phone in our faces, and I just saw a glimpse of big lips and thin brown hair. I glanced down at my phone, sighing.

"Van, get over yourself." Bondy spoke up.

"I already am." I said sharply.

"If you can't get the girl back, at least get a lay to distract yourself. I'm sure Abby wouldn't mind being your distraction. Or hey, we'll be on the road, who knows who you'll meet."

"Yeah." I said, but on the inside I was already biting back a thousand and one sharp comments towards Bondy. I didn't think about being with anybody else and just the thought of imagining Carmen with some other guy made me want to punch a wall.

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Carmen:

"Ask him to dance."

"No." 

"Carmen." Katherine sighed, crossing her arms.

"I don't want to dance with anyone ok?"

"Well then why were you checking out that guy?"

"I wasn't, I sneezed and looked up in that direction. God." I tried to laugh to make Katherine forget about it, but she was ruthless.

"You have to ask someone to dance or we're not leaving." She responded. The girls all started berating me to do the same.

I ignored them, Katherine was never one to keep her promise for that long anyways.

An hour passed, two hours. Every girl found someone to dance while I politely turned down the guys who asked me. Katherine shook her head at me from her place in the dance floor, ignoring whatever the guy who was dancing with her said. I remained at our table, sipping from my drink and wishing I'd swiped my phone from Katherine when I had the chance.

"Hey stranger!" I turned around at the familiar voice, nearly choking on my straw.

"Zach, hey!"

"Is this what you do on your days off? Stalk the nightclubs and see which guys will fight over you?" If he seemed carefree at work then this was a whole other level. He was holding a drink with actual smoke coming from it and looking at the dance floor. I looked over and saw Katherine studying us as if we were animals at the zoo.

"Oh yeah, that's what I do. As you can clearly see, the fights have died down already. No survivors." I inwardly cringed at my response and comforted myself with another sip of my drink. "What about you? Stalking your coworkers?"

"The best way to spend my Saturday night." He responded, taking a drink. "I was actually here with some friends and got stuck with drink duty. I saw the back of your head and thought I'd recognized it."

"Huh." Was all I could muster.

"What about you? Come with your boyfriend?"

"Nah...I don't have one anymore." I blamed my abrupt answer on my drink. "I just came here with some friends too, but my friend is threatening me to not leave until I've danced with some guy." The words flowed out of my mouth almost involuntarily.

"It's not that hard."

"I'm not in the mood to make small talk with a stranger while dancing."

"Then don't make small talk with me. I'll help you."

"Wait, Zach, I"-

"Come on." He grabbed my hand, and I saw Katherine start nodding enthusiastically, practically jumping up and down. It made no sense how happy she was, because I was internally screaming.

But Zach smelled good and I didn't have to pretend that much, because he'd actually seen me at some of my worst moments. He smiled down at me and leaned in close to talk to me over the music. "Come on, just dance."

"Are you sure you shouldn't be getting back to your friends?" I said back.

"They can wait."

The drinks made me feel light and Zach wasn't a terrible dancer. And when he smiled I realized I'd never really seen how white his smile was. I found it hard to ignore how some girls glanced at him while he danced with me, shooting daggers at me when I met their gaze. But he wasn't paying any attention to them, because he was just looking at me the whole time, and when the song slowed down he actually leaned into me and I kind of wanted to ask him what his cologne was because it smelled good.

But I just shut my eyes and rested my chin on his shoulder, because for a split second I could pretend that nothing had happened and I wasn't carrying such a weight in my chest nor thinking about a boy who was miles and miles away from me and probably definitely hated my guts. I was just some girl dancing with some guy who smelled nice and had a white smile and who girls were checking out. And that was it.

I wasn't really thinking straight and I think it was one of the best things that had happened to me in a while.

"You're welcome by the way." He said after the song had ended and I'd gone back to our table for a drink.

"Thanks, really. Sure beats making small talk with a stranger while he tries to grab onto me." My tongue felt extra loose.

"And this sure beat listening to my best friend cry over his ex." He faltered a bit. "Which isn't a bad thing, if you want to let out some steam, whatever." He shrugged, smiling apologetically.

"I think I'm ok." I set the glass down, the ice cubes clinking together. "But really, thanks."

"Anytime. So, I, uh, guess I'll see you later then?"

"Sure, bye." He flashed me one last smile before he walked away, and I saw Katherine coming nearer, already preparing for the bombardment of questions.

"Who was that?"

"You told me to dance with someone and I did." I responded nonchalantly.

"Ok, but did you get his number or anything?"

"I know him, he's a friend."

"Well he was definitely looking at you more than a friend would, but ok." She slid onto the stool, looking to see which glass she could steal a drink from. "So this was pretty fun right?"

"Honestly, not bad."

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When I walked into work Monday I saw a coffee cup perched on my desk. Zach's habit of getting me coffee hadn't died down and it was strangely comforting. I took a sip of the coffee, surprised Zach remembered I didn't take my coffee with any sugar, just cream. I guess I never really noticed how attentive he was either.

He stepped into the office and slumped down on his chair. "Hey Car, how was your weekend?"

"Great, what about yours?"

"Pretty good too. So did your friend let you leave on Saturday?"

"She did actually, thanks again for that."

"Anytime. I never figured you for the nightclub type."

"I don't know whether I should be offended."

"Of course not. It's cool." He scratched his head. "If you're ever stuck in that situation again, just call me." He laughed.

I smiled. "Sure, will do."

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Van:

"I swear to Christ Van if you take my neck pillow."

"I won't I won't." I fought back a yawn and slumped on the chair. "What time does the plane leave?"

"An hour." Bob yawned, pushing his hair back.

"I'm so tired."

"That's cause you didn't sleep last night Vanny. I could hear you muttering along to the The Strokes from the next room over."

I shrugged at Bondy's statement, leaning against the seat. "Forgive me for I couldn't sleep."

"The excitement is killing you?"

"Honestly yes. It's like what we were doing before, but ten times upgraded."

"Truly. We're doing pretty great aren't we guys?"

I answered to the ceiling. "Not bad at all."

This chapter was ok but I'm so ready to get on to the better stuff because there is better stuff coming mates.