I wasn’t supposed to get drunk.
I’m starting a new job tomorrow, for fuck’s sake.
Which is preciselywhyI’m drunk. Ironically…I think. I was celebrating my independence. In secret, of course. Still haven’t told anyone.
Won’t.Can’t.I’ll get in trouble with my professor.
That’s a really bad thing.
I burp and almost throw up.
Great. I’m gonna have a hangover tomorrow, aren’t I?
“Wow. Fuck. Wha’s happ’ning?” Melissa demands.
Suddenly she’s trying to climb over me to reach the fucking window.
“Dude, hey. Bound’ries.” I shove at her, miss, and slap her in the face. “Whoops.”
“Ouch.” Her eyes narrow as she tries to focus out the window. “Why’re the cops here again?” She gasps, grabs my shoulders, and twists me to look at her.
“Ow!” Pretty sure she dislocated something. “Cops? Again?”
“Did someone die? God, what if it’s Ezra? What if he died?” Her eyes are so wide, I can see all the white around her irises.
“Satan had better get the red carpet out,” I mutter, trying to untangle her fingers from my clothes. Her clothes. My clothes thatwereher clothes.
Holy cow, am Idrunk.
“You two gonna be okay?” the Uber driver asks hesitantly.
“Oh, yeah, Eric, I’m pre’y sure—“ I begin, but then Melissa opens my door for me—from the inside—and I fall onto the sidewalk.
“Ow.”
She tumbles on top of me a second later.
“Fuck.”
Boots crunch over the wet road. Eric the Uber driver hauls us to our feet.
“Why’re you so tall?” Melissa demands as she tugs herself free.
I pull at the sleeve of her cropped pink blazer. “’S not his fault, Mel.”
We don’t make it past the foyer of the GAZ house, because the place is swarming with damp sorority sisters, campus police, and a pair of frustrated cops.
“Is this ‘cos we’re underage? They seriously call the cops around here?” I whisper, fucking incredulous.
Melissa ignores me, grabbing Hillary’s arm as she plods past. “The hell’s going on?”
Hillary turns a slack face to her. There are streaks of mascara under her eyes. “Someone broke in.”
“Broke—” Melissa cuts off when a thirty-something police officer walks over to us. “We’ve been robbed?” Her voice is going higher and higher. She grabs the officer’s sleeve. “What they take? Oh God, no! My purses!”
He opens his mouth, but she whips away and hurtles toward the staircase, only to be blocked by the second cop.
The first cop scans me and gives me a wan smile. “I’m assuming you were at the party with the rest of them?”
