Pen shakes her head. “No excuses for you.”
“I’m good,” Eitan says firmly.
“It’s just a baby shot,” Pen informs him.
“I said I’m good.”
“Here you go.” Pen hands him a (large) shot. I don’t think she’s purposefully shoving alcohol at someone who’s saying no, it seems like the entire wedding party is simply too tipsy to care.
She hands me the next one.
I haven’t drunk in a year and a half, since the day I got my diagnosis. The smell of tequila alone makes me want to vomit. I hold it down at my hip, planning to discreetly slide it onto the bar while everyone tips theirs back.
“Cheers!” Pen pushes her shot glass to the center and everyone clinks theirs. The sound induces unpleasant flashbacks to being drunk in clubs in my mid-twenties. Guilt washes over me, like it always does, when I think about drinking. It’s a question with no answer, why one person can get cancer at twenty-eight and someone else can go their whole life without dealing with it. Randomness is an abyss that can consume you if you let it. So you latch onto the things you can control: every choice you’ve ever made. Drinking, processed meat, deodorant, plastic. You name it, I’ve thought about it, analyzed whether that could be the thing that was responsible. The guilt that comes with that search for a reason is a sticky, tangled feeling. The search becomes a game, engineered by my mind to suspend me in a state of vigilance.If I work hard enough to eliminate my risk factors, I can keep cancer away.But, like I said, randomness is an abyss. Someone could die of breast cancer without ever drinking a day in their life.
I push the entire thunderstorm of thoughts away. Tonight is about looking forward.
Eitan’s lips flatten, and he dumps his shot on the ground when everyone else throws theirs back. I place my own shot out of sight on the bar, but not discreetly enough that he misses it. Our eyes catch, and the seaglass cracks. I see someone who’s treading their own water, barely staying afloat. For once, I’m not the only one standing on the outside of a moment.
For a split-second, Eitan looks just as lonely as I am.
chapter
eight
You never knowwhat you’ve been missing until they’re surrounding you, hooting after a shot of tequila, clinking their glasses on the bar in a chorus. Some people’s hands drift to their mouths to hold in the gag reflex, and others clap each other on the back. Murmurs of, “That goes down different now than it did at twenty-two,”and, “I need a break before round two.”I have to actively remind myself that this is progress. Group shots, nights out. This is what I’m looking for. I have to enjoy it; I have tobaskin it.
The wedding party settles at the bar, refreshing their drinks. My relation to this group is still tenuous at best, but I don’t want to risk entering the throng. I linger by Calliope and Deep, who are chatting with some of the groomsmen. Deep’s attention keeps flitting to Eitan, waiting for him to do something. Perhaps acknowledge her.Good to know what kind of guy Eitan is, I think, while shooting daggers at him on Deep’s behalf.
I watch everyone, the picture of nonchalance, but my attention returns again and again, like a compass that can’t help but point north, to Eitan. In fairness, he’s one of the tallest people in the room. It should be illegal for someone to have a personality that frustrating and a face that charming. His fluffychestnut waves gleam beneath the bar lights, made worse by the fact that he keeps running his hand through them. I have an unconscious urge to runmyhands through his hair, confirm if it’s as soft as it looks. Hold it back from his face while he?—
I look around the group to make sure no one is watching me lose my mind over someone who has already politely declined two different women in this bar (I have not been counting (I have)). Frustrating—that’s what I need to focus on. Not Eitan’s eyes when they get all soulful and vulnerable. It’s an illusion. A magic trick.
I tune back in to whatever Calliope is talking about. “Mom likes Greek mythology. She wanted to name Pen Persephone, but Harold talked her down to Penelope.”
“And who was Calliope?” Eitan asks, setting an empty glass on the bar, passing a look to the bartender for a refill.
“A muse,” she says to Eitan, but winks at me. I almost swallow the ice cube I’m chewing on. I can’t tell who she’s flirting with. Moreover, who do I want her to be flirting with? “I think the name was more…prescient than Mom expected. I keep having this problem of dating people who think of me as their muse. Even other tattoo artists. They’ll literally tattoo my lips on their body but aren’t willing to buy me tampons when I get my period in the middle of a sex club.”
Eitan chokes on his new drink.
“It’s all, ‘babe, I’m about to come, can’t you get it yourself?’ Like, what is that? Why can’t a muse have needs too?”
“That’s—” Eitan thumps his chest. “Interesting. Yeah, very interesting.”
One of the groomsmen must hear the words ‘sex club’ because he turns around and lays himself across the bar like he’s posing for a nude portrait. “Hello, ladies.”
It’s Steve Was Your Breast Surgery Like A Boob Job? Miller. My eye twitches.
“Hey. I remember you.” He points his Long Island iced tea at me. “You’re the girl with canc?—”
“Penelope’s friend!” I interrupt him, half-screaming, face hot enough to steam dumplings. “I’m Penelope’s friend.”
“Right…Well, what are you ladies talking about?” Steve asks, his eyes taking the liberty ofrakingover me. It’s like a disgusting, slobbery tongue licking me.
“UTIs,” Calliope says flatly.
“Oh.” Steve looks slightly less comfortable than he did a minute ago. “So…” He rights himself off the bar and takes a long sip of his cocktail. “Seen any good movies lately?”
