Realistic or Modern City Living

[cure]

Chanel's question was fair, but the answer wasn't a simple 'yes' or 'no'. Collin knew that he wasn't ugly. He understood that being white, blonde, blue eyed, tall, and physically fit meant that he fit the standards of what was conventionally considered to be attractive in their society. If he was living in a different body and was looking at someone else living in his own, he would probably be able to admit that they were more attractive than he thought of himself as being. Most people were their own worst critics and Collin wasn't immune to that, but he also felt like being "hot" entailed a lot more than just physical appearance. To him, being attractive was strongly related to one's confidence level, which he knew he lacked in. While he wasn't some loser whimpering in the corner of a room in any social situation, it simply wasn't in his nature to put himself out there or attempt to make any statements. He understood that being "hot" was typically merely linked to physical appearance, and even when linking the word to other people, Collin usually just stuck with that definition, but it was harder to do so when applying it to himself. He felt inclined to be more critical and make it more complicated than it needed to be.

"Doesn't matter if I think I'm 'hot' or not," Collin returned. "It's what's on the inside that counts," he said, purposely being cliche as a mechanism to avoid having to be serious about this conversation. "Besides, girls aren't all rainbows and butterflies either. If guys like anything that's shiny, then girls like anything with a dollar sign next to it." Collin had only recently become aware of just how real it was for someone to want someone for their money. He had been introduced to the concept when Cara had attempted to convince him that their former nanny turned stepmother was a gold digger, but he hadn't believed it at the time. He had never had a reason to really think that someone could be so desperate for money or material items as to pretend to love someone in exchange for that. He understood the concept of women selling their bodies for money, because that made sense - the woman got money, the man got sex, and it ended after that. To be in a relationship with someone and to do everything that came along with it, all while pretending to truly care for the person, just for financial comfort, seemed absurd. He didn't understand the realities of the world and how uncomfortable financial insecurity could be at the time. He didn't understand the impact of loan burden, or rent burden, or social determinants of health. He had the privilege of never having to worry about money. Prestige, on the other hand, was a different story. He was aware of how obsessed people were with having the highest brand labels, or being associated with the most successful people. He had been used more than once throughout his childhood by people's parents who forced their kids to hang out with Collin, even when they didn't actually like him or want him around, in hopes of landing some business deal or stock advice from his dad.

After starting college, moving out, and in turn, redefining his friendship circle as one that nearly solely included broke college kids (who primarily came from middle class households), he realized just how badly people wanted to be financially secure. It was undoubtedly eye opening but he appreciated being able to grow. He didn't appreciate girls pretending to like him until the day after the Drake concert that he had bought floor seats for them to attend, or being asked to pay for a table at a club just to be ignored all night, and to an extent, it had led him to feel more uncertain about any relationship he considered pursuing. "But that's good to know that you think I'm hot. Not a surprise, but a nice ego boost nonetheless," he claimed with a smirk, sitting down on the couch. He was sure that Cara would mind them smoking in the apartment, but he also didn't really care, and blaming Brooklyn was always an easy option since Cara disliked her anyway and was usually ready to believe that she caused problems.

It was virtually a requirement that Chanel roll her eyes at Collin's lackluster response. "First of all, I was speaking generally," she said in reference to his latter most comment. "Second of all," she began. After Collin took a seat behind her on the couch, she swung her body back and fell onto his lap. "You're not my type. I prefer my guys with a lot less...whatever this is." She nodded towards Collin, hinting at the unbuttoned shirt he was wearing. It was obvious as soon as she saw him that he couldn't have picked out such an outfit because when she approached him upon arrival he was certainly not high or drunk enough for that to be a logical choice. "You're also too symmetrical. A little asymmetry keeps things interesting, you know? Especially when we're talking about someone as straight laced and..." She turned her towards him and eyed him up and down. It wasn't in the typical suggestive manner, but rather a demonstration that she was trying to find a kinder word to describe what she was seeing which was your archetypal rich WASP. She wouldn't call him boring, but the way she pulled her lips in as her mind came up short on nicer synonyms probably told what she was thinking. "precedented as you are. I mean, your story's been written a million times, so you gotta have a little something going for you, you know? And it's not to say you're boring--not really--but everyone knows Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and there's only so many ways you can tell that story." Chanel lifted her arms above her head, pulling her feet in the opposite direction as she stretched. Interestingly enough, while she could feel the warmth of the alcohol in her stomach, this was some indication that she was on the verge of needing to be put to bed. This was just another example of Chanel believing all boundaries were permeable. Plus, she was naturally a flirt. She wasn't trying to be flirty, and instead was just being playful, but her form of playfulness was different with guys, which unfortunately led to a lot of the same explanation that she was, in fact, not scoping out anything intimate. "All I'm saying is that if you're going to be as archetypal of a white man as possible, the least you could do is have some fun with it. Like your sister. I'm sure if you had done coke with them, you'd probably have another girl on your lap right now." Chanel turned to give him a playful wink. "I mean, I'm just saying you can't be a typical chicken nugget with a lot of money and then be mad when people are really only after the happy meal. You gotta have some seasoning, come with a toy, or something. Being 21 and not wanting to turn up is the opposite of all of that. But I have faith in you, so I know there's something. So, like, what's the craziest thing you've ever done that no would ever guess? Or what's the crazier thing you would ever do?"​

 

[lauren.]

Cara wouldn't have guessed that Jordan would be from Virginia, but maybe she was incorrectly relying on the idea that he would have some sort of accent, given that it seemed south enough. Maybe not back country Mississippi level, but something cute and charming, full of character. He didn't really give her a New York vibe, but he also didn't seem like he was from somewhere so... so random. She could have seen him as being from Boston or Jersey or maybe Seattle or something. She had been to Virginia once, years and years ago when her late grandfather took her and Collin on a trip to visit Arlington National Cemetery a few months after their mother passed away, but it hadn't been eventful enough to even come to her mind when she thought of the state. She merely imagined it as one of those states that consisted of little more than farm land and truck filled highways.

"I'm from New York, yeah," she confirmed, though she nearly felt inclined to ask him to cut it out with the pop culture references because they were too generic. Shaking her head slightly, she continued to say, "No, no. We both live in apartments on the floor, but not in this one, or in one together. She lives with two other girls, and I live with my brother." Brooklyn's existence wasn't important enough to mention, and on top of that, Cara didn't want to be associated with that girl tonight. Jordan didn't seem like someone that she needed to impress in the slightest, but nonetheless, Cara didn't want anyone associating her with someone who was trash. "I just met her from being neighbors, I guess." Her friendship with Chanel didn't have a grand backstory, and really just stemmed from having similar interests and a shared proximity of space. "Her roommate is probably here somewhere," she said, referencing Makayla. "You'd probably have better luck getting her than Chanel," she commented flippantly, her eyes scanning the room in a half-hearted search for the girl. It was in that visual search that she spotted Nick, who was already just a few feet from approaching her when she realized who he was. She was more surprised to see him than she should have been, given that this was his apartment, but she would have assumed that he would have had enough sense to not show his face here ever again.

Considering how mentally unstable she thought him to be, it was odd that his appearance actually brought out a smirk from her. She was currently more amused with just how stupid he was, than she was worried about what his next move might be. In her defense, he didn't seem angry or anything, but then again, he had went from zero to one hundred the other day for no reason at all. "In his room," she answered, still smiling as she pointed towards the hallway. She didn't actually know that Roman was (or had been) in his room, as she hadn't followed the group in there, but it only made sense. She had not seen him leave the apartment a few minutes before, so she truly did think that she was telling him the truth, but even if she knew that Roman had left, she probably still would have misinformed Nick, just for the fun of seeing what would happen with him and Brooklyn running into each other back there.​

 

[BurningBridges]

"I wouldn't call myself an archetype of anything, and I don't think my story's been written a million times. At least not as many times as the girl from the suburbs who moves to the city to figure herself out," he objected lightly, though rather passively. Collin understood the whole "white male privilege" thing. He had less of a grasp on the extent of the privilege that his wealth brought him, but understanding the privilege that his race and gender brought him was easier, merely because he was part of a larger group in regards to that, so he could witness it through the actions of others more clearly. He understood how men tended to be taken more seriously in nearly any setting, be it school or business, he understood how men lived nearly a limitless life in terms of being able to do anything without the fear of being raped or attacked or killed, and he understood how being white also allowed him to do anything without automatically being presumed as possibly having some ill intentions. Collin wasn't assertive, or selfish, or entitled, all of which were traits which he associated with being an archetypal white guy. He fit the category by everything he couldn't control, but he didn't feel like he was typical in really taking advantage of all of it to any purposeful extent. "If I had to identify with any archetype, it'd be The Innocent, and if I had to put you up as one, it'd be The Jester for sure," he stated, his inability to be fully fluent in social situations showing, as he turned Chanel's playful jab into a more serious psychosocial analysis.

"And given that, I don't really do crazy things. Not really my thing. I kissed you in Disney and I now know that wasn't cool, so I'm a pretty good learner," he teased. He didn't think the Disney thing was a big deal anymore. It had been awkward, if not a bit angering, in the moment, but Collin soon realized that it wasn't as personal as he thought it had been, and things felt normal by now. Or as normal as they could be, with Chanel now sitting in his lap. It was something that he was trying not to think about, hence why he barely reacted to it, because he didn't need her to feel him thinking about it... "Go on though, entertain me with the craziest thing you've ever done. It better be good, because you've basically hyped yourself up by now," he added teasingly.

Either Chanel didn't realize how intoxicated she was or Collin was speaking Spanish because she had no idea what his The Innocent and The Jester comment meant. She did, however, appreciate the lost suburban girl in the city jab. She mentally traced circles on the ceiling as Collin underwhelmingly stated the craziest thing he had done. Despite it not being the exciting response she was hoping for, it was enough for her to completely ignore his pass back. "Did you actually want to sleep with me that night?"

“I don’t know.” He really didn’t know, but he also didn’t know if he would even want to say so if he did know. He obviously found Chanel to be very attractive and would have jumped on the chance to sleep with her because... well, who wouldn’t? Even if he wasn’t drooling at the mouth and attempting to sleep with anything with a heartbeat and a nice rack, Collin was still a young guy in that peak-hormone period, and Chanel was just about the hottest girl he had ever come across. At the same time, Collin thought about things a lot more thoroughly than most people. He had been drunk that night, so in the moment it probably wouldn’t have mattered that much, but he was aware of how complicated sleeping with Chanel could be for social reasons (even though he knew there was no realistic chance that he’d ever have that opportunity anyway. “I mean, yeah, obviously, but I also know that I’m not your type and that you’re friends with my sister.”

It wasn't meant to be a trick question or something to make things uncomfortable. So long as Chanel was in control, there were few things that made her uncomfortable. Though, she was aware who she was talking to and that the perception of the question wouldn't be equal between the two. "Obviously?" she said without any surprise in her voice. It wasn't because she was being a smart ass and knew she was so irresistible that the only reasonable answer to her question was 'obviously.' Instead, she was deciding how she wanted to proceed with this conversation. She was still being cheeky, though her coy tone might have concealed that. As she took the cup from Collin's hand and placed it on the coffee table. "Do you still want to?"

“Obviously,” he confirmed sternly, his eyes drifting to the far corner of the room. “A guy can dream, can’t he?” He then added a bit more lightly, smiling as his gaze wandered back towards her. He couldn’t tell how drunk he was at this point. He didn’t feel drunk at all, really, but he also knew that he had felt fairly buzzed just a few minutes ago, and that if the alcohol had all magically left him in the matter of minutes, he would have been awkwardly stumbling over his words at this point. The mere fact that he was able to comfortably relax into the couch while a girl that was a thousand times out of his league (and already intimidated him for that reason) sat on his lap meant something.

"Good to know. I mean, not a surprise," she said as she rolled her eyes theatrically. "But a nice ego boost nonetheless." Chanel winked at him after she recited his own words back to him. She had asked merely out of curiosity, but she wasn't going to do anything with that information. It also wasn't anything to be startled about. Not because Chanel thought she was all that, but because Collin was a guy and her expectations were therefore relatively low and there were few things that could be said to surprise her, especially when talking about sex. Still, that didn't mean that Chanel wasn't going to continue being cheeky just because it was sometimes fun to try and make Collin uncomfortable. Not because it was a challenge, but because it was quite easy. She began to sit up, stretching her arms up above her head once more. "Well, now that I know you have a big fat crush on me, I guess--" Chanel pursed her lips, her brows furrowing in confusion before she looked back at Collin accusingly. "Is that..." Chanel eyes Collin suspiciously and leaned forward until the tip of her nose was against his neck. And, once again, without a regard for Collin's feelings, she erupted into laughter. "Are you wearing cologne?!" For some reason, this was even funnier than Collin losing his date to Roman of all people. Maybe it wasn't and the warmth in her stomach was starting to get to her, or maybe it was a combination of everything and this was just the icing on the cake. If she could stop laughing long enough to pull herself up and explain why it was funny, maybe it would have provided some solace. Sure, the party wasn't so informal that wearing cologne was that weird, but the uncharacteristically carefree outfit Collin was sporting on top of wearing cologne to a kickback was pure Collin, which required a fit of laughter on its own, even outside of the juxtaposition. It was also just something she associated only with older men. Her dad, for instance, would put on cologne just to go to the grocery store. "You're trying really hard to be cool tonight, huh?"

Collin squeezed Chanel's side in a weak attempt at payback for laughing at him like he was a clown. "Shut up," he said, finding it hard to not laugh himself, just because of how easy she seemed to be laughing tonight. She was probably drunk, he assumed. Most people at the party were by the time they had stepped out, and even if Chanel was typically very vivacious, she still seemed to be extra easily amused tonight. He didn't think he was that much of a joke to warrant it without something else loosening her up a bit too. Luckily, the same thing was working on him, allowing him to feel a tad less self conscious or offended than he normally would have. "If a hot girl tells you she likes the way you smell with cologne on, you're gonna wear the cologne," he explained matter-of-factly. "I'm sorry that we all don't naturally smell like..." he paused, mimicking her actions as he leaned in towards her, taking a dramatic inhale. "...Van--" He stopped mid sentence, pulling backwards abruptly at the site of someone walking towards the apartment door. He had assumed that they were alone considering that he knew Cara was still at Roman's, and he was 99% sure that Brooklyn hadn't managed to sneak out either. He did forget that he and Chanel had stopped at her place, so either of them could have returned in that time, but before he could even process that as a possibility, his brain processed that it was a guy walking past them, and a millisecond later, that it was Roman. Since Roman was on his way out, Collin didn't feel compelled to ask him what the fuck he was doing, but he looked at Chanel with an expression that combined confusion and surprise into one.​

 

[Collapsed]

"Thanks," Nick replied shortly, side stepping a couple of people as he immediately headed out of the kitchen. He wasn't going to comment or linger on the smirk that had immediately crept up upon Cara's face as she laid eyes on him, nor how she didn't react in the way that he expected her to. He didn't care about her or her drama right now, and he didn't have the time to let his mind wander into the "what ifs" territory. He wanted to figure out why the fuck all of these people were in his apartment, get his shit, and go. If all went well, maybe he would knock on Brooklyn's door on his way out of the building, but he wasn't counting on it at this point.

He wasn't surprised that Roman was apparently in his bedroom, since he couldn't imagine that Roman would host something like this. He was really perplexed by it, considering that, since these obviously weren't his friends, and definitely weren't Roman's either. The confirmation that Roman was hiding out in his room (or so Nick thought) only aided in the confirmation of that. Cara was here -- were these all her friends, and if so, why the fuck were they here, of all places? Not only was there no reason for them to be in Nick and Roman's apartment, but Cara definitely wasn't the type who seemed like she would want to host a party in a space that wasn't worth being featured in a Better Homes & Gardens magazine, or some shit like that. He had no reason at all to come to the true conclusion that Roman was hosting this for Chanel to protect him. Chanel wasn't here, Chanel had no say in the situation with the Forresters, Chanel had her own apartment, Roman hated people enough that that seemed outlandish, and Nick didn't think that anything or anyone could fix the problem that he had gotten himself into. He really didn't have a plan for the future because he knew he was fucked. He would probably have to keep couch hopping for a while and be a lot more careful about staying on the low, since he apparently had a warrant out for his arrest. He didn't have money to bail out of jail, he didn't have money for a lawyer, and he didn't have money or status like the Forresters to pay for a get out of jail free card. He didn't think that he did anything wrong in a justice sort of way, but he knew that he was fucked in the legal aspect of things, and he didn't think that he could do anything to change that. He just hoped that Cara wasn't about to call the police before he could get out of the apartment.

"Hi." Nick hadn't knocked before opening Roman's door merely because he was feeling a bit frantic. He wished that he had though, because he wasn't ready to see Brooklyn, even if that had been part of the reason for why he had returned today. She was perched on the edge of Roman's bed, looking across the room when he first walked in, and it was only as his eyes followed her line of gaze that he realized someone else was in the room as well.

"I don't believe that you two are just friends," Taylor had just finished saying before Nick walked in. She stood in front of the window, fixated on running her fingers through her hair as she examined herself in the poor version of the reflection that the glass pane offered. She was simply killing time until Roman returned... or Collin. Either one of them would do. She just wanted to have fun with someone. Brooklyn had rejected her request for a threesome just a minute before, but Taylor was still convinced that it would happen, and if not, there was always Cara. That was the perk of being hot and being surrounded by hot people... the options were endless. When you were confident to an extreme, the options were endless to a delusional extent.

If there had been a more attractive guy in the mix, Brooklyn probably would have had a threesome with Taylor and the other person. Roman and Collin were both attractive, but Roman was Roman, and Collin served a different purpose as a sexual object. Cocaine killed the sex drive of some, but it always amped Brooklyn's up, which was why she tended to take the drugs on the nights at work when she was in the worst mood. It wasn't a nightly thing for her, but when she was convinced that she wasn't going to be able to survive the rest of the shift, all it usually took was a line and a shot of tequila for her to get back on her A-game. "Not my type," Brooklyn reiterated, kicking her shoes off and leaning back on Roman's bed. "Go out there and find someone who's actually hot. Maybe I--" Her sentence was cut short at the sound of the door opening, followed by "Hi." Her expression darkened quickly at the sight of the man in the doorway. She was relieved to see him, but thankfully, the anger that she felt towards how stupid he apparently was for showing up here was enough to overshadow that in her face.

"Ask and you shall receive! You spoke it into existence, babe!" Taylor exclaimed once she spun around to lay her eyes on Nick. She didn't know who he was or the story that she was stepping into. All she knew was that he was hot and she was down for that.

"Get out." Brooklyn's head snapped towards Taylor as she demanded the girl leave. Nick deserved the same order, more so than Taylor did, but he wasn't the one she was speaking to right now.

"No fair! You can't hog him all f--"

"Seriously, get the fuck out," Brooklyn was standing by that point, and she could feel her body tense up to a point where she almost wanted to grab Taylor by the hair and toss her out. Luckily, with a sad puppy expression on her face, Taylor complied, though she couldn't resist brushing her hand against Nick's and offering him a sultry wink on her way out.

Nick shut the door behind Taylor, barely processing the way that she touched him on the way out. He was suddenly really nervous, and he could feel his heart pounding inside of his chest as he looked back towards Brooklyn, who stood silently in front of him. He didn't know what to say. He wanted to apologize to her, and to tell her that he wasn't here to start trouble, but he couldn't vocalize anything in the moment.

It was the cocaine. It had to be the cocaine. That was what Brooklyn would likely spend the rest of the night telling herself, to justify why she took a few steps towards Nick, placed a hand on the side of his face, and started to kiss him. Within the few seconds that it took to take the steps towards him, her mind had been 50/50 between punching him square in the jaw and kissing him, but apparently, her brain had told her that the latter would be more satisfying. ​

 

[lauren.]

Soon after Holly had went to bed, Ruby had went to bed too. Her friend Emma had left just before they started baking cookies, and though Ruby thought that the girl was returning to Brooklyn to go to the party that they were both supposed to attend, she was woken up by back to back calls from her date just a little while after falling asleep. Scared that something was wrong, she answered, only to find that the girl seemed a few drinks drunker than she had when she left, but in good spirits. She begged Ruby to come back out, reminding her that you only live once, that she never went out, and that she would go down as the worst person in the history of all histories if she really left her alone on Valentine's Day. It was cold outside, Ruby was already in pajamas with her face clean of makeup, and she was still half asleep, but something in the conversation must have resonated with her, because she found herself out of bed, getting re-dressed (though this time, in nothing fancier than leggings and a sweatshirt), and slipping out of the apartment.

Holly was asleep, Chanel was just across the hall, and apparently, Makayla would be home any minute, so she didn't hesitate in leaving in terms of any of that, and within twenty minutes of the call, she was a few blocks away at a bar with the girl that she would probably end up going home with.​

 

[cure]

The trip to Brooklyn's apartment took longer than he had anticipated. Firstly because he had spent the initial minute or so looking in the bathroom before she corrected her typo and stated that the coke was, more understandably, in her bedroom. Then there was the incessant digging in the drawer that it was supposed to be in. When he finally got his hands on it, he seriously considered just doing a line there, but in the end decided he could wait 2 minutes and do it back at his place. As he headed down the hallway he could hear some chatter, something he definitely wasn't expecting. While he couldn't, in the moment, place why there would be anyone else in here or who they might, it wasn't the most unreasonable thing and Roman would just go about his business and leave as intended. Of course, when he saw who it was on the couch, necks nestled into one another, he couldn't explain that any better. Still, Roman wasn't going to interrupt, even though as he passed the pair he did just that. He glanced back he heard Chanel shriek and was only mildly successful in keeping the smirk from appearing on his face, though it would be a lie to say he tried too hard to conceal it. While their positioning did look pretty damning, Roman honestly couldn't care. Plus, he figured this was Chanel finally pulling her weight, so he definitely wasn't going to sabotage that by running his mouth to whomever.

While he was ready to finally be able to get high, as he got closer to his apartment door, he stomach filled with light dread. He had actually enjoyed the brief moments of silence and coming back to his place preemptively began draining him before he crossed the threshold into his apartment. It didn't seem as bad before. Maybe because it was more of a gradual transition and now he was just stepping into the heart of it after moments of quiet and solitude, but he didn't like the tension he felt one way or the other. As a defense, he became agitated and rolled his eyes until he couldn't see, shouldering his way through the crowd. If it wasn't for Nick, he would have impulsively called for everyone to fuck off and go home. Even with it being for Nick, he wanted to do that. Really, if it wasn't for Brooklyn, he wouldn't have made it a point to focus on getting back to his room where he could relax and avoid the crowd. As he made his way down the hall, the only thought that kept going around his mind was that he was too sober. In actuality, he wasn't. He had been drinking pretty regularly, and while he had also been eating just as consistently, he underestimated just how under the influence was because he felt uncomfortable. For Roman, anything that reminded him of discomfort, or whenever he felt it too strongly, he immediately believed it was because he was too sober.

It was a great solace to push through the door into his bedroom and finally escape the commotion outside. Well, it was supposed to. It took Roman a second to make sense of what he was seeing, but he quickly recognized the guy that Brooklyn was kissing, and he couldn't say he was too pleased. It was nice to see that his friend was alive and well, but that was it. Despite this being typical, he still rolled his eyes as he slammed the door behind him, intentionally to interrupt the two. Maybe he was in a mood because it seemed like there was no escaping any sort of nonsense tonight, or perhaps because he wasn't all that thrilled to see Nick, or because he was sick of being sober for so long. It was likely some combination of them all, but it couldn't reasonably explain why he was so annoyed. Roman considered asking the most reasonable question, which would be wondering what he was doing here. Not just in his room but here at the apartment. This was the second dumbest thing he could possibly do besides the shit that started all of this mess. Seeing Nick in front of him with the party in the background and the mental fog he was feeling from all the activity going on around him only made him feel like a complete dumbass. As if he didn't feel stupid enough trying to help his ass in the first place. Despite that, Roman knew Nick also wasn't a complete idiot. He'd been gone this long with no word, so there had to be a reason for why he came back. The thing was, Roman didn't care to know. He could probably guess the reasons Nick would return and so he didn't care to confirm. So that only left him with one other thing. "Get out," he said through a slow exhale. He wouldn't specify whether he meant his room or the apartment because at this point Roman only cared about the former because that directly impacted him. Whatever Nick wanted to do outside of his room was his business. "Both of you." He didn't doubt that Brooklyn would have gone with Nick even without the qualifier on his part, but right now he wanted to be far away from all of this, and all of this revolved around the two in front of him, so the further they were the better.​

 

[BurningBridges]

When Brooklyn heard the door open, she didn't pull away from Nick immediately. Honestly, she assumed that it was Taylor returning to resume her role as a nuisance, with or without a new man to propose a threesome with. She shouldn't have been surprised when she heard Roman's voice, but she did pull away slightly faster than she would have from being startled when she realized it was him. It seemed like he had been gone for longer than he needed to have been to just grab something from her room (even with her accidentally misleading him to begin with), though maybe she was just being impatient. Either way, right now she wished that it had taken him a bit longer because it almost felt painful to have to pull away from Nick in the middle of that kiss. It was too cheesy for Brooklyn to ever speak out loud, because you know, she had an image to keep up and all, but it had been the kind of kiss that felt like fireworks. She wished she didn't love this guy because he was trouble... and she was trouble... and together they were just really, really, bad... but she did.

A very guilty smile situated itself on her face as she looked to Roman in a rather sheepish manner, because she knew that she was wrong to be doing this. This relationship was the cause of all of this chaos, and Nick deserved to be exiled (at least for a little while) for what he did to Collin, but also for what he did to Brooklyn, and for the situation that he put Roman in, as his roommate.

And he would feel the pain for all of that.

Just not right now.

She slipped her hand into Nick's and tugged him towards the door. "Taylor was looking for you," she said, glancing back at Roman, the same smile still on her face. She would owe him an apology later, and maybe a "thank you" as well, because she didn't even think the coke he had taken from her room was an even trade for him hosting this party just for Nick to show up, and then for Brooklyn to feed into it. "Maybe you could keep her and Cara busy for a few minutes? Pretty, pretty please?" she asked, pushing her bottom lip out as she looked towards him pleadingly. ​

 

[wicked]

After another twenty minutes or so of playing video games, Sam decided to take Jordan up on his offer to join him at the party across the hall. He didn't think that he had anything to lose, given that it was literally just a few steps away and he could come home at any time. He had school tomorrow, but worrying about school didn't supersede the idea of being able to hang out with college girls and drink. That would basically make him a legend in the eyes of his friends. As he got dressed, he texted a few of them to let them know. A few complained about the lack of invites, but eventually they all agreed that Sam was destined to be the luckiest guy in the world, because any girl at a party on Valentine's Day was probably very single, and very desperate. Given that Sam was only seventeen and had enough of a baby face to speak to that, very desperate was what he was banking on.

As he left the apartment, he hoped that the attire wasn't formal because he was just wearing a long sleeved t-shirt, a pair of black jeans, and sneakers. He wasn't sure what apartment the party was being hosted in and considered texting Jordan, but as he took a few steps into the hall, he could hear enough people inside one of them to accurately guess that it was coming from there. Again, he thought about texting his brother, just to confirm that it was still okay that he came, and this time he did, pulling out his phone and beginning to type when he noticed a girl a few feet away. "Hey." A look of relief washed over his face when he realized that she looked to be around his age. Even though he knew he would sound like a boss tomorrow at school confidently telling his friends that he had went to a college party filled with college girls, in the moment, he was glad to see someone his age. He knew that he wasn't going to actually be confident around a bunch of hot, older women, and this girl was cute in her own right. He was cool with the idea of telling his friends that he hooked up with a college girl and someone his own age, all in one night, even if only one of them ended up to be true. "Are you here for the party too?" he asked, oblivious to the fact that what she was wearing certainly didn't seem appropriate for a party, nonetheless a college one, until after he had already asked the question. He wasn't so innocently reliant on movies to paint the picture of a college party full of girls wearing soaked white t-shirts and Daisy Duke shorts, but he knew well enough to think that pajamas probably weren't the vibe either. He hadn't seen her before though, and given the time of night and the fact that she was in the same hall as the party, it only made sense that she was here for it as well.

Holly had been sleeping, and a sleeping Holly was a hard-to-wake Holly. Despite how much energy she had during the day, once she was asleep, she was really asleep. She went to bed early and woke up early, but in between she typically slept soundly. She had only been a sleep for an hour or so when she was jolted awake after having a bad nightmare. Nearly on the verge of tears from being so startled from the traumatizing flashback-esque scene that reminded her of something that had happened to her during childhood, she had jumped out of bed and pounced onto the one on the opposite side of the room, expecting to land on Makayla. She didn't realize that so little time had passed since she had went to bed and expected Makayla to be in bed beside her, so when she wasn't it made her even more scared. She went to Ruby's room first, and then Chanel's, only to find that neither of them were home, which scared her even more. Luckily, she felt like her neighbors were nearly family to her (in some cases, that was probably a very one sided feeling...) so before she slipped on a pair of shoes, she decided that she would go over to Cara's.

Just a second after closing the apartment door behind her, she caught sight of a boy standing a few doors away. Holly noted that his face was pretty, but she was too panicky and tired to fully appreciate it. "No," she shook her head. She knew that Chanel was having a party but only vaguely knew what it was for, and had been told by her sister that it was just for her school friends. "I'm going to Rick's Cabaret." Holly only knew the name of the club that Makayla worked at because there was a piece of paper taped to the back of their bedroom door with Makayla's cell phone number, her work name and their phone number, Chanel's cell phone number, Ruby's cell phone number, Holly's school's number, and 911 on it. Makayla had told her that the numbers were there so she knew who to call if there was ever an emergency, but as tonight showed, it would have been useless if there was an actual emergency because Holly didn't have a phone. If she did, she would have called Makayla's job herself to see if her sister was there and to ask them to send her home (and then likely to have been hung up on). She knew the name of it though, so her plan was to go to Cara's house and ask Cara to bring her there to get Makayla. As many people knew, all it took was one tiny interruption to throw Holly off course though, so her plans were now likely going to be fully derailed.

"Rick's Cabaret?" Sam repeated, seeking confirmation that he had heard that right. "Like, the strip club?" One of his friends had bragged about his father getting him in there for his sixteenth birthday, which was the only reason why Sam knew what she was talking about. If it seemed odd for her to be going to a house party in pajamas, it definitely seemed odd for her to be going to a strip club in them, but nevertheless, Sam was intrigued.

"No," she said, shaking her head again. "It's where my sister works." Holly knew that it was a club, but Makayla had described it to her as a club where people drank alcohol, talked to their friends, and people like Brooklyn danced. From what she knew, it was not a strip club. "Do you want to come with me?" she asked. She couldn't go alone because she didn't know where it was or how to get there, so she knew she had to go with someone. Cara had been her first choice but now that someone new was in front of her, he seemed like just as good of an option. Clearly, stranger danger had never resonated strongly with her.

"Do you think she can get us in? I don't have a fake that scans," he said, fully believing that Holly was actually offering her sister as the in that they needed to get into such a club underage. This wasn't the plan he had for the evening, but what kind of guy would he be to turn down an invitation to get into a strip club on Valentine's day underage?

"Yeah, we can go in because she works there." Holly was still half asleep so she was processing that much less of the social context of this conversation, but she also had virtually no idea how the club scene worked. She wouldn't have known what a bouncer was and she had no idea what he was talking about when he said "a fake that scans". She assumed that the place that Makayla worked at was as easy to get into as a grocery store. You walked through the door, and there you were. The hard part would probably be finding Makayla inside, she imagined, but she was sure that there would be nice workers there who would know who her sister was as soon as she said her name. "But you have to see on your phone how to get there, okay?" His phone was already in his hand, so it seemed like a perfect plan!

"Sick," he grinned before nodding and pulling up the map app on his phone. "Not a problem," he confirmed, typing in the address before glancing over at her. "But do you wanna change first? Aren't places like that, you know, picky about what people wear? Do you have a friend inside who you can take clothes from? I can change too if you don't think they'll let me in like this." He doubted that sneakers were appropriate, but at the very least, they were probably more acceptable than pajamas and if she had a connection anyway, he hoped he would be fine as is. He momentarily wondered if he was being reckless but this girl looked normal and it wasn't like he was flying cross country with her. If things got weird, he could just take himself home.

Holly glanced down at what she was wearing, barely realizing that she was in pajamas until just then. Normally, she wouldn't have thought anything of it but the way that Sam phrased the question reminded her of how Makayla used to refuse to let her leave the house in pajamas too, because pajamas were meant for bed, not outside. "Oh yeah, I can't wear pajamas," she said, sounding mildly disappointed as she glanced back towards her apartment. "You can come with me so I don't lose you," she said, hinting for Sam to follow her as she headed back towards her apartment. "Do you go to the same school as Chanel? Is that why you were going to go to her party?" she asked curiously as she led him inside. She had invited him in partially because she really didn't want him to disappear, but also because the apartment was dark and scary, especially now that she knew that she was alone in it. Inviting a male stranger into the place probably made it more scary in the grand scheme of things, but Holly cared more about company than she did about reality.

Sam didn't realize that the girl lived on the floor too, but that made things easier than her having to track down a friend inside of the party like he thought she would have to do, to get clothes. "No, I live over there," he said, pointing over his shoulder to his apartment door as he followed her into her apartment. "She invited my brother, I guess, and he invited me, but hanging out with you sounds more fun," he explained with a smile. Widening it to a grin, he added jokingly, "I'm only in high school, but if we end up back at that party later, don't tell anyone, all right? Gotta pretend I'm in college to seem cool. What about you? You seventeen too?"

"I'll be seventeen in June," Holly explained, perking up for the first time in the conversation as she added, "You can come to my party if you want! I'm going to have one with Chanel because our birthdays are close together, but I haven't told her yet so don't tell her, since it'll be a surprise party." She didn't bother closing the apartment door behind her, figuring that they would be back out sooner than later.

"Oh nice, count me in!" She seemed a little quirky (really just because of the pajamas and the late realization that they weren't appropriate strip club attire), but otherwise, this girl seemed really sweet. Maybe he wasn't going to get laid tonight, but he definitely felt like having a hookup on his floor would be legend-worthy too, even if it didn't get that far tonight. However, being invited to a strip club at first glance made him think that she was probably a lot less innocent than she looked, and he was more than okay with that.

"Wanna help me pick out an outfit?" She was slowly becoming more energized, and more energy meant that she wanted to have more fun. Trying on clothes was always fun, and the only reason why Holly didn't change clothes five times a day was because Makayla yelled at her for doing i so many times before that she knew better by now. "I'll close my eyes and you can pick out an outfit for me, and then I'll try it on and tell you if you made a good choice or a bad choice!" she insisted as she led him into her bedroom and pointed to the closet she shared with Makayla. Eagerly bouncing onto her bed, she shut her eyes as if it was a game.​

 

[cure]

Roman glanced at Brooklyn at the mention of Cara's name in conjunction with Taylor's. It took him a beat before he registered her ask, to which his response was a simple head nod towards the door, signalling for her to go ahead. Even though he was mentally grilling the guy for coming back, it had slipped his mind that Cara would be a potential (or, more likely, definite) problem. He was past the point of reasoning with her, especially with Nick back and seemingly running a campaign to ruin everything since the last people he needed to be around were the ones who had a warrant out for him. Still, though, he could at the least do some hopefully preemptive damage control. He wasn't sure if Cara had seen Nick or not, but the least he could was make sure they didn't cross paths anymore and to maybe talk whatever scheme she might be plotting. Despite all that, Nick and Brooklyn could wait at least a minute for Roman to do a line. It wasn't going to be enough to really get him where he wanted, but by this point he had given up on that idea and just wanted to get anything in his system. There was plenty of alcohol out there to carry him, and surely by the time he had those two well into his system he'd be ready for some pills.

With a mental note that he was going to kill Nick if Cara or Collin didn't, and then a brief lapse in sensibility as he momentarily wondered how beneficial it would be to switch sides and form a small task force dedicated to beating his ass, Roman opened his door and entered the humid hallway. The air, like the apartment, was thick. Thick with various smells--mostly weed and alcohol--and heat and bodies. He was being impatient by the time he got to the main area of the apartment, but still he wondered if Cara had justifiably left. It took him a second to recall where he had last seen her. It suddenly seemed like things were happening a lot quicker than they actually were, so it felt like he was having to recount more than what was really a 5 minute period. Just as his mind settled on the kitchen, he spotted her, looking unenthused or perhaps as she usually looked. Roman didn't register that she was having a conversation with the guy standing not too far from her, and so when he walked over to her, he unintentionally stepped between them, his back to Jordan. In honesty were to be kept, though, Roman's actions wouldn't have changed if he did know that the two were conversing. "Let's have a chat," he said, his voice low but his tone uncharacteristically soft despite the typical mischievous notes still being there. It was difficult to appear coy when he was around her. Roman didn't wait for much of answer, instead placing his hand on her back to move her forward. In the next second, one of Chanel's friends, who Roman recalled was apparently helping Chanel run the party, began calling over the crowd. "All right, time for the next round! Let's do...blue with purple."

Suddenly, the path back to his room became exponentially more difficult to get to as even more bodies shuffled throughout the limited space. His innate reaction was to be irritated by this, but it was actually quite helpful for him right now. "Perfect timing," Roman said into Cara's ear as he placed his hands on her shoulders and maneuvered her through the crowd until they were on the other side of the island. He stood so that Cara was between him and the island, his own self facing the rest of the crowd. He reached past her and stuck his hand into one of those many bowls that were scattered around the room. "'Each tell one surprising thing about yourself,'" Roman read aloud, reaching past her again to put the slip of paper back into the bowl. "I speak fluent French. My surprise for you," he continued, even though the paper didn't request they make any guesses on one another. "would be that you aren't a sociopath and are actually capable of empathy. Though I'll give credit where it's due and admit that, from my experience at least, you're quite decent at it in other ways. I could always use some extra convincing though," he said, giving the end of her dress a quick pull.​

 

[lauren.]

Cara's line of vision hadn't drifted away from the hallway entrance for more than a few seconds before returning back to it, after Nick had disappeared in that direction. She wasn't sure what she was expecting to happen, but she hoped that it was something explosive, merely because it could serve as some fun. Then again, she didn't want Chanel's party to be destroyed. It was that thought that eventually had her redirecting her attention towards her phone.

To: Chanel
You're not going to believe who just showed up

In a situation like this, it obviously would have made more sense to just tell Chanel who was here, but that wouldn't have been very Cara-like. She needed someone else to relish in the suspense of how unexpected this was, and waiting for Chanel to ask first would make for a more grand reveal. Then again, Nick was probably the only person who fit the mystery person spot that she was hyping up. It could have been one of her or Chanel's exes, maybe, as the girls often gossiped about superficial things like that, but given the recent climate on the floor, had Cara received the text she sent, she probably would have automatically guessed Nick. Even with alcohol coursing through her system.

She had just sent the text when Roman interrupted her conversation with Jordan, pulling her away and attempting to distract her with the game that had just picked back up. "For one, that's not surprising. You tried to impress me by speaking it in Disney, as if we all weren't raised by foreign nannies," she said, rolling her eyes. Her comment was more ironic than she knew, since she didn't have any idea of what Roman's childhood entailed. "And secondly," she continued, swatting his hand away from her, though a daring smile graced her face, "I know what you're doing. I know that your brainless friend is here, and I can only hope that he and Brooklyn are killing each other as we speak." She giggled then, and even though she wasn't drunk, it was definitely a good thing that she was drinking, because she probably wouldn't have found this to be amusing otherwise. "You don't have to worry, though. As long as he doesn't ruin Chanel's party, I'm sure I can find other things to distract myself with outside of fucking up his life. Doesn't seem like he needs any help with that, anyway." She reached towards Roman with one hand, the other one pressed against the counter she was leaning back on as she ran her fingers down his chest. "What would be a surprising thing to know about you, would be why you decided to be semi-likeable by hosting this."

 

[BurningBridges]

Instinctively, Chanel reached for Collin's hands when he began tickling her. And also just as second nature, she exclaimed before she realized it was Roman passing them. She wondered how long he had been there and if he had really planned on just passing without saying anything, but when she thought about it she couldn't really think of an appropriate alternative either. Normally she might have been concerned, and while she was a bit flustered, she could tell from the look Roman gave her that he thought something was going with her and Collin, but not in the typical gossip-y way. It reminded Chanel of why she pulled Collin aside in the first place, and also calmed any lingering nerves since she was pretty confident Roman wouldn't say anything if he thought this was helping him any. That was why as she stood up and readjusted her skirt, she didn't mind saying, "C'mon, Collin. Let's go to your room," as Roman left, no matter how misguiding it sounded. When they made it make to his room, she closed the door behind her and went over to his dresser. As she set the bag of weed on the table, she looked over to him. "Are you any good at rolling?" It wasn't a request so much as it was a doubtful curiosity. "This is the stuff Nick brought over a while ago sooo," she began, intentionally bringing up Nick's name just to gauge Collin's reaction, if there were to be any. "It's pretty solid."

"Not to an extent where I'd volunteer to try it for someone as judgmental as you," Collin answered, half-teasing, but half-serious. Collin could roll his own blunts but to say that he was any good at it would be a stretch. He didn't mind the way that he did it, but with the roll that Chanel was on tonight with grilling him about everything, he wasn't going to give her anything else to make fun of him for. He didn't think that she was asking him to do it, so it wasn't his attempt at rejecting her non-existent request. More-so, it was him lightly deflating himself before she could. He sat down on his bed and watched her as she spoke, though his face remained fairly emotionless. "Nice," he commented, nodding his head slightly. It wasn't surprising that Nick had been the one to deal to Chanel since he was the plug for basically everyone in the building, and especially with the added "a while ago", he didn't feel like he had any reason to feel any sort of way about it. If she had said that he had just stopped by to drop it off, that definitely would have changed things, but she hadn't. "There's a lighter in the top drawer if you need it," he added. There was no reason to still be hiding lighters in his sock drawer now that he wasn't a kid and didn't live at home, but out of habit, it still always found its way in there.

"Do you have a grinder, by chance?" Chanel wasn't sure how she had missed that on her way out earlier. She wasn't that drunk, and if anything just felt a bit lifted by this point. She wouldn't drive the way she was, not because she was so intoxicated, but because she could actually feel the shots in her now. Perhaps that was why she didn't feel as anxious as she figured she should have been. It wasn't because she was scared of Collin by any means, but because, for once, she was in the middle of something that she actually didn't want to be involved in. Like anybody, Chanel didn't find enjoyment out of making mistakes. She also didn't like arguing against her own gut, which was why her time on the debate team was short-lived because while she could be judgmental, as Collin had just pointed out, she couldn't argue for something that she felt was bullshit. It was even more complicated, though, when her gut was telling her two conflicting things. Chanel turned to Collin, a light smile on her face, and tossed the bag beside him. "You can do that at least, right?" Without waiting for an answer, since it honestly didn't need one because who the hell was incapable of grinding weed, she busied herself briefly with removing her shoes and then climbing onto his bed. She pivoted some to situated the pillows to her liking, but it was really out of a need to do something distracting and not look at him at the moment. "Speaking of Nick...that's actually why I wanted to get you alone. To...talk about that whole...whatever it is."

The grinder was wrapped up in a plastic bag in the sock draw near the lighter, and he supposed that the way that he got to his feet after she tossed the bag towards him was enough of a confirmation that he could do it, without actually having to say it. Collin wasn't a heavy smoker by any means, but he enjoyed weed now and then. It was the only illegal drug that he had ever used (which probably wasn't shocking), and even though he fully recognized how beneficial weed was, he still sometimes felt weird smoking. It wasn't a fear of being arrested or anything, especially now that you'd rarely even get a ticket for it (or at least someone that looked like him would rarely get a ticket for it), but it just felt like he was doing something that he wasn't supposed to do. Not legally, not morally, but socially. It didn't matter tonight, of course, and he only really felt that way when he was doing it by himself because for some reason, it felt more pathetic that way, even if he truly preferred smoking alone. It was a lot more peaceful and when he did feel inclined to smoke, it was normally because he needed that alone time to realign his thoughts.

He opened the bag of weed and then the grinder, breaking a nug into small pieces and carefully placing them onto the grinder. He was more focused on that than on Chanel as she situated herself on his bed, but he glanced over at her when she said that she wanted to talk to him about the Nick situation. He wasn't sure where this conversation was going, but it was odd enough to warrant a look of confusion on his part. "Okay...?" he said, with a tone that was uncertain more than anything else. "What's up?" He returned his gaze to the grinder in his hands as he replaced the lid, gave it a good few turns, and then handed it to her.

"So full transparency, I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be telling you this, but it would be pretty shady if I didn't." Chanel only qualified her statement with faux uncertainty because she felt like that fluffed things a bit. She absolutely knew that Roman wouldn't want her blabbing about the actual inner workings of this whole deal they had, and for good reason, as even she didn't know if this would backfire. She wasn't that close to Collin, no, but he wasn't some random guy who she didn't mind exploiting and tossing to the side. The assuming look Roman gave her just a moment ago made her even more wary about not disclosing what was going on. Still, though, she was hoping that she could reason with Collin and that maybe revealing what was going on would be helpful. "So Roman wanted me to talk to you about the thing that happened to try to convince you to change your mind about pressing charges." She was cool as she spoke, her mind focused on packing the weed as neatly as possible. "At first I said no, because I understood where you were coming from, but then I just agreed because this party thing came up. And that was a little while ago, so I didn't even think I was going to bother trying to change your mind, but I've been thinking about it and...I think you should ask yourself what you're getting out of this. And this isn't just about Nick." Besides the deeper implications of what Nick getting arrested meant, seeing the other side, the people he was closest to made her wonder if there was something more to this. She didn't think Brooklyn or Roman were that stupid to just let things slide, and even though him not getting arrested certainly seemed like letting things slide, she also was moved because she didn't have that connection with anyone. Therefore she assumed it meant it took an incredibly strong bond, probably stronger than what was really necessary, to have people like that still sticking behind you and doing something as out of character as having a bunch of strangers in your apartment when you barely spoke to anyone on your floor.

Collin hadn't put too much thought into why Roman had allowed Chanel to host a party in his apartment, but now it all made sense. There was no way that Chanel could have convinced him to let her use his place for anything, nonetheless a social event, without there being something in it for him. Collin didn't know Roman very well, but he seemed so antisocial that Collin couldn't even imagine him agreeing to allowing her to do that in exchange for money or sex. It had to be something bigger than that, and as she finished speaking, all of the pieces of the puzzle (that he didn't know he cared about until now) were finally fitting together.

It was a shitty thing to do, and a shitty position to put Collin in, but he was more taken aback by it than he was angry, because he had still only halfway processed it and was more confused by her intentions than anything. Was she really asking him to just sweep what had happened under the rug, so that she could continue enjoying some dumb, superficial party? This had nothing to do with money or status or anything. Nick had attacked him for something that he had no grounds to attack him for. He had slept with Brooklyn, but Nick had slept with his sister, and if they wanted to go there, he had treated his sister like some home-wrecking whore after the fact too. If Nick wanted to act like women were property, would Collin be justified to poison him now in return?

He wanted to believe that Chanel didn't really understand what had happened because her request felt like it came from some place that was colder than he pegged her as being capable of. “Imagine Brooklyn showed up one day, sucker punched you to a point where you were knocked unconscious and you smashed your head against a concrete floor, leaving you with a hospital visit, a concussion, and shooting pain in your head days later. What do you think you would do?”

"Well, you and I aren't the same. You know that."

"I know that if that happened to you I would make sure that she got what she deserved in return. I wouldn't ask you to just let it go so that I could show a bunch of random people I'm cool and fun," he answered, his tone slightly defensive, but lacking any real emotion. He was still more confused by what she was really asking than anything else, because he wanted to believe that she wasn't being serious about this all.

Unsurprisingly, Collin didn't respond all too positively by her comment, but it still seemed better than she had expected. She didn't necessarily anticipate him to start flipping tables, but she would have expected something a couple of pegs below it. It was clear he didn't understand her though. She and Collin weren't the same, and as much contrast as the two held, she held more similarities with Brooklyn than with him. The playing field was more even. But on the flip side, even if it was a sheep poking a dragon, it was hard to fault a dragon for blowing fire. Even irregardless of that, she and Collin weren't the same. To say that she would have responded physically or worse if she was in the scenario ignored the point that that was Chanel and not Collin. "This isn't about appearances Collin, seriously." That she had to even clarify that told her that they weren't communicating on the same frequency, but by this point she wasn't even sure what frequency she was on or where she was supposed to be. "Look, I'm not here to debate with you, all right? Don't get so jumpy." Chanel folded her legs in so that they were crossed, sliding back towards the top of the bed until she was against the pillows. She patted her hand on the space in front of her, offering him a gentle smile. "Sit down."

"Trust me, all right? I'm not telling you to change your mind." She placed her hand on top of his hand and squeezed it. She wasn't going to distract from the conversation by going into her own experiences with violent men, so she hoped he could gather the weight in her tone. "I'm the last person who would tell you to do that. If I really thought you were being an idiot, you don't think I would have just walked down the hall instead of waiting until now? I'm only here as the messenger," she explained, raising the both of her hands in surrender. "So hear me out." She didn't think it needed explaining before, but now thought it needed to re-stated that she had always been on his side. "I told him no when he first asked me because I thought it was a ludicrous request. And he knows it is. I'm really the last person that has any sort of bargaining power in this fight, but you know what changed my mind? Not some silly party. He told me to forget about Nick, and to think of Brooklyn. And to be honest, I thought I had been. I figured she would benefit as much as you would, but..." Chanel shrugged and shook her head, showcasing the confusion and conflicting feelings she had. If that was their relationship, then it also felt wrong to Chanel to relinquish that power from Brooklyn since she was just as much a victim as Collin was.

"What I'm trying to tell you is that I've seen both sides. I don't think you're wrong, but I feel weird encouraging you. I don't know what the three of them have going on, but if Roman is coming to me, and is doing this for her, and he didn't even hesitate to agree when I told him my conditions, then it doesn't feel right to treat it so simply." Her fingers curled around the air between her hands as if she was squeezing an imaginary ball that would somehow gather her words together. It felt wrong internally, but then it felt no better trying to vocalize the confusion in her mind. "I don't mean to make you second guess yourself, but that's where I am personally. And I'm just wondering what you're getting from any of this? I mean really. I can only empathize as a regular degular person on the ground, but that's not your situation. I mean, sure it's your right, bo how does it benefit you? What do you get from throwing Nick behind bars?"

Collin couldn't grasp what this other "side" that Chanel was referring to was all about. There were two sides to this; that much was true. There was the side of a violent, criminal aggressor who sucker punched Collin, shoved Brooklyn, and probably would have done the same to Chanel had she gotten in his way. Then there was the other side, the one that was solely a state of victim. Collin could understand that Roman was Nick's friend and that Brooklyn and Nick were both mentally unstable enough to seemingly be turned on by the domestic violence that their relationship was engulfed in, but he couldn't fathom how Chanel could feel any sympathy, nonetheless empathy, towards them.

"I'm not getting anything out of any of it," Collin responded. "But I know how guys like Nick work. I spent my entire childhood dealing with them. As a kid I just had to sit there and take it and try to laugh it off because back then, I was living under a different level of social systems. If another kid punches you in the back of the head everyday and you go to the teachers, you're automatically a bitch and exiled, so you learn not to do that. If you go to your dad, you're weak and need to toughen up. Your friends don't want to get involved because they're probably already wary of even associating with you when you're the target, so you just take it." Collin was surprised that he wasn't getting emotional, though he was glad that he wasn't. He had always been embarrassed of how he had been bullied as a kid. It wasn't to an extent where he was eating lunch alone in a bathroom stall, and he did have friends. He just wasn't cool, and the friends that he did have were mostly fake friends... the children of people who felt like their child's friendship with Collin could benefit them business or social status wise. He was bullied to an extent where he didn't care if those friendships were real or not, though -- he was willing to take whatever he could get.

While Collin knew that he was very lucky to have the life that he had, and while he did have it easy financially, his childhood hadn't been perfect. He often looked back on it and thought of it as being an overall good time, but that was only really because he didn't like the idea of playing the victim. He grew up without a mother, nearly without a father, with a sister who had a slew of her own issues that led to the absence of any strong sibling bond, and without many friends. He did well in school, and maybe it was because he seemingly had it all on the outside that he became a target for bullies. He still wasn't sure to this day, because none of the things that they tormented him about were true -- he wasn't gay, he wasn't weak (not really, at least not in comparison to any of them), he wasn't mute, and so on. He had always just taken it, back then, though. It was one of the few regrets he was still holding onto. He let them make fun of him, he didn't fight back when things got physical, and he always justified it by reminding himself that it wasn't constant. They'd do it a few times a week in some classes when they were bored, and then they'd drop it and let him live his life for a few more days. He wasn't running home with black eyes or anything. Still, he often wondered how he would react if he ever saw any of those guys out now. He could only hope that if they did cross paths, that it would be at a time when he had enough alcohol in him to have the confidence to knock them out. Until then though, Collin was willing to make a point moving forward that he wasn't going to be stepped all over anymore. Not by those types of guys who felt like they were more of a man than he was just because they were willing to throw the first punch.

"And I can't go back in time and protect the kid that I used to be, but out of respect for that kid that I used to be, I'm just done with letting people - but guys like him, especially, walk all over me. I'm not getting anything out of him being locked up in terms of satisfaction. If I had it my way, he'd just have never touched me and I wouldn't have had to be fucking helplessly carried into a car by my sister and a girl I grew up with, but I didn't ask for this to happen. And him sitting in jail isn't going to fix any of that, but for once, it'll just maybe make the point that you can't just decide to fuck with someone's life for no reason, when they didn't do anything to you, and just be able to walk away laughing about it." ​

 

[BurningBridges]

There was no way Collin could have known what his words meant to Chanel. No one could; hardly she even knew. Anything that reminded her of her own brother instantly tightened her throat. It was already weird for her to have this conversation with Collin because, as expected, she couldn't articulate the complexities she was mulling over. This extra bit of information only complicated things even more and made her feel all the more stranger. Even still, out of it all, she could hear that this wasn't really about Nick, for anybody but one person, and that person also put Chanel in a fairly uncomfortable situation. For a moment, she froze, as she always did in situations like this as she analyzed the correct move to make. Like Collin, Chanel acted this way in the hopes that it would heal in some way her past self who missed and overlooked all the chances she got. "Well, that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?" she offered with a light chuckle. And a bit more delicately, "So this isn't...really about Nick it sounds. For anyone really. Not for you, or me, or even Roman. But just for Brooklyn." Chanel ran her tongue across her teeth as she searched the stitching in Collin's comforter for the words she was looking for.

"Okay, so! My turn for backstory time," she announced, wiggling her fingers for excitement. She deliberately lightened the tone so she had more of an emotional buffer since she herself wasn't sure how she end up by the end. "You know how we were just talking about all the bachelors out there vying for my attention and yet here I am? Well, and this might be hard to believe because as we all know, I have virtually no flaws and am pretty great at everything, but one hangup I have are guys. More specifically, ones that aren't so nice. And so, there was this one guy who--" It was just on the tip of her tongue. She had been doing so good too. She slipped for just a second, the shimmer evaporating from her eyes before she regathered her beat. "Whatever. So after that I was sure I was going to give him what he deserved. I was just going to put his ass in jail and make him pay. Long story short, I chickened out but even though I didn't go through with it, I know that if someone like you had swept in and taken that away from me I would have been ripped apart. Yeah, you got a concussion, but behind doors you face a lot worse and to finally get up the courage to do something about it just to have what little power you feel you have taken away from you?"

Chanel was confident by this point that she wasn't making any sense. She exhaled a breathy laugh and wiggled her shoulders. "I can't speak for her, but if what happened was any indication of what might be happening with them, then you at the very least need to talk to her. Because she's just as much of a victim as you are, and if that's how Nick has always been, she's been one for a lot longer and she deserves to be heard. And now!" She raised her hands above her head, miming as though she was taking a hat off of her head. She placed the imaginary cap to the side. "I'm taking off my lawyerly hat so that I can enjoy this here illicit substance." She grabbed the grinder from Collin before tipping its contents onto the paper and beginning to roll.

Collin's eyes searched Chanel's face as she spoke, seeking some sort of truth. It would be hard for anyone to believe that someone as godly as Chanel would give any guy a moment of her time, nonetheless one who was even a hint of unpleasant behind closed doors. It went along with the whole stigma related to domestic violence, and Collin was cognizant of that enough to not verbalize his surprise, his anger, and his confusion over why she wouldn't go to the courts, but it was still hard to grasp. He understood that as a guy, it was different. He didn't walk into relationships fearing that he was never going to walk out (not like he was walking into relationships in the first place anyway, but that was besides the point). The point was that while he could relate to being taken advantage of for not fighting back, and being bullied, he couldn't relate to the idea of someone that you were sometimes intimate with then turning and being the vicious opposite of that. He wasn't really sure how to respond because while Chanel kept her tone light for the most part, her words resonated with Collin enough that he wasn't sure if he should attempt to comfort her, just drop it, or do something else.

He remained quiet for a few seconds, watching as she rolled the joint between her fingers. "You know," he began, once the silence seemed to be lasting too long. "It's never too late for that guy to get what he deserves. Jail time might seem bad to Nick, but my family has its own version of the Clinton body count and it would only take a few calls to have a new name added to the list," he said, his eyes still focused on her hands and his expression stoic.

Chanel was more relieved than impressed and more impressed than proud of the fact that she had managed to get her words out (despite them being a jumbled mess in her mind) without breaking down. She wasn't giving herself enough credit though. On the surface, it was a wonderful deceit from just how tumultuous she felt internally. While she had attempted to redirect the conversation, even without Collin bringing the topic back, that gated portal in her mind had already been opened and now she couldn't close it. In the past, the only way to close it was to give in, but she wasn't doing that right now. Not in front of Collin, and not after all of this time. To find out she still had no control over the situation? The situations, rather. She had described the unkind men as a hangup, but habit would have been the more accurate descriptor. As she ran her thumb along the paper for the fourth time without rolling it further, her mind to caught up in itself, she noted that she was taking too long to respond, even if in reality it was only a couple of seconds. But that was what these things did. They made you question reality, absolutely everything. She wasn't sure where to start or what to say because it wasn't just a simple yes or no.

She opened her mouth to inhale, but words ended up spilling out without her design, but they were far more gathered than her previous monologue because she had researched this so many times in the past that it felt as etched into her body as the bruises. "You need proof. Text messages, voicemails, photos and I never took any because I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror. The last thing I wanted to do was immortalize it. But then there are the smart ones that don't leave anything behind. Maybe they push you or grab you too hard, but never any marks. And then once you have all of the evidence, you file a report and hopefully it convinces the prosecutor to bring up charges, because the decision isn't up to you. And then there's the hearings and I'd have to go home for all of it and...None of it's an accident, you know? I mean, I'm not rolling dice or pulling the unlucky cards; it's me too. And there's no getting rid of them except to stay quiet." She only stopped speaking once she noticed her eyes were completely blurred. If she kept going, she knew she was going to cave, but as she exhaled and the unsteadiness exposed her, a couple of droplets fell onto the tops of her hand. A smirk appeared on her face, though perhaps it was difficult to tell since her head was lowered so. She chuckled breathily, shaking her head. "Sorry, sorry. I think I'm drunk. Probably didn't eat enough."

Collin truly hadn't meant to upset Chanel like that. The conversation was deep to begin with, but he had been trying to lighten the mood to some extent by teasing that he could have the guy killed if it would help right the wrong that she hadn't been able to right in the moment. He understood that the justice system sucked for most people. When you had money, things were obviously a lot easier... especially when you did have enough money that ordering a hit on someone and having it done to an extent where no one would even think to pin you to the crime. He had absolutely been kidding about that, but it wasn't so far fetched, and Chanel's explanation of the justice system was something that he knew existed (he was up to date on the news), but wasn't something that he would likely ever experience himself. He was a guy, for one, so that was specifically relevant in this situation, but he had almost every other thing working for him too. In a more personal aspect, he had things working against him like growing up without a mother, being bullied, being insecure, and so on, but if he was ever in a sticky situation, it would be oh so easy for him to be painted in a light that would warrant pity even if he was at fault: he was as an upper class young white boy who attended a prestigious school, was midway through a college education, was raised by a successful and intelligent man of Christian faith, was directly linked as a victim of an event in history that could garner pity from anyone who was American, and so on. There wasn't a single think that could mark his record in terms of how other people saw him to an extent where it could really damage his chances of success, and he was one of the very lucky few who could claim that.

"No, don't apologize," he insisted, placing a hand on her leg in an attempt at comforting her. He wasn't worried about seeming awkward or anything at this point, just about making the situation worse and saying the wrong thing. "I really didn't mean to make you upset, and I'm seriously so sorry that you had to go through that. If it helps, I'll talk to Brooklyn about all of this." It was possible that Chanel was drunk, but Collin knew well enough to know that this was an emotional subject, and it couldn't only be the alcohol making her feel this way. Still, he opted to run with that instead of pushing the emotional part of it, since he wasn't a therapist and he didn't want to make things worse. "Do you think smoking will make you feel worse?" It could go either way with smoking after drinking, at least for him. Sometimes it mellowed out the drunkness, and other times it enhanced it.​

 

[cure]

Idiot, Roman thought as soon as Cara revealed that she was privy to Nick's presence. The apartment wasn't so big that the chances of the two seeing each other were so slim, but the place was pretty packed right now. Still, that was just one extra thing to annoy him tonight and something that he felt he needed to manage. Cara was right. This party was clearly not for him. It wasn't that Roman didn't like hanging out or having a good time, but this was purely strategic and he wasn't going to be able to relax until he knew Chanel held up her end of the bargain. And even then, he wouldn't relax until all of these strangers were out of his place. Or until his high finally kicked in, which would be for another fifteen minutes or so. "Hmm," he cooed beneath his breath while following her finger with his gaze. "I'm sure it would."

Roman didn't know that Chanel was going to expose the plan. If he knew that, he wouldn't have agreed to any of this, for obvious reasons. And for those same reasons, he was keeping tight lipped with Cara too because as far as he was concerned, she would go running off to her tell her brother. "Since you're so curious, I'd tell you to ask your friend." He looked across the crowd then, in search of Chanel, but perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised to not spot her in the crowd, given what he saw as he left Brooklyn's place. "But I can't seem to find her. It's really not that deep though. A simple favor for a favor. Not that it matters," he said. "If I wanted to talk about Chanel, I'd go find her. Distraction or otherwise, you are mildly interesting. At least as much as a girl like you can be." Roman took Cara's hand from his chest and pulled her forward enough so that he could move towards the island counter by way of pouring a drink. He grabbed two of the mini solo cups, pouring enough so that the contents would likely spill unless it was moved gingerly. And it did just that as he held the cup in Cara's direction. "Nothing a little drinking game can't fix. Two truths and a lie. You guess it right, which you won't, I take the drink. I guess it right, which I will, you take a drink."

Roman wasn't sure why the stupid questions weren't set up like this to begin with. Just standing around reading off of slips of paper felt like some juvenile game that only 12-year-olds did on the first day of class. However, he also just needed a reason to drink more. Plus he was being serious, albeit intentionally modest, about liking Cara enough to actually want to have a conversation with her. Sure he sought her just now at Brooklyn's request, but if it had been someone he really despised, he wouldn't have been so compliant. The fact that he was even willing to innovate a twist on a game at a party that were far beyond anything he'd ever be into also spoke to the fact that he was comfortable enough with Cara. However, not against Cara's credit, having only one familiar face in a crowd full of strangers also forged a tighter social comfort with that familiar person. At least such was the case for an introvert like Roman. "Since you were clearly unimpressed with my previous answer, I'll start." It only took him a couple of seconds to think of something, simply because he was piggybacking off Cara's response to his initial answer. Regardless, he still felt it would be quite easy for him since anything outside of him liking to pop pills and avoid social interaction was warrant enough for a surprise. "My nanny was Ukrainian. I finished school when I was 13. I had my first drink when I was eight." ​

 

[lauren.]

"I wish I could say the same about you," Cara returned, following Roman referencing her as being a mildly interesting distraction. Even if she felt like she was saying it just to spite him, in truth, he was a mildly interesting distraction. Mildly interesting in his own right, but compared to most of the guys in here, maybe bordering moderately interesting tonight. There was nothing wrong with most of them, and one or two had actually struck Cara's fancy, but no one was truly special. Cara didn't think of Roman being anything spectacular either, but at least she knew she sometimes enjoyed whatever it was that they had together. She much preferred sticking to what she knew than venturing out and trying to find a worthwhile conversation in a sea of people who she had deemed to be not her type very early on. Her inability to lower her standards certainly did her more harm than it did her good, but it wasn't something that was likely ever going to change. Granted, Roman wasn't her type either and she did give him the time of day, but he was a rare case, and their situation was just different. He lived across the hall from her and he was best friends with her roommate. It put him in her circle more than any of these other guys who were similarly not her typical type. She didn't have to make an effort with Roman because he was always near enough, whether that was for better or worse. Outside of mildly interesting, the distraction part was true too. He had always been a distraction for her, in one way or another. Their banter allowed her a channel for her anger or annoyance, his flaws a distraction against her own. He could take the heat just as well as he could spew it, and she wasn't crying over any of the remarks he tossed her way either, so it worked. Even though she considered Roman to represent a lot of things that were wrong with the world, she knew somewhere, deep down, that most of those things weren't true, and so he even there existed as some form of a distraction. His existence allowed her to act like she knew what was wrong with the world and justify her own behavior, even if it wasn't being projected appropriately.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you finished school when you were thirteen," she mused, surpassing the purpose of the game really, as she thought out loud. "You fit that brand to a T. You see those stories all the time about kids who are doing college math at six years old and stuff, and yet you never hear about them again after they turn eleven or twelve. They go through the motions of being prodegies or whatever they like to be called, and then they get burnt out or whatever, and fall off the map. None of them have cured cancer, none of them have created world peace, none of them have hijacked the economy. The only thing that they're left with is a selfish, narcissistic shell of a personality. In your case, at least." She accepted the shot that Roman had poured and took it immediately, despite knowing that she wasn't following the rules of the game. "Everyone loves the underdog, not the person who's been hyped up since birth, right?" She looked to him curiously, asking as if she had no association with the question herself. In terms of academics, she certainly was a stranger to it. Cara was an average student growing up. She wasn't wildly intelligent, but she also never truly struggled with school. She got mostly Bs, maybe an A here and there if she studied, and Cs when she didn't. Merely because of her upbringing, she was never an underdog in most aspects of life, though. She was expected to attend Ivy League schools even without the brains, prestigious parties with prestigious people even without the interest. She was expected to do big things, and there was nothing wrong with the content of those expectations, but it was the mere idea that so many people had these per-conceived expectations for her that she could never stand. ​

 

[cure]

Roman couldn't tell if Cara was tipsy or intentionally ignoring the purpose of the game, but he found it amusing regardless. His smirk remained as and after she spoke, choosing to remain silent so as to process just her being Cara. Even though he did just half-call her boring and predictable, a lot of the times, like now, her predictability was in such a way that it was actually difficult to grasp. Ironically, though, her predictable yet still-somehow-surprising manner of being was what made her, as he called it, mildly interesting. Her disregard for the actual structure of the game on top of her detailed response was exactly what he would expect Cara to do, but at the same time it made him laugh a bit. "You're funny," he remarked dryly, though he was being sincere. The sarcasm still came, albeit a beat later. "There's something surprising about you. But, of course, you're wrong."

Cara was really only wrong by design. Even if fundamentally she was correct, the lie was intentionally disguised in a small nuance that would have been rather ridiculous to have spotted out. Still, he was going to leave his comment where it was instead of mentioning that he actually finished when he was 10 and further proving Cara's point. While any child would have big dreams, and while Roman certainly didn't plan his life to be how it is now, outside of being in a different country and living a different lifestyle, he figured he would probably have ended up on drugs at some point in his life. Either for the reasons Cara pointed or because of his parents. When he glanced past Cara, he spotted Chanel siphoning through the crowd, her curly hair sticking out amongst the unfamiliar faces. He didn't see Collin in the mix, which didn't really surprise Roman given the guy's previous storming off. While he would have found it very difficult to believe that Chanel disappeared to Collin's place on his lap and returned with no progress, he still didn't trust Chanel to get anything done properly. He needed to make sure, and he was quite certain that she wouldn't seek him out to let him know since talking to Collin to begin with, which was the entire point of this party evening being hosted at his place, didn't seem high on her list of priorities. And as he watched her begin filling a cup on her own, his assumptions were confirmed as far as he was concerned. Roman downed the shot in his hand before putting the empty cup on the counter beside him. "This was fun," he said. And as he moved passed her, into her ear "We'll pick up later."​

 

[A_Writer]

Holly's night had been far more eventful than she ever would have imagined. If you looked at the evening from afar, it was close to something you would see in one of those coming of age movies about a teenager who was starting to live on the wild side. In reality, the situation wasn't as exciting. Well, it was in the moment. Holly had still been half-asleep as she put on some of Makayla’s clothes, a smidge more with it when she knocked on Collin’s apartment door and asked him to let her in because she needed to borrow something from Brooklyn, and semi-awake by the time she had finished using Brooklyn’s makeup to ensure that she looked nice and glittery. One would probably be surprised that Holly was actually decent at makeup, merely compared to her understanding of most things that were age-appropriate to her. She liked watching Youtube videos of just about anything, and by now, Makayla knew that anything that Holly could do to kill time quietly, on her own, was worth investing a couple of spare dollars on. Holly knew that the makeup that Makayla got her was no good though, but that wasn’t a problem because she knew where the good stuff was – Brooklyn had it. While Holly didn’t quite understand what Brooklyn did for a living, she knew that when she went to work and came home from work, she was always pretty and glittery. She knew how to do makeup and hair and all of that, and Holly lived for it. Up until lately (since Cara had recently distanced herself from Holly and Makayla), Holly spent a lot of time in Brooklyn’s apartment. She was there for Cara, of course, but that didn’t stop Holly from going into Brooklyn’s room whenever she felt inclined to socialize or just explore, and in turn, it often led to Brooklyn snapping at her. In typical Holly fashion, it rarely registered with her, so when Sam mentioned that she should try to look like a model, she instinctively went for Brooklyn’s makeup.

Before getting an Uber, Sam changed clothes too and they stopped at a convenience store down the street where Sam purchased a tall boy beer for himself, and a Mike’s Hard Lemonade for Holly. She truly didn’t know that there was alcohol in it, and in his defense, he had no reason to know that she didn’t know there was alcohol in it. He was a sweet, smitten boy who thought he was going to have a night to brag about to his friends, and Holly was sleepy enough to not be so Holly-ish that her delays were obviously alarming, so they were just two kids having fun.

It was for the best that they never got to the strip club that Makayla and Brooklyn worked at. Halfway there, one of Sam’s friends texted him that a friend of theirs was throwing a huge, last minute party in an apartment in the East Village. Sam asked Holly if she wanted to go, and by then, she was awake enough to like the sound of a party, so off they went.

Holly would only remember pieces of what happened after that, but there was a lot of people and a lot of alcohol. She played beer pong for the first time, she met people who were drunk enough to not realize that she was any different from them, and she kissed a boy. Yup, you heard that right. At some point she ended up sitting on Sam’s lap on some chair in the corner, and she kissed him. He didn’t make the first move. He wasn’t assaulting her. She was having fun and feeling silly, and she kissed him. The alcohol in her body was absolutely to blame, but at the same time, there was some faint feeling, somewhere deep inside of her, that it was natural. Only a couple of hours later she would be completely passed out in the Uber home, only reaching Sam’s bed by the means of him carrying her up five flights of stairs and into his bedroom.

When she woke up the next morning, her head was pounding and she felt inclined to start crying, since that was always the instinctive reaction to being sick. As she rolled over, looking for one of the many stuffed animals that typically cluttered her bed, she realized that she wasn’t in her own bed. A moment of sheer panic occurred, but the bits and pieces of the night before came quick enough after that she didn’t have time to scream in fear. Only a moment later, she spotted Sam lying in the ground with what appeared to be a mound of clothes behind his head, acting as a pillow, and a light blanket covering his body.

“We had a sleepover,” Holly mumbled, her statement nearing a question via her tone, as she looked down at Sam. Her makeup was all over the white pillow she laid on (and likely all over her face as well), and as she waited for him to stir, she tried to process her surroundings. When her voice didn’t wake him, she picked up one of the pillows that she laid on and tossed it at him, feeling unable to get up just yet.

Sam could have slept for another hour. Or two. Or five. He was the definition of hungover and with only one or two times worth of experience, it felt especially brutal waking up to that feeling today. Being pulled out of sleep by being hit in the face with a pillow didn't make it any easier, nor did then realizing that you were cold and on the floor. When he realized why he was there, strangely, a small smile fell upon his lips. Unlike Holly, he remembered everything that had happened the night before. He had remembered how fun and light hearted she had seemed, being so careless towards the opinions of others and so focused on just having fun. Just as quickly as the smile appeared though, it faded when he caught a glimpse of his alarm clock, realizing that it was well past time for the start of school. "Fuck, we slept way too late. I bet your parents are flipping out over where you are," he said, shooting up into a sitting position and grabbing his phone. He had planned on texting Jordan the night before to let him know that a friend was sleeping over, but Jordan beat him to it by texting him to tell him that he was going home with a girl who lived in Astoria, and that he wouldn't be back until the morning. Sam had assumed that it was worthless to let him know about Holly, then, assuming that they would be up early, both heading to school on time, but clearly, he was wrong. Jordan hadn't texted him which was a good sign, and to be safe, Sam quickly texted him stating that he had woken up late with the stomach virus and wouldn't be going to school. He didn't think his brother would care (and he purposely wasn't allowing him to believe that he had done anything other than play video games the night before), but he also hoped that Jordan wasn't home yet.

"No," Holly said, rubbing her eyes and frowning at the makeup that had rubbed off onto her hands. "I only live with my sister, so she might be." Swinging her legs over the side of his bed, she decided to pause before standing up. Her head was spinning in a way that felt foreign to her. The light felt like it was burning holes into her eyeballs, even though it was only coming in through the cracks in the window shade, and even the slightest of movements made her feel like she was about to vomit. "I hope she's home to make me toast," she mumbled, more to herself as she steadied herself against the side of the bed while forcing herself to her feet. She really felt like she was on the verge of death, possibly to her own benefit, because the fear that she normally would have felt regarding her sister wasn't a priority at the moment. She stepped over Sam as she headed towards his bedroom door. "What's your name, again?" she asked, glancing back.

"Sam," he said, his smile returning then. Because this wasn't his first time drinking, this felt more like something to brag about to his friends than it would to Holly. He had a bad hangover and he didn't get laid, but he just had a random, fun, adventure filled night with a cute girl who didn't even care who he was - just wanted to have fun. "Don't forget your shoes," he said, opting against getting to his feet to walk her out, only because she was already basically in the hallway. He could only hope that Jordan wasn't home (which thankfully, he wasn't).

As Holly glanced towards the pair of heels sprawled out on the floor, she shook her head. "Oh, those aren't mine. They're Makayla's," she explained, leaving them where they were as if she hadn't worn them to begin with. Wearing just the tiny crop top and shorts she had worn last night, with only socks on her feet, and feeling closer to dead than alive, she left Sam's apartment and headed back to her own, only to find the door locked. She didn't have a key, so she knocked on the door, and then knocked on Cara's door, just to be safe. She needed someone to take care of her ASAP.

​

 

[cure]

Too much. The windchill from the ceiling fan sent tingles along her left shoulder and leg, the exposed half of her body that wasn't covered by any blankets. The fan was on high speed, and as the force cause the fan to swing, it also created a slight nose that, once detected, was impossible to ignore. And as each creak pulled Chanel further and further from the depth of her sleep, her thoughts grew just as loud. Too much. Too much to drink. Too, too much. Chanel lunged her body upward, her arms holding her up, but not keeping her stable as they still managed to wake up with the rest of her body. She toppled forward and wobbled to the side slightly, lazily swaying to find her balance as she stayed at the pillow beneath her. "Are we throwing up? Do I need to run to the bathroom?" She didn't usually talk to herself first thing in the morning after a night of unanticipated heavy drinking. Or at for that matter. There were times, though, when you needed to talk to yourself as a sort of intrapersonal coming-to-Jesus moment. This morning was one of those times. She couldn't tell if she was still drunk, or if her stomach was simply queasy from the alcohol that had yet to pass through her system. A sour sting on the insides of her cheeks answered her question. "Yes, we do," Chanel said, swinging her legs over the bed. "Let's do this."

After purging, she felt an urgent need to hop into the shower. If she hadn't felt sick, that feeling with have been the first thing she felt, but now that she had emptied her stomach, her body was moving to phase two: nutrients. She wasn't just thirsty. She determined that several seconds after vomiting when she held her head under her sink faucet for a solid thirty seconds just to feel like she was consuming air. Juice. That was what she needed. Orange juice specifically. She powered her way to the kitchen like autonomously in a near zombie-like trance. Her body was simply moving while her mind continued to gather itself. The scent of orange aroused her senses enough to feel more alive, but also all the more thirsty for the juice. Four peeled navel oranges and a minute in the juicer, and she had a fresh squeezed orange juice for approximately thirty seconds before it was all gone. The light stream cast along the island counter where she stood, still in a daze. She followed the stream to the window and focused on what she could see of outside; registered there even was an outside. That somehow clicked in her that she was actually alive, living a life in New York City, completely hung over in her apartment. For some reason, that felt incredibly profound, but considering she was sure she was dead 5 minutes ago, it seemed like a lot to take in. "Fuck," she muttered. She drank...a lot. She didn't remember drinking a lot, but that was absolutely how she knew she did. Her eyes lifted slowly backs towards the inside of the apartment, not looking at anything in particular as she searched her spotty Rolodex of memories. That she was drawing a blank instead of being able to immediately recount anything told her all she needed to know. After cleansing the glass and reaching for a paper towel to clean up the stickiness from the juice she had made, she recalled Collin. She didn't immediately put together the dots on why paper towel and Collin were connected, but she felt the need to text him since she was now reminded of his existence. "Who the hell else is here?" she asked aloud, really meaning who else existed in her life, like a Colln. She was looking for a Brooklyn and a Nick, and a Mikayla, yes, her roommate. "Right, right. New York City. Of course, idiot."

It was quiet though. The oven told her it was 9:32, which meant...something. Maybe. "Did I smoke crack?" Chanel wondered aloud, pulling her feet to her room. "Mikayla? Ruby?" She looked around, and after there was no response, she was certain that this is what Will Smith must have felt like in I Am Legend. Fortunately, after a hot shot and another vomit sesh, she was feeling like a moderately real person. She even managed to wash her face and put on her a decent outfit of pink yoga pants and the first shirt she pulled out of her dresser, which happened to be Girls on the Run T-shirt she got several years ago after joining her little cousin on the race. The fact that she was clean, dressed, and her stomach was emptied again wasn't how she knew she was getting back to normal; it was the fact that she was just now realizing she did not have her phone. She would have made another juice, but the thought of the prep work made her want to vomit again. Instead, she poured herself some water from the fridge and added some green powder to it. The last thing she could remember clearly was chatting to Collin. She knew she was there for a minute, so it would have made sense to go there. As she was heading out, there was a knock on the door. Maybe it was Collin coming to return her phone, she thought. When she finally got to the door, she didn't immediately see anyone. It was only until after she stepped out into the hallway some that she saw Hol--what the hell was she wearing? What was on her face? Chanel's near death-like state was to Holly's face because it was the only reason why she didn't immediately freak out. "Holly, sweetie. What are you, um, doing? Um, what are you wearing? Besides not shoes. And why also?" It would be another moment before it clicked that today was also a school day. Again to Holly's benefit, because even Chanel wasn't so out of it that she couldn't connect Holly being in front of her at all, regardless of dress, was a problem.​

 

[A_Writer]

Only a few seconds passed between her knocking on the apartment doors and Chanel opening theirs, but it might as well have taken hours with how Holly felt. Her head felt too foggy to process that she should have been alarmed by the situation at hand. It wasn't off course for Holly not to process a lot of things, so the situation with Sam didn't alarm her (though not remembering most of the night probably would later). More so, what should have been scary for her was that she hadn't seen Makayla in so long. "So long" in this situation was really only a little bit over 24 hours, but that really was a while for Holly, who hadn't went a day without seeing Makayla since meeting her, essentially. She was her sister, her mother, her father, and every other role model a person could have, and the mere fact that she had been able to disappear overnight without warranting any concern from her sister would have seemed strange even to Holly. In the present, she was too concerned with how badly her head hurt to think about that. Her priorities minutely shifted closer to the right direction when Chanel referenced her outfit, and she glanced down to realize that she was still wearing Makayla's clothes. Assuming that Makayla was inside waiting for her, especially since she had no idea what time it was, she wanted to start crying just because she was certain that Makayla would be angry at her for wearing her clothes. "I had a sleepover with a boy from your party and now I don't feel good," she explained. If her arms and legs didn't feel so heavy, she would have hugged Chanel simply out of the need for some sort of comfort, but she just looked up at her, and then slowly past her into the open apartment door.

It obviously didn't register to her how seriously disturbing her statement could have been taken for. Chanel hosted a party the night before with people in their 20s. Holly met Sam outside the door, and he had stated that he was going there, so to her, it made sense to attach him to the party. She didn't really grasp that since no one had seen him there or knew who he was, that they weren't going to jump to the conclusion that she actually was hanging out with someone in her age range (even if that alone would still be alarming considering Holly's differences when compared to her peers). Even if she managed to blend in the night before among people her age who were drunk, she was still different than them. Very different. The mere fact that she didn't even realize that they were drinking alcohol or that she was drinking alcohol spoke to that alone. She very genuinely believed that she felt so horrible right now because she was actually sick, as if she had the flu or a cold or something.

Growing more visibly upset, but still not in tears, she added, "And Makayla's going to be mad at me because she's short and I'm regular height but sometimes short and so I told her she can borrow my clothes if she wants but she says I can't borrow her clothes but I did anyway and now I don't think she's going to make me toast." She rubbed her eyes again, attempting to rid them from the headache that was throbbing somewhere in her head behind them, yet to no avail. Pulling her hands away, Chanel's comment about what was on her face reminded her of the makeup, and she drew both hands against her face, rubbing at her skin for a second, as if that would wipe it all away. "I borrowed some of Brooklyn's makeup last night, but I don't think she'll mind," she added, a seemingly out-of-place smile arising. In this case, it wasn't just because she was thinking about Brooklyn and liked Brooklyn, but also because she was somewhat aware that her statement probably wasn't true, but she thought it was funny nonetheless.​

 

[A_Writer]

Chanel was out of it and didn't feel like herself, but she knew the sound of alarm bells when she heard them. The sound of any child, especially one with a child-like mindset such as Holly, made a statement like she did, only one thing could be assumed. She wasn't sure what the most correct thing to do in a (presumed) situation like this was, but it was probably not to startle the (presumed) victim. Especially with Holly, she wouldn't want to freak the girl out to the point of silence. Fortunately, Chanel was still sluggish enough to not immediately react on the surface. Still, she barely heard what Holly said after that because her mind was still dancing around the girl's initial statement. Chanel still had no idea that Makayla was gone, so it made all of this even more confusing. Like anyone, she would always assume wherever Holly was, Makayla was not too far away. The confusion and questions aside, she knew a hungover teenager when she saw one. Instead of being as grouchy as one would usually be, Holly just appeared to be upset, which gave her some solace, strange as it might have sounded. It verified that at least some part of Holly was still standing in front of her.

"We'll get you some toast and juice, don't worry." She covered the space between her and Holly in a couple of paces, pulling the girl's head into her shoulder. "Come on, little bug. And we'll get you cleaned up." Then we'll put you to bed and I will commit murder. As she escorted Holly back to their apartment, the need for her phone was even more urgent. As she placed that she was actually taking Holly away from where she was originally headed, it did make her wonder what she was doing there. Hopefully it wasn't anything deeper than just knocking in the hopes of getting a familiar face. "So you sit right here, and I'll get you some toast, kay? Do you want scrambled eggs?" As she spoke to Holly, her hands wrapped around the girls', she briefly examined her arms and legs for any bruises. "Do you feel like you have to throw up?" These obviously weren't the most important questions right now, but those would have to wait until the basics were taken care. Plus, Chanel still had to process what was going on, and she needed to grab Makayla. When she passed her and Holly's room on the way out, she noticed the door was open, so she knew Makayla wasn't here, which to her seemed odd.

The mention of throwing up made Holly feel like she might have to, but it wasn't her biggest concern at the moment. Her head was what was really bothering her, and between that, the confusion regarding the situation, and the makeup that was now stinging her eyes, she was distracted from any sensation of the alcohol that still sat in her stomach. She shook her head as she took a seat, attempting to focus on Chanel. It was difficult to do outside of the reasons related to why it was always difficult for Holly to focus on things. She was feeling more anxious about Makayla, still mostly regarding the fear of getting in trouble, and though she wasn't alarmed over where Makayla was instead of being here ready to pounce on her, she was alarmed over why she wasn't here. It made things feel more suspenseful and just thinking about that made her want to start crying. Holly didn't process many social cues that existed, and she often struggled to realize when people were truly angry or upset with her, or when she was doing something that would trigger one of those negative emotions. She existed in her own world more than she did the real world, so if she was happy, she liked to think that everyone else was too. Even having spent most of her life with Makayla, she still frequently missed obvious signals that her sister omitted signaling one thing or another. However, she had enough of a grasp on the way that she was supposed to act that she knew that Makayla was going to be mad at her -- though she mostly just felt like it would be related to borrowing her clothes, and not because she left the house in the middle of the night without telling anyone with a complete stranger, only to end up drinking alcohol with a group of strangers, and then sleeping over said stranger's house. Her brain wasn't getting that far yet.

Just as she approached the verge of feeling inclined to cry, her Holly-ness took over, and the glass of green juice on the table, that Holly instantly knew belonged to Chanel derailed her train of thought and she couldn't resist laughing (albeit less enthusiastically than normal). She couldn't comment on it though, before being distracted by something else. "Did your mom buy you those pants?" she asked, looking from the pants to Chanel's face. Rubbing her eyes once more, she added, "And I do like scrambled eggs," without noticing that she wasn't really answering the question.

It was nice to see, again, some remnants of Holly-ness peeking through, especially considering Chanel thought the day was going into end in a police station. Still, she wanted to keep Holly focused. Normally she didn't really mind Holly's physical and mental bounciness, but right now she needed a bit more concentration. Holly's seemingly random laugh wouldn't have seemed as strange if Chanel didn't think the girl had been drugged, so she took Holly's face in either of her hands and looked her in the eyes. The thing was, she wasn't a doctor so she didn't know what the hell she was looking for. "I'm going to make you some toast and juice and something to make you feel better." Even though she doubted the girl would want to watch anything with how she was feeling, Chanel still pulled the remote off of the coffee table and sat it beside Holly. After popping in a couple pieces of toast, she went to the fridge to get Holly some orange juice. Disappearing into the hallway just long enough to grab two Tylenol, by the time she was in front of Holly again, she had her promised items. She held the glass to Holly with one hand, the other holding the two pills in her palm. "Are you okay with swallowing these or do you need me to crush them up?" Again, she observed Holly's body for bruises. Holly was a small thing, so Chanel imagined it wouldn't take much to bruise her. She was thankful that she didn't appear to see anything, but it didn't calm any of her worries. "Do you hurt anywhere?"

Holly nodded, a response to both being able to swallow the pills and to hurting. Her head hurt, her eyes hurt, her feet hurt, and her body hurt, though all of it was just from the alcohol, staying up far later than she was used to, and not sleeping in her own bed. Holly's thoughts were all over the place and she was a very energetic little thing, but at the same time, she was a creature of habit in a lot of ways. It was possible that it wasn't actually voluntary, and more so due to the structure of her life, but her life was very routine based nonetheless. She wasn't used to drastic changes in her schedule, so that in itself threw her off. She took the orange juice and the pills, holding the glass up to her eyes to make sure that there wasn't any pulp in it. When it seemed to pass the inspection, she took a sip of it to confirm, before swallowing one pill at a time. It wasn't off for Chanel t question whether she could swallow them, not because Chanel had any reason to know to begin with, but also because it was a recent advancement for Holly. It was only once she was prescribed Adderall and was expected to take medication daily that she was forced to learn how to do it. "Is Makayla mad at me?" she asked, just as in the dark about her sister's whereabouts as Chanel was.

"I haven't spoken to Makayla, but she isn't going to be mad at you for borrowing her clothes." Chanel sat on the edge of the table, handing the plate of toast to Holly. "How come you borrowed her clothes? I thought Ruby got you to bed last night."

Holly's eating habits had always been weird, and there were more foods that she wouldn't eat than ones that she would. Even the ones that she would eat barely ended up being finished when they were on her plate, so when she took the smallest of small bites out of the piece of toast, it wasn't extremely out of character. The smell of food, even something as plain as buttered toast, had her questioning her denial of feeling like she was going to throw up, but after a few seconds of chewing, she was fine. "I did go to bed but then I woke up because I had a nightmare and Makayla wasn't home and no one else was home so I was going to go to Makayla's job to get her," she explained, not even registering now that that clearly wasn't a logical plan. "And then I met your friend in the hallway because he was going to your party but then he said he would come with me to Makayla's job but I couldn't wear my pajamas so we played a game where he got to pick out my clothes and then I picked out his." Again, she spoke in a rather matter-of-fact sort of way since none of this seemed odd to her. Her voice was weaker and less enthusiastic than it normally was, just because of how she was physically feeling, but it didn't click to Holly that the words she was speaking would seem off to anyone else. "Did you have a lot of fun at your party?"

Having further details actually made everything worse. She pinched the bridge of her nose and inhaled slowly, not of anger but to simply ground herself so she didn't get overwhelmed with fear. Her gut reaction was to drag Holly to the hospital, but her hungover state that was still dulling her out, again worked in Holly's favor. Chanel stood up, nodding with a soft smile, the strongest she could muster. "Yeah, it was fun. We had a good time. I'm still a little tired though. Whenever I feel like you, I like to take a long hot shower and then lie down for a bit. Why don't you come to my room so you can wash up and get comfortable? And you can tell me what else happened." She helped Holly up, even if she didn't need to. Chanel was naturally quite doting and babying on Holly. Even though the girl was nearing her late teens, it was nearly impossible to not still treat her the way she behaved, which was like a kid. The fact that she thought Holly had been hurt only made her want to be that much closer to her. "He didn't take you to Makayla's job, did he?" It was really a rhetorical question, because if that had happened, the outcome would have been a lot different than the current one. "Do you remember where he took you? And what happened?" When they got to Chanel's room, she patted her bed. "I'll be right back," she said, heading to the bathroom momentarily to get some supplies to clean Holly's face. "Did he give you anything that made you feel weird?"

"We went to a party. Not your party, but a different one." Holly had followed Chanel to her bedroom, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Even though she wasn't feeling well, there was still a glimmer of excitement that creeped up upon being invited into Chanel's room. Despite having lived with Chanel for a while now, and despite this not being her first time in the girl's bedroom, it still seemed special. Makayla had essentially scared enough sense into her within a few days of living with Chanel for her to know better than to walk into their roommate's bedroom, which was probably what made it all the more exciting any time she did get to go inside. It was a forbidden fruit, and then on top of that, a lot of the things that Chanel had fascinated Holly, so there was an actual justifiable aspect of intrigue that went with it as well. She had photos and candles and clothes. Everything smelled nice and her blankets were soft and she had lots of clothes. There were so many things to look at and touch. Had she not been feeling ill, she would have been doing just that; asking Chanel who each person was in every photograph, asking her if she could look inside of her drawers, opening any candle in sight to smell it, and so on. For now, she remained on the side of the bed though. "And we had lemonade-- well, I had lemonade. He had something different that I tried but I didn't like it. And at the party I had something that I never had that tasted like Sprite but it was like raspberry Sprite and also spicy." Like a child, anything that tasted even remotely different to what she was used to ended up being labeled as being spicy. Licorice was spicy. Toothpaste was spicy. Vodka was spicy. It didn't mean that Holly disliked it, but it was a misplaced word for sensations that were unfamiliar to her. She didn't dislike the taste of raspberry flavored Smirnoff Ice with a little vodka thrown in it, but she didn't know how else to describe it. "Who went to your party that I know? Was Brooklyn there, and Cara?" She asked, since she had no reason to suspect that this was anything more than a normal conversation. "I don't think Makayla will make me go to school today so once I feel better maybe Cara will not be busy today and maybe she can come over, right? Or I can go to her house."​

 

[A_Writer]

Chanel really wanted to be patient, but she simply couldn't. She couldn't entertain Holly's wandering mind when the story seemed to get progressively worse and worse. After Holly mentioned school and it finally clicked in Chanel's head that today was actually a week day, which meant a school day, she had even less tolerance to be able to balance Holly's innocent questions on top of the more urgent ones Chanel needed to ask. She returned with a couple of reusable cotton pads, some cleansing water from Son & Park, and a couple of other items to clean Holly's face of the makeup she had on. She pulled her legs up onto the bed in a criss-cross fashion, turning the girl's face gently towards. "Holly, could we just focus on what happened last night, okay? Then you can ask me anything you want." Chanel first poured a couple of drops of jojoba oil onto the cotton pad before swiping it along Holly's lips and the sides of her mouth where her lipstick had smeared. She repeated the same process with a fresh pad for her eyes as well before beginning to dampen a new one with the cleansing water. "Did he make you do anything last night? Do you know how you got home? I just want to know what all you remember about last night, about this guy, if he hurt you or anything."

This was a good example of Holly's social ineptness -- she couldn't tell, even in the slightest, that Chanel was growing impatient with her. To Holly, it just seemed like Chanel wanted to change the topic of the conversation to talk more about her, and that was something that Holly could never object to. Except... "Well Makayla said that I shouldn't tell you stories in the morning because some people don't like to talk in the morning and need it to be peace and quiet-ful but okay!" A tiny bit of pep was sprinkled into her comment, again mostly just because it felt like she was being given an opportunity to break a rule that she didn't like to begin with. Even though she lived with Chanel and Ruby, it wasn't like she socialized with them at every waking moment. Makayla was very good about stressing that she needed to let them live their lives without constantly having to interact with her. It was a concept that still baffled her to this day, and she couldn't resist catching them in conversation at least once or twice a day, depending on how frequently she saw them, but she didn't spend nearly as much time as one would have imagined bothering them, thanks to Makayla. "We played games but he didn't make me do anything. I don't-- I don't really know how we got home because I just remember like, well we changed clothes and then we said hello to Collin and borrowed Brooklyn's makeup, then we got into a car to go to Makayla's and we got lemonade and then we went to the party instead and there were a lot of people! And then I'm not sure really, but he didn't hurt me because he's our neighbor so that means he's nice!" she explained, giggling at herself for being slightly startled by how cold the water on her face felt. "And we did something else at the party," she said, laughing to herself again, "But I can't tell you what because it's bad."

How Chanel managed to make it this far into the conversation without having a heart attack was beyond her. The only thing that saved her this time was Holly's neighbor comment. She when she heard the word neighbor, she really only thought of the people in A and E. Sure there were other people that lived on the floor, but no one else went to her party from this floor. She was thankfully forgetting Jordan at the moment, both because she had barely spoken to him last night, barely knew, and couldn't even remember anything past talking to Collin last night. The confusion there over the simple fact that her pool of potential culprits were people that she trusted was the only saving Chanel from pulling her hair out. If she didn't know that Holly was oblivious to it, she would have been sure that the girl was intentionally withholding information and being coy. She looked at Holly quietly for a moment after she refused to tell her 'secret' because she wasn't sure if the girl was being playful or not. Maybe if this was any other conversation, and maybe if Chanel didn't still feel like crawling into bed and eating chocolate for the rest of the day, she would have attempted to tickle it out of Holly. She was even more unsure because, again, what actual bad thing would she expect to happen when she was with any of the others? Instead of any sort of fun tactics or bribery in jest, she simply said, "Holly. Tell me."

Holly was never one to keep secrets, so she didn't need too much pushing to get her to tell. "He kissed me!" she exclaimed, her liveliness shining through now, momentarily overpowering the way she physically felt. It spoke to how energetic her personality typically was on a good day. She laughed some, before reaching out to clutch Chanel's hand. Her eyes were closed, as they had be since Chanel had started to clean her face, so it took a second for her to properly find it. "But you can't tell Makayla because she will be mad and want to know all the details and I don't remember what happened after that," The enthusiasm in her voice progressively drained as that line was verbalized.

The good news was that now Chanel was so confused that she wasn't even sure she had anything to worry about. As far as she knew based off of Holly's description, the only candidates were Roman and Collin. She had found out via Cara that Nick was back, but that memory was further into the night that her recollection currently reached. It that didn't make sense for obvious reasons, plus Chanel found it strange that she wouldn't just say the guys' names. Fortunately the confusion dimmed the alarm bells enough for Chanel to think this was less of a red flag and more of a loss-in-translation with Holly thing. Still, the girl was obviously hungover. Chanel knew she had wanted to come to the party last night, so maybe she did end up there, but that didn't check out with some of the details Holly gave. There were certainly several other possibilities, but none of them exactly aligned with what Holly said. Like maybe she did get into the party and meet a guy, and maybe they did go somewhere else, but that also didn't make sense because Holly had just asked her about the party. Then again, the girl's memory was probably no more reliable than her own. Chanel's head was still too deep into off mode for her to do any further thinking. She had to be missing something very obvious which was all the more reason she needed to call Makayla. She wiped the last bit of makeup from Holly's face, giving Holly's hand a tight squeeze and a little shake. "All done," she said, collecting the items from the bed as she stood up. "Now I want you to do me an incredibly huge gigantic favor, and take a shower in my room, try all the products in there to make sure they still smell good," she began, being obviously manipulative to all but the person she was manipulating. She grabbed a pack of matches from her bedside table. "Blow out all of my candles when you're done, find the cutest pajamas you can find from my drawers, and then get into bed, okay? While you do that, I'm going to go right down the hall to Cara's so I can get my phone and call your sister. Sound good?"

"Okay, my little tall friend! Thank you very, very much!" Even if Holly still didn't feel well, the extent that her spirits had been lifted made her seem a lot more Holly-like than she had after stumbling back across the hall after waking up. Merely talking to Chanel probably would have had the ability to make her feel better, but being welcomed into Chanel's room, being what seemed like being pampered to her by Chanel, being allowed to use Chanel's bathroom and all of her bath products, and being told that she could look through her drawers to borrow pajamas, all while her nice candles were lit was simply a recipe for a miracle. Maybe not a physical miracle, but a mood-related one, and that was going to be enough to enable her to take the proper steps to feel better. Between the medication she had just taken, taking a shower (which was already probably her favorite thing to do), and taking a nap, it was likely that she would wake up in a few hours feeling completely fine. She was slower than she normally would have been to get off of the bed, but that was only due to the persistent headache and fogginess that had her feeling a little dizzy, and still a little sick to her stomach. Before heading into Chanel's bathroom, she added, "And remember, you promised not to tell our secret!"​

 

[cure]

Taylor had ordered breakfast about an hour ago, minutes after getting up to throw up. It had arrived just as planned, but by the time that it did, she was already half asleep again and praying for the end of time. Her head was throbbing and she knew she had been way too hopeful to expect that she would be able to eat food. What she really needed right now was a Bloody Mary, and that would come, but not quite yet. Regardless, she hadn't bothered to lock the door after accepting the food from the delivery guy. When she heard a knock at the door, she also couldn't be bothered to get up. "It's unlocked!" she hollered from where she laid, despite the couch not being too far from the door. She had no idea who it was, obviously, but she also didn't care. Not only because this wasn't her apartment, but also because she didn't care about most things.

Chanel looked at the apartment number just to confirm she wasn't really so fucked up that she walked to the wrong apartment. This was it, though: 5E. Slowly opening the door, she peaked her head through, quickly confirming that this was indeed the right apartment. She didn't immediately register who Taylor was when she saw her, so for a second she was confused to see her on the couch. "Oh," she chuckled, stepping into the apartment more confidently. "You too, huh?" Closing and locking the door behind her, she headed towards the living, her eyes searching around. "Is Collin here by chance? I'm pretty sure I left my phone."

"No, but there's like ten bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches over there and a bunch of other stuff," she said, attempting to point towards the kitchen, but failing to give the energy to point any further than the ceiling. She actually wasn't sure where Collin was. She didn't remember what he was doing when he left hours ago, telling her that he was going to class, but she vaguely remembered the part about him leaving. "Take them with you when you go before the smell makes me literally die," she groaned. Still, she had no idea who she was talking to, especially since her eyes were barely open, but she didn't feel any need to be worried by that. The voice sounded friendly enough, and apparently she knew Collin.

"Great. Great," Chanel said through an exhausted exhale that was only slightly cheerful because of the pleasant smile she was forcing to hide the fact that that news was terrible. It wasn't terrible, especially not compared to all of the news she'd just received from Holly, but it was less than ideal. Holly had mentioned Collin, so she figured that not only would he have her phone, which ended up not being the case of a searching through his bedroom, but that he would also be able to fill in the many gaps she felt were in Holly's story. She knocked on Brooklyn's door as well, since Holly had mentioned her, but also came up empty. Then with Cara's as well. How was the entire apartment empty save the one person who didn't actually live there? While she thought every swore she could think of in her mind, the smell of breakfast sandwiches as she neared the kitchen had her turning to Taylor, "Did you really want me to--" One look at Taylor, this time closer since she wasn't tunnel visioned on finding what she came here looking for, gave her the answer to her question. She grabbed the sandwiches, actually pleased by the aroma, and headed out. "Where the fuck is my phone?" While she didn't leave completely empty handed, she still needed to call Makayla, and she couldn't call her with a damned bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.

No Cara, Collin, or Brooklyn? Maybe she shouldn't have been so peeved that Cara and Collin weren't there since they seemed to have lives, but she felt like Brooklyn would have definitely been there for no other reason than the fact that Chanel knew nothing about the girl outside of her being a stripper, which would also beckon one to assume she would be home during the day. Despite the hiccup, the thought of Brooklyn finally connected the dots. The party. Roman. Jesus, she killed a lot of brain cells last night. She didn't waste time dropping the food off at her place, and instead went immediately to Roman's door.

Needless to say, Brooklyn was in a good mood this morning. After she and Nick disappeared into his bedroom, they didn't reemerge until they had gotten reacquainted with each other, and that wasn't until around four in the morning when a pizza delivery and a last night smoking session drew them out into the living room. She slept well, wasn't hung over, and was in a genuinely good mood by her standards. The situation with Nick wasn't solved yet, but she was confident that Roman hadn't let Chanel do all of that last night without some sort of guarantee, so she wasn't really worried about things. When she woke up around nine o'clock, she could only lay in bed for so long before showering and making herself a cup of coffee. She was hanging out in the kitchen, scrolling aimlessly through her phone when there was a knock at the door. She was comfortable enough in this apartment to open the door as if it was her own, but she also doubted that either of the boys were up to answer it themselves.

"Oh, thank God. I need to come in and I need you to tell me what happened to Holly last night."

Brooklyn didn't have a second to even process who it was before Chanel spoke with relief, and her eyebrows narrowed in confusion in return. She stepped aside, allowing Chanel to come in as requested. "What happened to her?" With the way that Chanel had said it, Brooklyn felt like something serious had happened to her, which was all that Chanel could probably conclude anyway), but Brooklyn was thinking something more physically traumatic. It wouldn't have been remotely surprising if Holly had fallen out of a window doing something stupid, or tumbled down the trash chute. Although the mere thought of the girl getting herself into trouble made Brooklyn annoyed without even being involved herself, she couldn't deny that a wave of panic washed over her at the same time. She didn't like Holly, but she cared about her at the same time.

Chanel walked into the apartment, heading towards the kitchen. "That's what I'm trying to find out." After setting the bag of sandwiches on the island, now wondering in the back of her mind what she was going to do with all of them and why the hell Taylor ordered so many, she looked back towards Brooklyn. "I found her hungover out in the hallway this morning in a crop top and booty shorts and she said she went to your place and talked to Collin and borrowed your makeup. I am crazy hungover right now, so I'm really hoping you can tell me what the hell I'm missing, because right now it sounds like I need to call Makayla because apparently some guy took her out and got her drunk, but I can't find my phone and--" She inhaled deeply through her nose, the lack of oxygen she was taking from her lengthy monologue causing her head head to throb. "Please tell me you know what's going on and that I don't need to call the cops." She was under the assumption that Brooklyn would have been there to let Holly use her makeup, one because even with Holly's makeup looking a bit smeared as it would with anyone after a night out, she didn't look like a clown at a circus. So Chanel could only assume she had some assistance, and she didn't truly believe Collin could have been the only person there to let Holly in and out with a complete stranger.

"Sit," Brooklyn demanded by the time that Chanel was done with her spiel. Her eyebrows were still narrowed, her expression concerned and serious. Chanel didn't seem like she was lying, but she was known to be dramatic (at least in Brooklyn's opinion). She was talking too much and her weird energy was throwing off Brooklyn's, so making her sit down and at least be physically grounded felt like it would help the situation to some extent. She walked away from the kitchen momentarily, but just into the living room to grab a phone off of the coffee table. "Yours?" she asked, placing it in front of her. She had found it in between the couch coushins the night before after sitting on it, and supposed that it was one of Chanel's drunk friend's. "I was like five minutes away from posting a for sale ad on Craigslist, so you're welcome." Even if she had known that it was Chanel's but Chanel hadn't come to claim it yet, she probably still would have tried to make a few dollars off of it, but again, she was in a good mood today, so Chanel lucked out.

"She better not have touched my shit," she began, now that she had a few seconds to mull over what Chanel had said. That was the least of their concerns, and Brooklyn was aware of that, but it seemed like the best starting point as she continued to process this. "You're telling me she was hungover in booty shorts? Was she actually wearing makeup?" While it probably sounded like Brooklyn was being selfish and still just lingering on Holly touching her things, she felt like there was no way that this could be real. Maybe Chanel wasn't hallucinating, but maybe she was just jumping to conclusions too quickly. Holly loved to tell stories, sometimes laced with bizarre lies, maybe this was one of them. "I haven't left this apartment since I got here last night, and haven't seen her since you had that fit," she eventually confirmed though.

"Your fit," Chanel corrected her as she leaned her head into her hands. Now that was around someone, for lack of a better word, normal, everything she held in was now coming out full force. Brooklyn was being sarcastic, but the possessive comment about her stuff didn't paint her in a good light. If she hadn't said she had been here all night, she would have accused her of lying. "And that's not mine," Chanel said, sliding the phone away from her. "I saw her knocking on your door when I was leaving my apartment and she was wearing Makayla's clothes. She said some guy from my party picked it out for her and then they went to some party, had 'lemonade,' and kissed. And she said she went to your apartment, Collin was there, and that she borrowed your makeup. And she was 100% wearing makeup; I took it off of her myself." She took a second herself to process what she was saying, and then what Brooklyn had just told her, which really left her back at square one. She shook her head as she came to this conclusion. "And so you don't know either. I mean, I checked her out and she's not bruised or anything. But she said it was a neighbor. Roman and Collin were the only ones that were here last, so they're obviously out of the picture. So again, I have no idea what the fuck happened."

"Where's Makayla?"

"I don't know, I don't know," she said, this time more frantically. The added layer of not knowing where Makayla was was enough to have her wanting to flip out. She definitely would have woken Chanel up if she realized her own sister wasn't there to go to school. As that piece of information settled in, she shook her head some more. "I don't think she came home last night. She was late getting back, and so Ruby put Holly to bed so I could come finish up here. Holly said she woke up in the middle of the night, Makayla wasn't there, and so she, I don't know, was going to go to her job to find her. Then she ran into this mystery freak guy. And Makayla's not home now. It's a fucking Friday and I didn't find Holly until the ten o' clock; she would have woken me up once she realized Holly wasn't there."

"So Makayla killed herself and Holly was r--" Brooklyn had no reason not to jump to the inevitable. Claiming that Makayla killed herself was an insensitive reach, but she was being (mostly) sarcastic there, though with one glance towards the frantic Chanel, she felt like it was probably a mistake to say. She cut herself off before jumping to the next seemingly inevitable statement, because even that was too sick for her to say out loud. "Collin either did it or it was one of his friends who did," she concluded sharply, abandoning Chanel at the table as she headed towards the door. She didn't need evidence, or a corroborated story, or anything else. She was going to beat the life out of Collin if he had anything to do with this. This struck a nerve with Brooklyn, as it probably would with anyone, but their little group who knew Holly were the only ones who could truly grasp how sick someone had to be to think this was okay.

She was more confused now than when she arrived. As soon as Brooklyn announced it was probably Collin, Chanel looked up both startled and befuddled. "Wait, what?" she said, perplexed by Brooklyn's definitive tone. She turned around, her pivot following Brooklyn heading out of the door. "Where are you--" But it didn't need to be answered. She knew where, she just didn't know why, and this was all too much to process for her to even bother trying to go after the blonde. Chanel wasn't sure what she had just said that made something click for Brooklyn, but she also didn't feel a need to jump in because she knew Collin wasn't home. Maybe it was one of his friends, but she couldn't be certain she remembered him bringing anyone besides Taylor. Then again, she also couldn't even remember where her phone was. Though confused as ever, she managed to make some sense of Brooklyn's seemingly random outburst by pegging it on the one from last night when she was mean to Holly, and thereby affirming her beliefs when she thought of the girl (ex?)-boyfriend. Things looked toxic, but they also made sense.

Chanel pushed her hands up her face, groaning. The phone in front of her that was ever so aggressively not hers mocked her current situation. Chanel roamed around the kitchen, helping herself to exploring in search of her phone. It had to be here. But when, in fact, it wasn't, she exhaled, close to giving up before she passed the hallway that led to the boys' bedroom and bathroom. This was literally the last place it could possibly be, she promised herself as she came upon the door and knocked lightly. She was quiet for a couple of seconds. "Roman?" She swallowed and looked around, knocked again, this time louder because he was probably asleep and hungover too. "Roman? It's Chanel. Sorry to wake you up. It's a bit of an emergency."​

 

[cure]

“Ughhhhhhhhhhhh.” An existential groan upon waking up wasn’t too offbeat for Cara, but normally did it internally and didn’t actually verbalize it. Waking up in bed with Roman warranted the dramatics though. That was what Cara would say, at least. In reality, she was only groaning because she didn’t want to be awake. It felt too early, and although Roman’s bed wasn’t as comfortable as her own, she just wanted to shut her eyes and fall asleep again for another few hours. She didn’t want to face the reality of a new day. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel sick to her stomach in a physical sense. She had consumed a lot more alcohol than she had originally planned to by the end of the night, but it had all been good quality (and not mixed with sugar for the most part), so that was one thing going for her. Still, she felt gross. She needed to take a shower and wash away the previous night. She needed to wash away the perfume, makeup, and alcohol, but more than anything, she needed to wash away the sex. It was metaphorical to an extent, but she always felt gross after sleeping with someone when it was a one night stand sort of thing. After sleeping with Roman and Taylor, one could understand why she felt that way, and why her groan deserved to be verbalized. Cara didn’t consider herself to be bisexual (though maybe last night’s experience would have her questioning otherwise once she actually processed it), but she hadn’t protested when Taylor pushed for a threesome. The alcohol played a part, sure, but Cara had been excited about it beforehand, and enjoyed it in the moment. Looking back on it, she felt pretty mortified, mostly just because she knew Taylor. Taylor knew people she knew. Taylor wasn’t trustworthy. It was a recipe for disaster, and what made it worse was that she didn’t have Taylor’s phone number to call her and threaten her to never speak of this night. “Did what I think happened last night actually happen?” she asked, with a faint glimmer of hope as she sat up and slipped the rubber band off of her wrist to tie her hair up.

Drinking or otherwise, antimeridian anything was too early for Roman to be waking up. Add cocaine, alcohol, and an active night on top of it and he could have honestly slept the rest of the day. Like many men, he also slept quite well after sex. For some reason though, he had been drifting in and out of a lighter sleep for what felt like half the night, when in reality it was just for a couple of hours. It only made him feel groggier and as though he needed to push harder to get back to sleep. He didn't forget the events of the previous night, but he still wasn't expecting to hear Cara beside him; he figured she would have left by now, but only because he couldn't fathom that he would actually be opening his eyes before noon. To him, it seemed like Cara had stayed longer than expected. Her shuffling pulled him from his already shoddy sleep, but her tired exclamation was what had him stretching his legs towards the end of the bed, his body unfortunately starting to rise. Still determined to get back to sleep, he simply resettled, his face turned the opposite direction of Cara. Still, she spoke to him. It took a solid minute for Roman to respond, not just because he was still waking up, but because he was trying to figure out who else she could be talking to. Roman peered through a half open eye, glancing hazily across the part of the room he could see, before settling on the fact that she was indeed addressing him. Even after that, it took a second for him to actually process the words she had said. And after he actually registered her question, he simply spoke the first thing to come to mind, since that was the only thing he knew that happened. "We had a threesome." His voice a low, groggy rumble, Roman stated the fact in the same way one say their phone is on the dresser. Partially because he didn't want to be talking, but also because for him, it wasn't that big of a deal. It wasn't not a big deal. He wasn't having threesomes and above every weekend, but like with most men, the after thoughts following sex were virtually non-existent. "You seemed to enjoy it, but there's no telling with you," he said with a yawn. "Do you always talk as soon as you get up?" Given his near banter-y response previously, his question was nearing the point of hypocrisy. Dragging his head to the side to face her, he cracked an eye open after a beat before closing it. "How are you already up?"

Cara wasn't what she considered to be an early riser, and she did enjoy sleeping in a little after a night of drinking, but ten o'clock was usually the cutoff for sleeping in for her. It wasn't that she wouldn't enjoy to sleep later; her body just would not allow her to. She was already surprised that she had managed to sleep this late, especially after having casual sex. She didn't want to sleep in Roman's bed. Having sex in it was fine, but sleeping in it was another thing. It went beyond her half-teasing claims about him being gross and dirty, and was more about the boundaries between one night stands and something else. Throw in the fact that their situation was all the more complicated by the fact that Roman lived across the hall from her, with many mutual acquaintances, all while Cara wanted this to remain a secret, and the idea of still being here seemed all the more worse. "It's literally already mid-morning," she informed him. "Go make sure Brooklyn and Nick aren't out there," she said, grabbing her clothes off of the floor and putting them on.

Roman kept his eyes closed but could tell from Cara's shuffling about that she was getting dressed. He had nothing he wanted to prove to himself; for him, sex was sex and really nothing deeper. Perhaps just beyond the surface level it was a sort of emotional release, but so was any interaction you had with a person. While he didn't think Cara was rushing out, he wouldn't have cared if she stayed longer. There really was no actual reason for her to linger, but he wasn't such a piece of shit that he would kick her out as soon as he woke up. He stretched his arm across the bed in Cara's direction, a mischievous smirk crawling upon his face. He knew what the answer was going to be, and he knew what he was doing despite just chastising Cara for being so on so soon after waking. "You sure you don't wanna go for round two?" he asked, with sleep still half in his voice. He typically wasn't so playful first thing in the morning, but he also wasn't entirely awake and he was probably still a little bit high from the night before. Just seconds ago when he first opened his eyes it hadn't hit him, but now that his body was waking, so were the remnants of the previous night. He was peeved less and less about waking up so early.

Usually when he woke up, he felt depraved and groggy and achey, like he needed something to feel alive. It wasn't that strange of feeling or thought, but for most people, that needed something was coffee. For Roman, it was whatever orange bottle he was on at the moment. There were different highs he craved, and right now the one he was still barely riding called for Klonopin. He smiled a bit wider, this time at the thought running through his mind, though it probably just looked like he was just that out of it. It was really all he needed, the cocaine, to remember the why of it all. He could barely even remember, let alone care, about how awful he had felt for days on end after his come down from the molly.

When Cara was done with something, she was done, and right now she was desperately craving a shower and a cup of coffee. "Yes, I'm sure," she snapped at him with mild annoyance, though the stupid smile on his face had her feeling inclined to smile too. She refrained, however, and instead tossed his shirt at him, just after pulling on her own. "Go!" she chided, growing more antsy at how useless he was being, just lying in bed. She easily could have crept out into the hallway herself to see if she heard their voices, but she didn't want to even risk it. On top of having to worry about sleeping with Roman getting out, she also now had to worry about sleeping with Roman and Taylor getting out. When it was just Roman, it was one thing. Sure, she would probably still make up some lie about how he had purposely gotten her so drunk that he had taken advantage of her and it wasn't consensual, but it would have been less worrying. Last night brought that into the picture, plus the issue of having slept with a girl, plus the issue of that girl being her little brother's big-mouthed slut of a friend. It was just too much to deal with, and even if Roman was right and she had enjoyed the night, she wasn't going to admit that, especially not now when she was feeling more annoyed than anything.

As she forced her feet into her heels, the act feeling so unnatural at such an early hour in the day, she glanced back at him. "Besides, you could barely handle two girls last night. I highly doubt that you'll be able to do anything useful with that for at least a few days," she said, eyeing his groin area.

"Guess I'll see you in at least a few days then," he said with a chuckle, pleased with himself over something quite simple, his voice light enough that it was almost musical. He barely registered the shirt Cara through atop his head, his body barely moving an inch. After another stretch, he did however grab the clothing and remove it from his face, his eyes adjusting to being open. Even though he was going on about physical activity, the way he was feeling did not call for anything but to lounge around and let the day slip away. The only reason he didn't completely resist Cara's insistence that he get up was because he realized the more his body woke up, the more the high did too. That in turn did make the obstacle of getting out of bed all the more challenging, but doing drugs consistently presented far larger struggles than getting out of bed, none of which had deterred him so far. He rolled onto his back, his long arms slung across either sides of the bed. He eyed the shirt lying by his hip. "You want me to walk over there just wearing this?" Again, he found himself quite the comedian today and in a generally rare moment, but one that was pretty common when he was this high, he laughed. He grabbed the shirt, tossing it back at Cara.

"Why? Are you scared of running into Nick?" he said, clearly missing that Brooklyn was also a problem. Nick already knew that something had happened with him and Cara, thanks to Brooklyn, but that was back when they had only kissed at Disney. Of course, Nick probably assumed what did happen was what was currently happening. He didn't care so much about Nick knowing; it really wasn't that deep with guys. Brooklyn was the problem, but he didn't register that right now. He rolled over once more, his arm stretched out towards Cara as he barely took her hand before dropping it, his arm oddly heavier than usual. "Scared you might sleep with him again now that they're back together?" Despite his words, he looked at her with a goofy smirk. Further demonstrating he was just talking aloud with no real intention of anything, he lifted his head some and observed Cara. It wasn't in the usual slow, flirty way that he might have done last night. This time, he was just taking her in. "You're really hot. Holy shit."

Roman's out of character chattiness was oddly just as endearing as it was annoying, and eventually a small smile fell upon her lips. She wouldn't give him credit for it - it wasn't like she was smiling at what he was saying. Just his stupidity. And his weirdness. If only he always was like this, or at least had some semblance of a personality, maybe he wouldn't be so... so Roman-ish. He had a sense of humor on normal days, she would give him credit for that, but he was always too guarded. She knew that he wasn't shallow, but he refused to show any depth to his personality. Granted, Cara wasn't very open either, but there was certainly a contrast in their personalities and their willingness to seem pleasant the majority of the time.

She picked the shirt up again, tossing it towards him. She was ready to tell him that she was scared to see Nick, only because it would probably ignite her desire to call the police, but just as the words reached the tip of her tongue, there was a knock at the door. Cara's eyes might as well have grown two times in size as she was clearly startled by it. The familiarity of the voice that followed only made it more startling. Oddly enough, she would have preferred that Brooklyn find out like this over someone that she actually cared about, like Chanel. If Chanel found out by Cara's own accord, it would be different, but being caught in the act just felt mortifying. Without a second thought, Cara forced herself into Roman's closet, only pausing before pulling the door to glare at him while pointing to the door and mouthing "GO!"

"Heyyy." Roman protested, lifting his arms some in playful (though sincere) confusion as he watched her dart towards his closet. He smiled, although his brows were furrowed and perplexed. "What are you doing over in there?" It wasn't that Roman hadn't heard the knocking. He just didn't understand Cara's antics. You'd think she was a fugitive the way she ran to hide. He started to laugh before she chastised to him. His face dropped into a frustrated pout. "All right, all right, bossy," he said. Chanel called his name more timidly, uncertainty in her voice since it was clear the room wasn't vacant. "Yep, yep. One..." He grabbed a pair of sweats, not bothering with the shirt because he wasn't getting fully clothed just to answer his bedroom door, and of the two, the bottoms seemed most important. It was only when he opened the door and actually saw Chanel that he began to register, well, reality. In the back of his mind, he knew it was strange for her to be here, but the rest figured it was just an interesting surprise. Maybe it wasn't a surprise. Maybe she'd been here the whole time. That would have been funny. "Hm..." he cooed beneath his breath at the thought of such a silly possibility. "You summoned?"​

 

[BurningBridges]

It didn't make sense for Collin to have done anything to Holly, and Brooklyn vaguely realized that as she stormed across the hall to her apartment. Just to start, Collin was a very good guy. Too good. Too innocent. Too timid. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who could hurt a fly. Then again, those types were sometimes the most dangerous, but Brooklyn lived with him and she considered herself to be good at reading people, and she just did not get that vibe from him. It had to take someone truly vile to do that, especially knowing Holly. Collin also knew Makayla, and even though the girl was petite and quiet, making little impact on the people she crossed paths with on a daily basis, Brooklyn was certain that everyone else got the same vibe as she did from her. She was quiet and kind until you pushed her, and once you pushed her, there was no turning back. Brooklyn had never seen that side of her but she was certain that it was there, and she appreciated that. There was no way that Collin would be so daft as to think that getting his dick wet would be worth getting it chopped off. She still planned on strangling some sort of answer out of him once she got to the apartment, but by the time she was turning the doorknob, she had convinced herself that it wasn't him.

No, instead, she was certain that it was one of his friends. One of his entitled, disgusting, bratty little friends. They probably saw Holly as an easy target, a cute little thing that could be manipulated and drugged and tricked into doing things that she never should have been doing. Merely thinking about it had Brooklyn craving a throat to wrap her hands around. It just felt too personal, someone going after Holly. The void that her younger sister's death had left in her life wasn't something that haunted Brooklyn on a daily basis anymore, but it still existed. Holly wasn't similar to her sister for the most part, because her sister wasn't an idiot, but her sister was innocent, impressionable and sweet. She looked up to Brooklyn like a role model and needed someone to give her attention. Holly checked off those boxes too. The similarities that they did share probably aided in Brooklyn sometimes finding it easy to be cold to Holly. She didn't want to embrace emotions that would make her have to think about all of the loss that she experienced in her life, so she turned off her emotions all together. A lot of Brooklyn's personality and actions were related to that. She wasn't always so hard and cold.

"Collin!" Brooklyn shouted, swinging the door open like a mad woman. She stormed only a few feet into the apartment before spotting someone on the couch. It took a few seconds for her to recognize her as the friend Collin had over the night before, the one who had been pestering her about a threesome. "Where the fuck is he, and who else did he bring to that party last night?" she demanded, taking no issue with grabbing Taylor by her hair to raise her head when she didn't stir upon Brooklyn's initial entrance.

Taylor slapped Brooklyn's hand away, being forced out of the sleep that she had just fallen back into. "Ouch!" she snapped, rubbing her head once her hair was released. "What's your problem? I'm trying to sleep!" Her brain processed what Brooklyn had demanded of her only in an adrenaline-invoked response once she spotted Brooklyn's hand coming towards her head again, and she pulled a pillow over her face defensively. "I don't know where he is!" she insisted. "He left this morning while I was sleeping, and he didn't bring anyone other than me. He came back here early because he was being a buzz-kill and his door was locked by the time I got back here or else I would've slept in his bed with him, and probably wouldn't be dealing with this right now!"

"Call him and tell him to get the fuck over here right now."

"Okay, okay, calm down." Taylor refused to move the protective shield of a pillow away from her face until she heard Brooklyn storm down the hallway. It only took her a few seconds to clear the place, confirming that Collin wasn't there, and that Cara wasn't either.

Brooklyn only left the apartment because Taylor had put the call on speaker phone at that point, and she could hear the ringing to confirm that the girl was actually calling him. Brooklyn could have called him herself, and she planned on doing so if she didn't get anywhere now, but she was still seeing red and wanted to hold someone responsible immediately.
​

 

[lauren.]

Ruby didn't know that everyone else's morning was going as poorly as her own, and it wouldn't have made her feel any better if she did know. If anything, she would have felt a lot worse. Ideally, Ruby would have woken up at home, in her own bed. She would have showered, made herself a cup of tea, eaten breakfast, and left for work. She probably would have even ran out to get some bagels and gingerale to leave for Chanel, just as a precaution as she knew the girl had been drinking the night before. She didn't like the idea of being overbearing, but Ruby naturally felt compelled to take care of people. Her roommates were younger than her too, which only increased the desire to ensure they were taken care of. She had no time for any of that this morning because by the time that she woke up, she already knew that her day's schedule was ruined. She woke up fifteen minutes before she was supposed to be seeing her first client, and yet she was thirty minutes from her office, wearing leggings and a sweatshirt, her hair a mess, and entangled in the arms and bed sheets of the girl she had went home with. As one would expect, Ruby freaked out. She was a perfectionist by nature and work was her life. She felt like a complete and utter failure by doing something so unprofessional, and though the mother at the other end of the line was understanding when she explained that an emergency just came up, she still felt like she had just doing something that was going to send her straight to the fiery pits of hell. Ruby did a good job at talking other people down when they were having breakdowns or irrational thoughts, but the second that she found herself in one of those situations, any sense of logic flew out the window.

Knowing that she would be a wreck for the rest of the day, she cancelled her remaining appointments for the day while in her Uber on the way home. She felt the need to cry, shower, maybe cry some more, have some tea, and then maybe allow herself to relax. As she managed to walk into her apartment while Brooklyn was in her own, and Chanel was in Roman's, she was completely oblivious to the chaos ensuing around her. She heard the sound of the shower running in Chanel's room which seemed normal, and Holly and Makayla's room was silent, which also seemed normal for a Friday morning. Unfortunately, amid the chaos of waking up in such a panicked state, Ruby completely missed the text that Makayla had sent her in the middle of the night explaining that she wasn't going to be home for the day and that she needed Ruby to take Holly to school, if possible. Had she seen that text, she wouldn't have jumped into the shower as soon as she got home.​

 

[cure]

"Your what?" Roman cleared the sleep from his voice, the scratchiness making it more difficult to speak. He had taken his time getting up, but the entire process of rising and putting clothes on and now interacting with another person (he understood enough that he had to be somewhat more normal) had him feeling dizzy. The room wasn't spinning, but his realization earlier had been correct, and now that he was standing and moving around, the leftover high from the night before was seemingly rushing in. In reality, he just didn't realize how high he actually had been the night before. It didn't bother him any, but it was a bit much to take in on top of Chanel seemingly pleading with him about.

"Phone. My phone, sorry. I should have said that to begin with. My mind is all over the place." Chanel pressed her palm to her forehead, pushing stray curls back from her face. She was hungover, her hair was still pretty damp, and she was seconds away from having a melt down. Perhaps that was why she couldn't readily tell that Roman was high. She was so distracted from everything else going on. Looking at him, he appeared a bit dazed, but she was also under the assumption that she had woken him up, so it made sense for him to look a little disoriented. "I didn't mean to wake you. I know it was kind of a crazy night."

"No, it's fine. I was up all night anyway."

Chanel was quiet for a second as she took in Roman's warm laugh. It was a strange sound to hear coming from him. It was kind of goofy sounding, and not ominous and evil as she would have expected it to be. Then again, she didn't think Roman was capable of anything but a dry, sarcastic chuckle. It was kind of endearing, but it also took her by surprise enough to warrant a small laugh herself. She wasn't really sure what else to do. "Heh, right, right. Was I, um..." She instinctively glanced past Roman before correcting her line of vision so it didn't seem like she was snooping. A closer look at Roman would have really given her all she needed to know. His hair was a mess, half in his face and half sticking up. She was pretty sure his pants were on backwards, and he had that stupid grin guys always seemed to have after having good sex. "Interrupting?"

"Unfortunately not," Roman said. He stood then, silent and patient, not realizing that it was really his turn in this current conversation. Chanel stood before him, twisting her lip and twiddling her fingers as she waited. "Oh, oh." Roman stepped out of the way, opening the door more for her to come in. When she looked at him in surprise, he nodded his head towards his room, a gesture that it was fine. Chanel had reason to be taken aback. Roman wouldn't have done this otherwise, at least not in such a forthcoming way. He would have closed the door and looked for the phone himself. He would have also remembered that she was looking for it. "You said you were looking for something?"

"My phone. It's kind of an emergency. You didn't see Holly last night, did you?"

Even Roman wasn't high enough to not register that as a really strange question. "Holly? Like, our Holly?" Chanel nodded, a bit embarrassed because she knew how odd it sounded. "Definitely not." He sat down at his desk, again not registering that the lull in the conversation was on his end. He didn't quite yet register the first part of her statement. He was far more patient in this state, so he didn't feel any need to rush her. As he 'waited,' he noticed there was still a small amount of coke leftover from the night before.

"Isn't it a little early for that?"

"You are probably right."

"You know you're gonna end up killing yourself doing all that shit, right?" Chanel typically wouldn't have been so direct, but she was on edge, and Roman was being an ass right now.

"You're probably right." He brushed his hand beneath his nostrils. "But not before I try a couple of more things first."

"So, it's a bit of an emergency... My phone. Do you have it? I've literally looked everywhere and you're seriously the last person I can think of."

Roman nodded. That sounded familiar. The phone. Chanel had said that he was the last resort, and that this was an emergency, but the urgency of the matter still wasn't clicking for him. It wasn't that he didn't care, or that he was ignoring her. Chanel certainly had a different perception though. He was simply in a good mood and he was in a playful, mischievous one as well. That didn't explain why he did the things he did or said the things he said. He was high, but he wasn't so out of it that he didn't know what he was doing when he nodded across the room. He was high enough to even say such a thing though. Chanel looked at him strangely, not entirely sure what he was pointing to. "Your phone. The closet."​