Page 40 of The Vacancy In Room 10

I sit on the bathroom floor having flashbacks of my early twenties, which is probably the last time I drank tequila, and try to breathe and force myself to sober up. Then I hear a loud thump and feel the bathroom stall door smack against my back and bounce off, slamming it shut. It opens again, and a frustrated Kimmy stands, hovering over me.

“Classy. I should have guessed you’d be puking.” Her arms are folded, and she rolls her eyes.

I’m so shocked to see her I can’t form words for a response. I just stare up at her and sort of scurry to my feet pathetically. I’ve only actually seen her twice before. Both times I was in a fit of rage, and this time I’m hammered, and she’s a little blurry, but I can still make out how young and shiny she is. God, what must it be like to have skin like that? Or the glossy pouty lips and satiny golden hair.

“Fuck off,” I say and slam the door in her face, but she stops it with her hand and jabs a finger into my chest.

“I know it was you. On Instagram, telling me Jessie from the Bulldog is fucking Reid. Nice try, but she’s actually like my best friend, and I know it was bullshit—a pathetic attempt at breaking us up. You’re seriously sad, and if you ever mess with my friends or fiancé again, you’d better watch your back,” she says, and the word fiancé knocks the wind out of me. I feel my cheeks redden and a hot rage bubble up inside me.

She slams the stall door, and I hear the click of her heels on the tile floor, the flash of voices, and clinking glassware when she opens and closes the bathroom door, and I sit on the toilet seat and do my best not to hyperventilate. I have to put my head between my knees and stifle my cries to try to calm my breathing until I can pull myself together.

After a few minutes, I hear the bathroom door open again, and I freeze. I don’t know why I’m cowering, afraid of a booby, blond twenty-whatever-year-old, but I’m so overwhelmed with the betrayal that I seem to be reliving it all over again; it’s like it just happened, and I feel paralyzed. We were together for years, and he had a thousand reasons why he didn’t believe in marriage—that I stupidly accepted—and he’s engaged to the cocktail waitress from our favorite bar? It’s too much and simultaneously the least of my problems right now, but the alcohol is buzzing between my ears and my anxiety is so out of control I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.

“Cass?” a small voice says, and I hear a tap-tap on the stall door. “It’s Rosa. Are you okay?” she asks.

Rosa. God. Please don’t be nice to me. I can’t do this.

“Girl!” a louder voice says, and I can tell it’s Crystal barging in and whipping open the door. I almost fall out of the stall but catch myself. Crystal is holding a plate of macaroons and has a hand on one hip. “Are you pukin’? Is she pukin’? Naw-uh. It’s too early for that shit. I saw the home-wrecker chick out there, all tacky dress and hanging on your man, lookin’ like a Disney character. She’s not worth all this.”

“He ain’t no prize, either.” Jackie seems to materialize but has been leaning against the tile wall stirring her margarita. “He’s not tall enough for you. And the fitted suit he’s trying to pull off—he looks like Pee-wee Herman.”

“Want me to spike her drink?” Crystal asks. “I always got a bunch of Benzos.”

“No. Guys. Listen. I just need to go. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry. I am, I know you’re having fun...”

“It’s okay,” Rosa says sweetly.

“Yeah,” Crystal agrees. “I already ate about ten thousand calories, and I got a buncha shrimp,” she says, patting her bag, then looks to Jackie who slurps the last of her drink loudly through a cocktail straw. “And I think Jacks got her money’s worth. Let’s get you home.” Crystal extends an arm for me to steady myself on, and I’m suddenly very moved by their support, even though I’m pretty sure Rosa talked them into this.

When we walk up the stairs together, back into the party, I’m not embarrassed to be with them. Rosa and Crystal keep me walking upright, and I’m proud to be with them right now. I don’t mind what anyone thinks. These people actually care about me.

Then out of the corner of my eye I see her again. Kimmy is standing near the giant cake centerpiece with a couple of other women. She’s touching her belly. I stop. The girls stop, too. They look to where I’m looking. One of Kimmy’s friends squeals and also touches Kimmy’s belly. I can hear small shrieks of “No way!” and “Congratulations!” and we all know what it means.

Even Jackie knows what it means, and she can barely walk. She hollers to Barry, who’s sort of dancing by himself to the music and slurping a diet Coke. “We’re outta here, Barry!”

“Yep, okay,” he says obediently, grabbing his keys and jogging over, and I’m in a daze as we start walking through the sea of people toward the main entrance when I see Reid right in front of me, a look of utter shock and dismay on his face upon finally noticing me.

I shake off the grips of Crystal and Rosa and try my hardest to appear sober. “Hey there. I guess congrats are in order,” is all I say, but I see the look of panic in his eyes.

“What are you doing? What do you mean?” Reid asks.

And I am fully aware of how pitiful it is, but I blame the booze because for a moment, I smell his familiar scent, and I feel his arm bump up against mine, and I haven’t been this close to him in so long that I just want to talk, want something so desperately from him that I am aware he can’t give me, but I still try.

“Can I just talk to you for a minute?” I say, and I can hear the girls bristle behind me. I try touching his hand, but he pulls away. “What? I can’t just talk to you?”

“Probably not a good idea,” he says, cold and distant, and I need him so badly to give me anything right now—something to make me feel like I exist, like I ever mattered, like years of my life weren’t a joke.

“Just talk to me,” I almost plead, and hate myself so much as I say it.

Then Kimmy appears beside him, and I can feel the girls standing behind me like a little army. I know I should walk away, but I don’t.

“Are you kidding me?” Kimmy says, smacking my hand away from Reid’s.

“Don’t touch me,” I say, pushing Kimmy’s shoulder with a hard poke.

“You’re making a scene,” Reid says with a dismissive, smug look across his face.

“You don’t want a scene?” I say and then yell over the crowd, “Reid doesn’t want a scene, everyone. But this isn’t a scene. A scene is when you’re miscarrying again, but that’s okay because lover boy here is already working on getting someone else pregnant. That’s a scene!”

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