Page 4 of Somewhere in the Sunset

“You need this to be the best birthdayever. We just want you to have a night you’ll never forget.” She squeezes our arms tighter together then lets go to search her bag for her ID. I mimic her, handing over my state ID. The older I get, the more embarrassing it is that I don’t have my driver’s license yet.

“Happy birthday!” the host says as he hands back our IDs, then unhooks the red rope blocking the door. “Come with me, ladies.”

My stomach somersaults with apprehension. Bottle service at Temple is ridiculously expensive. Like, a thousand bucksminimum.I know it’s my birthday, I know the love of my life just left me, I know I’m having an existential breakdown, but I can’t believe my friends splurged so much on me. Thank God I pulled myself together enough to come so this surprise didn’t go to waste.

Inside, the club shakes with the heavy bass of EDM and the neon glow of a thousand LED bulbs flash erratically to the beat of the music. Temple is our favorite club in the city and we’ve spent countless Saturday nights packed onto this dance floor since we all turned twenty-one last year, but we’ve never experienced the luxury of a VIP package. The host escorts us along the edge of the packed dance floor and it feels pretty damn nice not to be one of the poor souls buried among sweaty strangers for once. Then we arrive at the elevated, private booth where five of our mutual friends yell, “SURPRISE!”

“Enjoy your night! Your waitress will be over soon,” the host says, but I see the amusement in his eyes as he walks away. I’m frozen in shock, my shoulders drawn in tight. The sight of all my friends here, the deafening music, the bright lights .?.?. It’s too intense after feeling like the only person in the world all week.

“Told you guys we’d get her here!” Elena cheers, and she pulls me up into the booth where I’m immediately enveloped in hugs and kisses. Thehappy birthdays are mixed with condolences.

I pull myself together, barely, and let the sympathetic frowns go over my head and focus instead on the fact that itismy birthday, my friends are all here, and they’ve splashed out a ridiculous amount of money to make this night special for me. I feel so lucky to have people around me who go to such lengths to bring some joy into the tragedy that is currently my life.

“I hateallof you!” I joke, laughing as I bury my head into my hands to hide my blushing.

We snap some pictures of the eight of us together while we’re all mostly sober and before someone inevitably spills their drink and ruins their outfit, and then settle into the comfort of our booth. All this space, all to ourselves. No strangers breathing over my shoulder. No inhaling someone’s BO. Why have we never tried this sooner?

Camila scoots up close to me, leaning into my ear so I can hear her over the music. “I’m so sorry about Luca.”

My body tenses at the sound of his name. It used to feel so warm and comforting and safe; it used to feel like home. Now it feels like freshly sharpened knives.

“I can’t believe someone can just change their mind like that after so long. You’d think he would have realized sooner,” she continues, but as her words echo everything I have already thought of myself a thousand times over, I stare at Georgia across the booth.

Her engagement ring glistens under the lights. She only met David two years ago, and already they are planning their fall wedding. Sevenyears,and instead of an engagement, all I got was a broken fucking heart. Did he even wish me a happy birthday today? Oh my God. He didn’t. Does Luca even care about meat all?

“I’m not thinking about him tonight,” I tell Camila, cutting her off politely. I don’t want to discuss my wrecked relationship in the middle of this club. I want to get drunk. So drunk, in fact, that I’ll text Luca at four in the morning and give him a piece of my mind. That’s why I’ve given in and come out tonight. To give him a giant metaphorical middle finger, to prove I can survive perfectly fine without him.

But I also really, really don’t think I can.

Oh God, my chest hurts again.

Elena plops down on the other side of me and gestures out over the packed dance floor. “If anyone catches your eye, I’ll get out there and invite him over here for you. And hopefully he has some hot friends, one of which can take me home tonight if he plays his cards right.” She wiggles her shoulders, her brunette curls bouncing. Unlike Maddie, who dates and dates and dates but never finds the right connection, Elena is perfectly content with being single. Shechoosesit.

And maybe it’s because I’ve been in a relationship since the age of fifteen that I can’t fathom choosing to be alone. I’ve never been on my own. I was always a package deal. It was never justGracie, it was alwaysGracie and Luca. I don’t think I even know how to navigate life as an entity that exists all on its own.

My breathing grows labored. I’m having another crisis. I feel so out of my depth, trying to tread water when I’ve never been taught how to swim. I’m going to drown. I am literally going to drown without Luca holding me up.

“She looks terrified,” I hear Camila say.

“I was just kidding! Well, a little,” Elena says with a wink. “I know, I know, getting with someone new is the last thing on your mind right now, blah blah blah, but the option is always there if the desire just so happens to arise. Look how badly they want us.” She nods toward the men desperately hovering around the edge of our booth, sipping on their drinks while they leer at us, begging for one of us to give them some attention. Little do they know, flirting is Elena’s favorite sport. She blows one of the guys a kiss, and he leans against the side of the booth and seductively motions for her to come over. “A free vodka soda awaits,” she trills, and heads off to entertain him.

I check out the club from this new, heightened position. It looks so different when you can see something other than the back of someone’s head. The DJ tonight is indeed Cheat Codes, and the trio throw themselves around inside the DJ booth up front as the crowd surges forward to get closer to the action. At the back of the club, the line for the bar is three people deep. It’s really going off in here tonight.

I run my eyes through the crowd, picking out individuals to focus on, all men. Even the hottest, most attractive, Greek-God-like man I can find, I don’t feel anything for. Is there something wrong with me? Why can’t I evenappreciatea hot guy? I’m almost concerned by how disinterested I am, but how else am I supposed to feel? I’ve never once looked at another guy. It has always been Luca. For seven years, since we were both fifteen and sophomores in high school, he is the only person I’ve ever had eyes for. He was all of my firsts, and he was going to be all of my lasts. We were going to be together forever. It wasalwaysgoing to be him.

But what if that’s still the case? What if, despite him walking away, my heart will always choose him? I thought my future was set in stone, so it will take a lot of time to undo everything I thought I knew, to rebuild a new life without him in it.

Fuck.I’m screwed. And not in the way Elena wants me to be.

WESTON

I can’t believe we just stood in line for forty minutes, paid fifty bucks cover, and now can’t get anywhere near the goddamn bar to buy a beer. I normally love hitting the clubs at the weekend, but when there’s a famous DJ on the decks and the room is dangerously packed from wall-to-wall like this? Yeah, forget it. This place is clearly at capacity, and I make a mental note of where all of the emergency exits are located. This isn’t enjoyable. It’s like a hundred degrees in here, Brooks keeps stepping on my foot, and I can’t hear a damn thing. For the sake of the guys, I try and convince myself this is so much fun.

“We should have gone to DNA instead,” Cameron yells into my ear, and I nod in defeated agreement. We should have, but we didn’t. And now we’re stuck like sardines making no forward progress toward the bar.

Adam tries to push his way through but rightly gets put back in his place by a guy double his size. He groans with frustration – he hasn’t had a drink in an hour, and he gets impatient when he feels his buzz fading. “Plan B,” he says.

Considering this is the only bar on this floor, Brooks seems skeptical. “What exactly is your plan B, Adam?”

---