Page 40 of The Party Plot

“It’s prescription. Well, some of it. And some is recreational. And I needed the Xanax to come down from the Adderall, but then I needed the Adderall for—and oh my God, Laurel.” She threw her hands up in the air. “You have nothing to say.”

Laurel glanced guiltily at Casey, who was probably regretting every choice that had led him into this den of degenerates. “Sure. Ok. But how do we even get rid of this stuff?” His neck felt clammy, and he could hear his own voice teetering on hilarity. He was quickly swinging from the depths of exhaustion into some kind of absurd humor, and he couldn’t seem to control it. “Do we wash it down the sink, too? What about the water table? Melody, what about the fish? What about all the little frogs?” He pictured the denizens of the marsh getting disastrously high on Melody’s supply, and a giggle escaped him.

Somehow, Melody was laughing, too. “I don’t know. I think we flush it down the toilet. Right? Like in a movie?”

“Let me do it,” Casey said. He slid the bags gently off the table. “I need—I need to go to the bathroom, anyway. The smell in here is making me lightheaded.”

He was right; the sour-sweet smell of alcohol in the kitchen was overpowering, and it didn’t get any better as Laurel and Melody emptied out the rest of the beer cans. They ran the water for a long time, but an acrid odor remained. Laurel offered to make coffee, as much to sober Melody up as to cover the smell. He had to stay awake, too. He wasn’t sure what time it was, but it had gotten dark out, and he would need to spend the night watching out for Melody.

The rain had lessened to a drizzle. Casey was still in the bathroom, so maybe the pills didn’t flush well. Or maybe he was just avoiding them. Laurel suggested taking their mugs out into the balcony.

The night air was syrupy and thick, full of frog and cricket song. A heavy mist hung over the marsh and wove through the trees, illuminated by the light from nearby windows. High up in the clouds, there was another brief pulse of lighting.

“Do you think we’ll get any hurricanes this year?” Melody asked, cradling her coffee, face upturned to the sky.

“We might. It’s the right weather for it.” Laurel remembered seeing something on TV about a tropical storm forming further south, but he hadn’t really been paying attention.

“I wonder if it’ll ruin your mom’ssoirée.” She pronounced the word sarcastically.

Laurel scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling foolish. “Maybe. Are you still going to come?”

“I don’t know.” Melody clicked her nails against her coffee cup. “It doesn’t seem like a great idea. Not if I’m, you know, trying to make healthier decisions.”

“Right.” What even were healthy decisions, anyway? Clearly Laurel had no idea. “Melody, I’m sorry I haven’t been there. And—and when I have, it’s just been to party. I’m a fair-weather friend at best, and an enabler at worst.”

“And I’m a hopeless sad sack who can’t get over her ex and trauma-dumps on her best friend.” She made a face.

“Best friend, Hell. I can’t believe I missed your calls.” He couldn’t get over it; it was twisting around and around like a corkscrew in his chest, hot and sharp.

She shrugged. “I shouldn’t have bothered you. I should have dealt with it on my own, or—or called Chip, maybe. But I got all in my head about it, you know? I didn’t want him to see me that way. I didn’t want him to know about the restraining order, not after he worked so hard on it.”

Laurel put a hand on her shoulder. “He does care about you. You know that, right?”

She shrugged. “Do I? I try to. I’m grateful for Chip, and for Kierra, but—sometimes I feel like they’re just here out of pity. Or, like, if they actually knew how awful I am, they’d want nothing to do with me.” Melody shuddered, despite the warm mug of coffee in her hands. “Heused to tell me that, too. That he was the only one who understood me. That no one else would love me if they knew how much was wrong with me.”

“Girl.” Laurel groaned. “We’ve all got things wrong with us.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She chewed her lip. “Anyway, he seems nice.”

“What?”

“Casey, silly.” She turned to look at him, hair tangled, twin half-moons of smeared mascara under her eyes, and Laurel felt a soft, helpless pang of affection for her. “He’s sweet. A little bitchy, maybe, but sweet underneath.”

Laurel swallowed. It was at the tip of his tongue, all of it, the party and the scam and how it didn’t feel casual, not anymore, and how this dumb, Byzantine scheme of his had turned around and sunk its teeth into him and now all he wanted was for Casey to stay.

Melody put a hand on his. “It’s alright, you don’t have to say anything.”

He sighed. “Melody, are you going to be okay?”

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“I don’t know, either.”

She stretched, loosening up her shoulders and neck. “Want to go inside and sing along to the live version ofSilver Springsover and over again?”

“God, I thought you’d never ask.”

*

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