Page 2 of Fall Hard

“No, doll.Shedid.” He smiled at me and nodded his head off to the left where a familiar, blonde head smirked at me. Bryn.

“Right,” I murmured, opting not to pick it up. “Thanks.”

I hadn’t exactly come here looking for company, not the familiar kind anyway. I came here to get lost, to be someone new. While I knew from the way she flirted every time she saw me that Bryn would happily take me home and help me forget, I didn’t look Bryn’s way again.

For one night, I wanted to be someone else—someone unafraid to take risks, who doesn’t pause to think or rationalize all the different ways a situation could go wrong, someonescary. That was one of the things I loved about Jamie. With her, you never knew what might happen next.

And so I found myself in a gay nightclub, buying drugs for the first time, getting ready to dance with strangers, just so I could pretend for a little while. To escape my own skin, like I wasn’t the girl in love with her best friend, the girl that got kicked out of school, or the girl disowned by her parents. I put the pill on my tongue and swallowed it with the last of my drink before the shaking of my hands could persuade me to rethink my decision. Tonight, I was free.

How long would it take to kick in? I swung my legs idly to the beat and returned the smiles of a few people dancing in the middle of the floor. It wasn’t a big club and the bar took up a lot of room, spanning the whole of the back wall, but the layout twisted and turned into small nooks where people were laughing or making out. Posters had lined the walls in the tiny corridor that had led to this larger dance floor, advertising the events coming up, so I knew that on Fridays they did karaoke and there was a drag show one Monday a month. Karaoke made me think of her though, not that what Jamie did with her voice should be cheapened down that way, and I fanned myself with my hand lightly as the heat from the club made my cheeks flush. Or maybe that was just the alcohol—it was wild to think about how far I’d come since leaving St Agatha’s, the religious college I’d been kicked out of after being caught in a kiss with my female teacher. I had a fake ID, because I wasn’t going to be twenty-one for another ten months, I was fully independent, and my dress just about covered my ass.

I sighed as I reached absently for the drink Bryn had sent over, dumping the tequila into the tall glass of orange liquid. This wasn’t working. Sitting in a club and waxing poetic about my best friend was the exact opposite of what I was trying to do there.

The drink was fruity and sweet and I wrinkled my nose as I sipped it. I was pretty picky about the cocktails I drank, and this one was a little too syrupy to really be my thing, but the guy behind the bar was busy and I was thirsty. So overly sweet, flirty cocktail it would have to be.

The rhythm of the music changed to something bassier, the thud of it echoing through my chest as I let my shoulders relax. I glanced to my right and smiled at the pretty redhead collecting her drink. She had freckles similar to mine, coasting along her nose daintily, and her dress was a green silk that looked so weightless on her it could have floated away.

“Wanna dance?” I half-shouted over the music and then swallowed the rest of my drink quickly when she nodded with a big grin, grabbing my hand and tugging me out into the middle of the floor. Now, not everyone at gay clubs was actually gay, she could just be there with friends, but when she stepped closer and slipped a pale arm around my waist to tug me closer, I melted. She smelled like summer flowers, sweet and heady, and her gold eyeliner sparkled in the lights of the dance floor as her eyes dropped to my lips.

I didn’t even know her name. But that was exactly what I’d wanted, right?

We laughed and swayed our hips to the music, a song I vaguely recognized but wasn’t paying much attention to as the room swirled into a haze of rainbow lights and glitter.

“I love your eyeliner,” I said into the redhead’s ear, letting my lips brush the shell, and she grinned at me. “Pretty,” I breathed as I pulled away and stroked a thumb idly underneath her eye.

The song changed, something heavy and angsty that made us throw our hands in the air and jump as high as we could manage without breaking an ankle in our towering heels. A group of people waved to her off to my right and she kissed my cheek before dancing over to them. I waved her off airily, not even feeling the disappointment as I swayed and bounced to the music, barely feeling the hands on my skin as I twirled between dancers. I don’t know when I closed my eyes, couldn’t remember deciding to do so, but the room felt like it was overwhelming my senses in a riot of color and sparkles when they flickered open. The cheesy disco lights were going strong and the girl I was dancing with had glitter in her hair that I stroked fondly, twining it around my finger as her brunette strands shone red under the lights.

This was what I’d been looking for, to just get lost for a little while. The emptiness in my chest that had threatened to overwhelm me the longer I stayed in the apartment had faded, replaced with laughter and the scent of honey shampoo.

Someone bought me a drink. Then two, then three, and the next set of hands that settled lightly on my waist steadied me when I hadn’t even realized I’d been swaying.

They smelled nice, like jasmine or clementine, something flowery that danced on the edge of fruity. I inhaled deeply as I rested my head on their shoulder, slow dancing despite the Carly Rae Jepson song that blasted out around us.

I didn’t want to move, tiredness settling into my arms and legs as I relaxed in this stranger’s arms, but my throat was parched. I pulled away slightly too fast and bit the inside of my cheek as the pleasant haze I’d been drifting in threatened to send me down a swirling ravine that I knew would leave me puking.

“Sorry,” I slurred. “Need another drink.”

“I think what you need is to go home.”

I wrinkled my nose. That voice sounded familiar.

I forced my eyes open and squinted in the flashing lights—when had they turned on a smoke machine? I clutched the woman’s arm as I fought to assess myself for a second. It wasn’t often that a smoke machine could trigger my asthma but for some reason my lungs felt sluggish anyway, like I was breathing in syrup.

“Hey, you’re okay.” The voice was so strong that my body relaxed, like it had just been waiting for orders. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”

A slither of coherency cracked through my senses and I frowned as I focused on familiar blue eyes that were, annoyingly, pinched with concern.

“I’m not going home with you.”

Bryn rolled her eyes, thick dark lashes casting fascinating shadows across the high points of her cheeks and I struggled to focus on her words for a moment. “I’m not propositioning you, Olivia. You’re absolutely fucked right now. You need to go home.”

A giggle burst out of my mouth and I clamped a hand over my lips before letting it drop. “You said fuck.”

Bryn wound an arm through mine and tried to guide me to the exit. “Come on.”

“No.”

We ground to a halt and a breath that even I could recognize as sheer exasperation escaped her.

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