Fighting with him made her feel the same way she did after she snuck a shot from everything in her mom's liquor cabinet just to see what would happen.
And by "liquor cabinet" she really meant the old microwave stand that didn't have a microwave on it anymore, but instead had a stack of old phone books underneath it in place of the leg that had broken when her mother stole it from one of the neighbor's lawns.
And by "just to see what would happen" she really meant because her mom had royally pissed her off when she lectured her for not getting home until midnight the day before, and then her mother missed their family appointment with the therapist and skipped town with her newest boyfriend, so she didn't really care about what would happen so much as she wanted to do something that would equally piss her mom off.
And by "snuck" she really meant chugged from each bottle in the middle of the living room after school in the middle of the same afternoon her mom left her a voicemail letting her know she was in Vegas again and wasn't sure when she would be back.
The first quip aimed at him was like that first glug of cheap bourbon. Not exactly smooth, but it made this warmth spread through her chest. It made her vision suddenly sharper, her focus fierce. The heat brought out something in her she wasn't sure she wanted to control. And her brain was suddenly fizzing with possibilities.
When he snapped back at her, it was like that bite from coconut rum. It was almost too spicy for her and too sweet. It annoyed her and exhilarated her at the same time. She wanted to hate it, but she was too intrigued to stop. There was just something about it that made her swish it around in her mouth, mulling it over. It was that same feeling when she smirked at him, when she let the sarcasm drip from her like water off the roofs in Seattle, when he smirked right back, raising an eyebrow, but doing his best to dodge her wrath. That's when she would drink him in, savor him, just before it would all go crazy.
And when the back and forth started, when their voices were raising and they weren't really making sense anymore, when she was all tunnel vision and couldn't even remember that there might have been something else she was supposed to do or someone else she as supposed to talk with, that was drinks three through six. The harsh whisky that made her throat burn was the yelling. The bitter gin that made her want to gag was the insults that actually struck a chord with her. The sickly sweet peppermint schnapps that masked the sour taste left by the others was that moment when her eyes met his and she didn't really care what they were fighting about as long as all he did was keep looking at her like that. The blackberry wine that made her head spin was that moment where she thought that maybe everything really was falling apart, that maybe she should give it a rest now.
But she didn't.
The vodka that didn't have a color, a scent, nothing but liquid fire that made her burn, that was the slamming of doors as she walked out on him, that slow simmer of anger finally boiling over because they'd both had enough and couldn't or wouldn't stop before the other.
And when she lay spread eagle on the dirty living room floor, feeling like she was laying on the bottom deck of a cruise ship in stormy seas, that was how she felt too on the entire walk from his apartment building to the bus stop. Every time. It was unsteady, unsure, exhausting, sickening. That was when the pain really set in. When her eyes burned and her head ached and her stomach rolled in anticipation of the next moment. Her entire world was blurry. She lived in a haze.
Simply put, it was hell on earth.
And the hangover after those seven shots (let's be honest, they were probably doubles) was even worse than the spinning hell that left her laying on the living room floor until she passed out. It was, after all, only the second time in her life she had ever been drunk. And seven shots (or possibly doubles) was a whole lot of alcohol for someone the size of an eleven-year-old.
She kind of thought she might be dying when she woke up the next day for school.
And that was exactly how she felt when he would give her the silent treatment, or when she would simply pretend that nothing had happened and favor their other best friend's company over his.
So when she soldiered on through the hangover with aspirin and coffee - that was her pretending she didn't care when he talked to other girls. The dry heaving in the girls' bathroom after second period (because she didn't make it to first) created the same clenching abdominal muscles she had when she would think of something funny to say to him, but realized she couldn't say anything at all.
When she spilled the entire contents of her lunch on the gym floor and blamed it on a stomach bug, all she felt was relief. That literal vomit was the word vomit that would inevitably occur when she realized they couldn't be mad at one another for ever.
It took almost a full twenty-four hours for her to get over her "stomach bug." It was more like a year in her mind though. And that twenty-four hours she spent not talking to him, that day he was avoiding her, it might as well have been a year too. When they crossed paths in the hallway between apartments, there was shuffling of feet and averting of eyes and increased heartbeats like the last vestiges of alcohol finally being purged from her system in a cold sweat.
"So…"
"Yeah…"
"Truce?"
And when she kissed him, there was that bubbly, fizzing sensation, filling her up from the tips of her toes to the ends of her not quite golden curls. Being with him like this was the best part of being drunk. Feeling like she could do anything, and feeling everything, no alcohol involved? It made the bad parts worth it. Every single one.
A/N: So, if anyone out there is still reading iTalk, I apologize. I recently lost everything on the flashdrive that contained my writing. That includes all of my partial chapters and outlines for that story as well as a few others. There's definitely going to be a long wait because I have to basically start from scratch. This was something that just popped up out of nowhere, so I wanted to get it down and post it. There will probably be a lot of one shots in my future until I can get back on track for that.