Sitting at the deserted bar, I twirled the toothpick I'd been chewing on for the past five minutes in my glass of cheap champagne lazily, my chin resting on the palm of my hand. All around me, there seemed to be smiling people enjoying a glass of the spiked apple juice but frankly, I just found it appalling, especially since after a couple minutes of sipping on it, the drink had begun to nauseate me drastically. For the past two hours, my rear-end had been firmly planted in the stool I was occupying, my eyes scanning the large room for something even remotely interesting that had nothing to do with the disgusting drink in front of me.
"Are you kidding me?"
Glancing over my shoulder, I bit my lip to keep from inappropriately laughing at how disheveled my best friend already looked. Her hair, which had taken about an hour to straighten, was simply a ball of frizz and the red satin dress I'd helped her pick out, which had at one point in the night been stunning enough to attend a high-class cocktail party, was now hiked up halfway up her thighs, most likely by a few desperate guys.
"I beg your pardon?" I teased.
"Seriously, Tay, if I'd known you'd be on your ass the whole time, I wouldn't have invited you."
"Hey," I frowned mockingly. "I've got a great view from here."
Rolling her eyes, Miley took a seat beside me, motioning for the bartender to get her another Cosmo, her third of the night. As serious as she'd sounded, we both knew that neither of us would be at the party had it not been for me accepting the invite; Miley rarely attended parties without me tagging along and she wasn't about to start on New Years. Even though she complained every once in a while about my lack of social skills, she enjoyed my company.
"Well, the view's much better out there," she informed me, winking at the bartender as he placed her drink in front of her. "There are an infinite amount of single, hot guys out there just looking for a little loving." Judging by her smeared lipstick, I figured she'd already given a handful of them all the loving they could handle.
"Then it's a good thing you're here," I smirked.
I brought my glass to my lips, ignoring the voice in my head that was begging me not to, and forced the contents down my throat in an attempt to block out her scowl. Of course, because of the face I made after the drink had made it's way down my throat, Miley couldn't help but burst out into a fit of giggles. But could she seriously blame me? The cheap champagne was al I could afford to drink thanks to my status as a lightweight and it wasn't the best; you'd think with the amount of money the man of the house made almost on an hourly basis, he'd be able to afford the finest champagne in the city.
"Follow me."
Downing the remainder of her drink in the blink of an eye, Miley jumped off her stool and motioned for me to get up as well. Once on my feet, her hand clasped around my thin wrist and she hauled my ass across the room towards the back rooms, leaving me to maneuver my own way through the sea of sweating bodies as best as I could without tripping over myself. Seeing as how neither of us knew the owner or his daughter, the idea of heading into someone's private bedroom unnerved me a bit, but Miley seemed perfectly at ease as she pushed open a random door and shoved me inside before shutting and locking it behind herself.
"Are we even allowed back here?" I asked, looking around at the large room.
"I don't know," Miley shrugged sheepishly. "I just needed some fresh air."
"You realize we're still inside, right?"
"You know what I mean," she shot me a mocking glare.
"Unfortunately," I shrugged teasingly.
The bedroom had a king-sized bed perfectly positioned in the center of the room, two identical nightstands with identical lamps on each side. The beige curtains that had been pulled back to reveal the breathtaking city below us matched the bed's smooth comforter and the silky-feeling carpet. The matching bed-frame and the dressers were light brown oak, giving the room the slight contrast in color it needed. Following my feet, which led me to the colossal bed, I pulled my phone out from under my dress and sat on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, a couple of teal sheets folded neatly on the edges.
"Will you ever change?" Miley asked as I scrolled through my inbox.
"Not in this lifetime," I shrugged, disregarding my phone. "And probably not in the next."
"Joe used to say that," Miley smiled morosely, her mind racing off to the raven-haired boy she'd had a crush on for the better part of a year. She was silent for a long moment as a sour feeling surged through me, threatening to have me stalking out of the room before she could speak again. "I wonder what they're doing."
"Speaking of changing," I sighed, "why don't you start by not mentioning them anymore?"
"Quit being so touchy," she snapped teasingly. "I know you miss them, too."
"Seriously, Miley?" I pleaded with my eyes. "Isn't tonight about new beginnings?"
"You can't just dump them in the past and pretend they never mattered," Miley crossed her arms, our lovely mood shot to hell. "They're three of the most important people in our lives, Taylor, and you know that."
"Too bad the feeling isn't mutual," I muttered.
It wasn't like Miley hadn't known before bringing up such a morbid topic that I wouldn't make an effort; in fact, she usually brought this up just to see if my reaction to it would be any different from the last time she'd brought it up. And again, she'd sulk after realizing that my opinion hadn't wavered. When the look she gave me as she walked towards the dresser with a metal-framed mirror hanging above it gave me goosebumps, I thought for sure she would chuck her shoe at me because of the frustration her facial expression told me she was feeling. Instead, she simply sauntered over to my side and took a seat, eyes boring into the side of my face, hoping for some sort of façade to just disappear.
But this wasn't a façade and it wasn't going away anytime soon.
"Just admit you miss them, too."
"When pigs fly," I pretended to yawn.
"Okay, smart-ass," she smirked. "Deny it, then."
There was just no end to the constant persistence. Kicking off my Gucci heels, I glared at them instead of glaring at her; my feet had been aching all night, thanks to those stupid things I despised almost as much as I despised our conversation. They did nothing but squeeze my feet to a point where I couldn't feel anything anymore. Yet I'd let Miley talk me into wearing the damn things tonight because of how 'incomplete' my look would've seemed without them. How girls could walk around with mini-torture rooms on their feet, I would never understand.
"Quit being a shit about this, alright?"
"I just want a straight-forward answer," Miley replied softly. "One that doesn't involve insulting or sarcasm. Just a straight-forward, honest-to-god, sincere answer. Then I promise I'll let it be and just shut my mouth for good."
"I find it a little hard to believe that after the last one I gave you, you'd want more."
"Please, Taylor?"
I let about a minute of silence consume us as I though up the best answer I could for her damn question. There were so many things I could have said, should have told her, but I kept most of them locked away in my mind, never to be spoken of through my lips. Apparently, the best I could do was sugar-coated to a point where everything that had happened two years back seemed minimal; the emotions that came with this conversation prevented me from revealing too much and I hated it.
"I don't expect anything from anyone, Miley," I sighed. "And when I finally did, they let me down."
From the look that crossed her face, I could tell that it had been an insightful breakthrough for her. So many questions were swarming through her eyes, begging me to let her all the way in on this and just trust her with my emotions but I couldn't, I didn't know how. When it came to the three guys who'd meant so much to me, I could never let anyone entirely in. It was something so easily disturbed that I figured it wasn't worth risking it, that maybe I should just play it safe and let small little fragments of my true emotions slip through the miniscule cracks that had appeared around my wall.
Before any more could be said, I walked over to a door I'd been eying for a good three minutes, the doorknob exceptionally bright. Pulling it open, I could feel all my angst seeping away as my eyes landed on a gold mine of clothes. Dresses, shirts, pants, shoes lay before me, in a mess that just made me want to laugh and cry and, surprisingly enough, plan my funeral in that small, cramped sad excuse of a closet. But the clothes had me hooked, like heroin.
"They've never let you down before," Miley's voice drifted towards me as I flicked the light switch.
"True," I replied, half drunk off the sight before me. "But when it mattered most, they did. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm not concerned with them. It's quite simple really," my voice began trailing off as I spotted a black dress with sequins on the side. "I just manage not to think of them."
"Don't be like that, Taylor," Miley walked over to the door frame, leaning against it with a look in her eyes that seemed to say the world was about to fall on top of us. "They care about you but they had to leave."
"For a tour," I shrugged. "I'm well aware, Miles."
"Exactly," she persisted. "They have their reasons."
"Stop making excuses for them," I sighed. "It won't change anything."
"What if they're going through something?"
"A phone call takes two minutes," I muttered. "It's not like they'd have had to jump on a plane and come back."
Nodding irritably, she walked back to the bed and sat down, her eyes studying me skillfully; if I didn't know any better, I would have thought she was having a schizophrenic moment. But I did know better, which is how I came to the conclusion that she was hiding something from me, something she knew would have some sort of negative effect on me. It would've explained why she was always defending those idiots when she knew nothing could ever justify their sketchy move in my eyes.
"What is it, Miles?" I asked, startling her.
"What?"
"You're hiding something," I narrowed my eyes.
"I'll tell you," she caved. "Just don't get mad."
"Why would I get mad?" I questioned innocently, naively.
The look she was giving me made me feel like she was getting ready to heave. My eyes looked past the small doorway, darting around the beautifully furnished room and all I could think about was how much of a shame it would be if she blew chunks all over it. Putting the shoes I'd been trying on away, I started for the door, wanting to get her to the bathroom a couple rooms down, when she finally collected herself and gave me a teary frown.
"I've been talking to them."
The world seemed to stop spinning for a moment, my thoughts a whirlwind of confusion. Miley, the only other person besides Oliver who'd shared my feeling of devastation when our best friend had succumbed to cancer and our other three best friends had taken off without a single word, had been talking to them. And just moments ago, when I'd technically poured my heart out to her and entrusted her with what I could muster up as how I was feeling, she'd had the answers I'd been desperately looking for since the three guys had left. If someone didn't feel empty and betrayed after discovering a truth like this, then there weren't many cruel things in the world.
"This is the worst New Years ever," I breathed as I walked out and put my shoes on.
"Taylor, where are you going?" Miley jumped up almost automatically.
"I'm leaving."
"I wanted to tell you!" Miley was on the verge of tears. "Honest, I did! But I--"
"Just stop it, Miley," I snapped. "Stop lying because you're not helping."
"I'm not! I really did want to! But Nick made me promise--"
"If you'd really wanted to tell me, you would've," I hissed, pissed beyond comprehension, "instead of watching me struggle with my emotions like I'm some kind of reality show you can just get high off of. But that's really not the point."
"Then what is?"
"I have a right to know what the hell's been going on these past couple of years and not one single person seems to agree with me," I replied as calmly as I could without blowing a fuse. Fighting in a stranger's penthouse, in a room we weren't supposed to be in in the first place, wasn't exactly the idle thing to do.
"I know it sounds bad, Taylor, but try and see this from my point of view!"
"Oh, believe me, I'm trying," I held my hands up. "But I just keep picturing you going through what I went through and the answer's obvious." Miley crossed her arms, her eyes begging me to just forgive her but it was too soon. "You should have told me, Miley," I added, giving her a look I'd never actually thought I could muster up for anyone. "And the fact that you didn't tells me where your loyalties lie."
The worst part about leaving Miley with her hope of resolving this mess before the new year crushed was that for some reason, I felt as if I hadn't gotten the whole truth out of her. Granted, I just couldn't get out quick enough thanks to my pride but either way, considering the huge ordeal we were now going to have to deal with, I should've at least questioned her a bit more thoroughly for a bit more information. Yet my voice of reason told me I didn't need anymore information than what I already had; Nick had asked Miley to keep the secret from me and try as I might, I couldn't keep my heart fro aching at the thought. The laughter and shouts coming from the pit of drunks drowned out the sound of my heartbeat accelerating as I pushed through the crowd, desperate to get out of there.
"5… 4… 3…"
Grabbing an unattended bottle of the cheap champagne with one hand, I concentrated on the clicking of my heels as I sped towards the door. Thankfully, I had yet to hear Miley calling me back from behind me and to be honest, I wanted to pass on that; greeting the New Year in a stuffy elevator filled with bad music didn't amuse me for a second but when my only other option was to spend it in a room full of drunken partiers and a friend I was no longer on speaking terms with tonight, a pity party for one was definitely sounding more like a step-up than a step down, which is what it really was.
"2… 1… Happy New Year!"
And as my good fortune would have, when I pulled the wooden door open, I found myself looking into a pair of chocolately brown eyes I'd truthfully never thought I'd lock eyes with again. It was a moment of shock for me, the overwhelming feeling to throw my arms around the unexpected visitor almost to strong to fight, and before I could regularize my breathing – much less get my common sense working properly again – I felt the bottle slip from out of my grasp which only sparked the panic in me. As I waited for the cringing sound of glass shattering against the cool tile to reach my ears, Nick's eyes turned away and that's when I realized he'd caught it. He smiled charmingly, a soft chuckle escaping his lips, as he leaned forward, increasing the proximity between us, and set the bottle down on a side table.
"Happy New Year, Taylor."
The smell of his cologne threatened to burn down all of my defenses, but as quickly as I'd let myself go, I pulled myself back together.
There's so much I can do with the Nick/OC; it's quite liberating.