It's a neighborhood joint the size of a hovel with a bartender that could rival an NPC, not like the crowded clubs where Dave gets blown by psuedo-celebrities. Either of you could have afforded a nicer place, something fancy, with higher ceilings and a better selection than back home, but here you are. You know she isn't fancy, and she knows you know she knows. Self-loathing only looks conceited on the upper class, anyway.
"You girls should make out," slurs an older gentleman with hairy knuckles and fat, sausage fingers.
You tap your long, tapered nails against the bar and glance to Roxy before addressing the buffoon with a curled lip. "We're clearly related."
Sometimes, when the two of you go out together, people mistake you for sisters, or even worse, friends. Anything from your waistline to the color of your hair is viable to be a dead giveaway. Tonight, it must be the way you lean in close, chin knocking her hoop earrings when you whisper in her ear.
"The jig is up."
Her bracelets clink together when she pulls out a glittering cellphone from her shiny bag. Roxy Lalonde, the muse, the myth, the mother? You roll your eyes at the sight of her chosen attire: a tight, sparkly affair with a heart-shaped neckline that pushes her pale breasts into the perfect cleavage.
"You girls aren't sisters?" asks the persistent pervert over the bump from the bad speakers.
Roxy sacrifices her drink in order to see his shocked expression when she spills a martini down the front of his shirt. The olives roll over the hill of his stomach and onto the floor.
"Oops," she says, blinking her false eyelashes so rapidly you're afraid they might fly off.
The two of you stumble the whole way to the bathroom and still beat him by a mile, giggling about how his face turned pink and he smelled like puke. Is it only funny because it isn't happening to you? You've been holding back Roxy's hair while she vomits into porcelaine for as long as you can remember. You're sick of taking care of her, but more than that, you're sick of feeling like it's somehow your fault. After the laughter settles, you're full of resentment.
"Baby," she says, which may work on Dave but it's never worked on you. "Loosen up."
The shots are hitting you, all at once. She glances fondly to your reflection in the mirror and you lose it. "At least one of us ought to be acting the appropriate age," you snap.
"Acting?" Roxy laughs, grating and high. "You never were good at pretending to be happy."
You're looking for a fight but the brute from before is gone and almost everyone else has cleared out. Somehow, Roxy is waiting for you back at the bar, sipping the light version of an already nasty beer to save on calories. The difference between the two of you isn't just in years. There's a rift winding through the middle of your relationship, like a creek with sharp, slippery rocks.
When you order another vodka cranberry, she rolls her eyes and pretends you didn't see. "You're turning out to be quite the drinker," Roxy says, with a smile just short of proud.
You incline your head and your lip twitches. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
The room spins when Roxy smiles. "Am I the apple," she asks innocently, consonants slipping together. "Or the tree?"
