"Let's go over there and tease her." Sharlie suggests. She's back from 'talking' to the Bush-Pig and Annie has just filled her in. She rubs her grazed knuckles. Apparently she 'caught them on something'. From Donna's wounded look and swelling eye, I'm guessing it was the Bush-Pig's face.
"Luis, it's your call. Revenge, or the mature, responsible thing?" Annie says.
"Bit of both. Let's go over there and say hi." I reply with a grin. "Let's not quite sink to her level… but almost."
"Nice one." Annie says approvingly and stumbles forward.
I wrap an arm around her, she's had way too much to drink, she drank both mine and Sharlie's drinks while Sharlie was 'talking' to Donna.
"I'm fine." She says.
I exchange a look with Sharlie who shakes her head almost imperceptibly.
I tap Connie on the shoulder while she's still mid-kiss with Averman. I want her to know that she's been caught. "Hi Connie!"
She and Averman break apart and give me identical deer-in-headlights looks. I fight the smirk threatening to take over my face.
"Luis!" Connie recovers first. "Um, hi! What are you doing here?"
"These two are cheering me up." I indicate Annie and Sharlie who are either side of me.
Connie smiles slightly. "Oh, and are you going to introduce us to your girlfriends?"
The music is loud, but I'm almost certain she said girlfriends. As in plural. I'll ignore it. "I don't have a girlfriend, this is Annie, my best friend, and her cousin, Charlotte." They fake friendly 'hi's at Connie. "So what about your boyfriends?" See, plural. I can do it too. "Where's Guy tonight?"
Connie and Averman wince. "He's not here." Averman supplies.
I'm sure Connie's about to give me the speech. The oh please don't tell Guy, this is a one-off, I'm just really drunk and blah, blah, blah…
However, she doesn't get to it because someone stumbles into the middle of our group and lands face-first on the ground.
"Ouch. That hurt." Sharlie says.
Being the gentleman that I am I let go of Annie and help the person in question to her feet. It's none other than Traci.
Or to be more accurate, a completely wasted Traci.
"What the hell are you doing?" I yell at her as she sways drunkenly. "You're pregnant, you can't get drunk!"
I'm completely insanely mad at her. It goes beyond that, there aren't words to describe how enraged I am that she's endangering her baby in the name of a good time.
"Oh goody." Traci looks around. "It's Luis. Woo-hoo! Ooh, and the lesbian." She gives Annie a disgusted look. "And some Ducky losers." She frowns at Sharlie. "Who the hell are you?"
She sways again and I put my hands on her waist to steady her. "Why are you drinking?" I ask again. "It's not good for the baby!"
"Screw the baby!" She says venomously. "I don't want it!"
I'm dumbstruck. How can she not want it? Time for an ad-lib, I'm too pissed off to talk about this now. "I think you should go back to the dorms. You're drunk."
"I'm fine." She pushes me away. "I don't need you! When are you going to understand that? God, no wonder I broke up with you!"
Annie puts her hand on my shoulder reassuringly. "I'll be right back."
"Traci, I'm going to take you back to the dorms, you're really drunk. You should sleep this off." And tomorrow we're going to talk about this. That could be my kid she's drinking to death in there.
I've got no idea how I'm managing to stay so calm. I'm about ready to punch something or cry. Neither option seems appropriate in this setting.
"I wanna go home." Traci decides.
I nod. "We're going to take you back to the dorms."
"Not school. Home!"
No way. I know her parents. They have this illusion that Traci is perfect, if I send her home in this state they'll lose that. Although it would be a nice form of revenge, I can't do it to either Traci or her parents.
"Her friends are gone." Annie reports, she seems remarkably sober. She's also holding two pint glasses of water. "Get her to drink this, not too fast, we don't want her to puke." She hands me a glass, and starts sipping from the other.
I look up and see that Connie and Averman are still here, and watching the scene with avid interest.
"I'm going to find a cab." Sharlie decides. "Let's take her outside, some fresh air might help."
"I doan feel so good." Traci moans.
"Some fresh air will definitely help." Sharlie confirms.
I look at Connie and Averman. "See you."
Connie looks disappointed that she's going to miss whatever will happen next, but Averman looks relieved that we're going.
I loop an arm around Traci, and Annie takes the other side and we help her out. Sharlie walks in front carrying the water. The bouncers on the door just let us leave, indifferent to the fact that we're taking two of the bar's glasses with us.
We prop Traci up against a wall, she sags pathetically and moans, holding her head. "I feel bad."
"Well, you deserve it." Annie says heartlessly. "But the baby doesn't."
"Doan wan' it." Annie slurs back.
"Drink some water." I push a glass under her nose. I'm ignoring anything she has to say, it's the only thing I can do.
"So what are we doing now?" Sharlie asks.
"I'd better get Traci back to the dorms." I say. "Sorry for spoiling the night."
"It wasn't you, it was the drunken rah-rah girl over there." Sharlie says, "and besides, the night isn't spoilt, just prematurely ending. Annie, what are your plans, home with me, or back to the dorms?"
"I'll go with Luis, he'll probably need help with the psycho." She replies.
"I'll go call a cab while you two try to sober her up." Sharlie offers.
Sharlie comes back to us moments later. "Only one cab, it'll be here in about ten minutes."
Traci takes a sip of the water, then drops the glass, it shatters and water goes all over mine and Annie's feet. "Oops!" Traci giggles and I know it wasn't an accident.
Annie sighs and bites her lip, I know she's dying to say something but is holding it back.
"You know we could just leave you here, Traci." I say. I have no intention of leaving Traci anywhere but her own dorm room in this state, but she doesn't know that. "Or better yet, I could call the school or your parents and have them come get you."
"Fine! Do that! I don't want your help." She snaps. "I don't want you."
This is a side of her I've never seen. I don't like it. I didn't know she could be so vicious.
"I hate you." Traci tells me conversationally. "All the time I spent with you I was thinking up reasons I could leave. God knows why I stayed so long with you!"
"Oh for god's sake! Sober up!" Sharlie snaps and throws her glass of water in Traci's face.
Annie laughs, Traci screams and Sharlie looks smug.
Traci starts ranting and moves forward, arms flailing, to – presumably – hit me, but falls over her own feet. I catch her quickly, if she had fallen she would have landed on the broken glass.
"Are we a mecca for insane women tonight?" Annie asks.
It certainly feels that way for me.
Luckily the cab arrives and I'm saved from further insanity.
The cab ride is uneventful, thank the lord, Traci passes out leaning against me, and her wet hair drips all over my shoulder. Annie and Sharlie decide to count up how many of tonight's events count as disasters. I stare out of the window and wonder when my life turned into a circus.
We drop Sharlie off first. "It's been a blast! Same time next week?" She shouts over her shoulder as she gets out of the cab.
I hope she's joking.
"Considering the fact that this girl gets tossed in the air by her fellow rah-rah girls she's really heavy." Annie complains, lugging the comatose Traci along the hall with me.
"We're almost there." I reply.
"You should have just left her there, you don't owe her anything."
"She's pregnant." I say softly. "Couldn't just leave her there."
Annie doesn't know that it might be my kid. I don't know why I never told her. Maybe it's because I had this dumb idea that Traci would come back to me and I didn't want Annie making snide comments to her about not knowing who got her pregnant.
"Why don't we just leave her here?" Annie suggests. "Let her sleep it off in the halls?"
It's tempting, but for some reason I just can't be as mean to Traci as she's been to me.
"And just what is going on here?"
Annie and I look up to see the source of the new voice.
As I feared, it's Ms Ellsworth, the supervisor of this dorm.