That's where you're wrong

by drarrylicious

RPF AU Crisspez. The University of Michigan trembles in excitement when Darren Criss comes back after disappearing for a year. But things had changed, and he's not the only leader anymore. He challenges his best friend in what it seemed a fun bet: to get in Lauren Lopez's bed.

28. The horror and the poetry

Chapter 28: The horror and the poetry

There's a type of sadness that exposes those who suffer it like the moon in a clear night. Squeaked sobs quietened by the palm of a hand in a bathroom stall that are revealed by red eyes and fake smiles that you cannot misunderstand; and drunken midnight calls that blow the receptor's ears as they hear the nonsense screaming coming from the other side of the telephone.

But there are other times when sadness dwells in without a warning sign. And that's why some people break silently, from the outside in, the sorrow breaking in like an invader, finding the darkest corner of the soul to claim as its residence.

Lauren Lopez had grown up enough at this point to know that avoidance of confrontation by keeping oneself busy at all times would, eventually, backfire. She was smart enough to skip that part and devote a few hours of her time to lay in bed and think about the past few months. The mistakes have been made from every side possible and she did not attempt to count her own and make herself feel guilty. But what haunted her the most were memories that came from places so violent and cruel that she didn't want to recall being involved with.

Selfishness comes in different levels, sizes and packages, from picking the movie you want to see in the cinema without consulting, to destroying someone else's life in defense of the ones you want. She knew that, at this point, she'd have to continue being selfish if she wanted to survive.

"Let's call that a wrap," Julia said, but it was the following babble and movement in the auditorium what awoke Lauren from her absorption. "Thank you so much, everyone, for showing up. We will be updating the results by tomorrow, in the hall outside the auditorium."

Lauren hung the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and headed to the door when a hand stopped her, placing gently on her elbow.

"Hey," It was Julia again. Her voice sounded sweet and friendly. "Is everything alright?"

Julia had probably not realized she made that question several times within the last days, but Lauren nodded.

"Everything's perfect, coach." She replied, jokingly. It was weird but astonishing to see her friend in the position of a director, and to see her displaying all of that knowledge of a senior student that she admired so badly. "Kind of nervous for the result, obviously."

Julia grunted a laugh, "Stop that. And you know you're getting the part already. You're probably the most experienced out of all these freshmen and drop outs that got here." She said the last phrase much more lowly and rolling her eyes.

"It wasn't that bad."

Julia's eyes gleamed for one second. "Anyways, what are you doing right now? Do you wanna go get some coffee? I want to be lazy for these last days before rehearsals start and my social life spontaneously combusts."

"I gotta go talk with Mrs. Wood right now, sorry." Lauren apologized.

"Oh. That's okay. See you tomorrow then, I guess."

Lauren nodded and smiled to the girl, before walking out of the auditorium. She made sure to arrive early to her meeting with the professor to compensate their last encounter. The first ten minutes of their appointment were just like any other one that Lauren had with a professor, but her mind was wandering through nowhere in particular, a habit that had gotten inconveniently usual during the last couple weeks. It was only after a very determinate phrase of the old woman that snapped her out of the smoke that she felt around her.

"I just don't think this is what they're looking for."

"W-what?" Lauren blinked, partly because it surprised her and partly because her mind was in another astral plane.

"Don't get me wrong," Mrs. Wood continued, gently but sincere, "your essay is very good. Very good. It's appropriately redacted, structured and exposed. But the magistrates read a thousand of works like these. You picked Shakespeare for a start, and then your selected theme sounds rather... juvenile, if I'm honest. It'd be interesting for a high school lecture, but you're facing more elevated standards here."

She looked genuinely upset with herself thorough the sermon. "I am really sorry. You can present your essay during class if you like, but I'm not sending it to the contest."

Mrs. Wood handed the essay back to Lauren, who slowly grabbed it with both hands. There was a moment of silence that they both felt would be preceded by a dishonest grin, a shake of hands and a closing door. But when it seemed about to happen, the paper hit the wooden table again and a disposed voice said:

"What do I have to do to fix it?"

Mrs. Wood's lips split slightly open as she looked at her. Then she shook her head slowly and closed them again.

"Should I have to change the theme?" Lauren asked.

"I'm delivering them by tomorrow in the afternoon, after our class. I'm sorry." The woman repeated, but Lauren would not give it up so quickly.

"I can finish it by tomorrow in the afternoon."

She was aware of how impossible this was.

"I will finish it." She added, before her teacher could have the chance to object. She stood up and -at last- gave her a dishonest grin. "Thank you, Mrs. Wood. I will see you tomorrow."

She allowed the anxiety-induced adrenaline of that unfailing deadline to take over her, and she gave a hurried walk to her apartment, made a full jug of coffee, and sat in front of her computer desk. She'd barely move during the next 14 hours.

Caliban licked Darren's hand as he put its paws on his lap and rested its head on them. For a second, he thought it could actually feel how miserable he was, as he had been following him the entire night.

"You alright, mate?" Brian asked, sitting down at the sofa in front of him, next to Rachel. It seemed like it was obvious not only to the dog, then. "Listen, I know you will hate me for saying this. But don't you think, eventually, with a bit of time, something like this would happen? I mean, it's not that I ever hoped it to be, it's just that..."

"I don't think it was precisely time what came between us." Darren said, as he let out a puff of smoke. "Joe played a big part of it. He told Lauren about the bet."

There was a silence before Rachel commented, "Does she really thinks that stupid joke is that important? I mean... it's you guys. You two are... something else. You can not see it."

"I just think she saw what she have been deliberately trying to ignore all this time." Which was him, herself, and a lot of things in the world that you would swallow like a hard pill of medicine. "I'd rather not talk about it for the rest of my life." He breathed as he stroke Caliban's ears softly. He wouldn't try to get back together with her, not after that fight. Not after the things they said to each other.

"Say no more..." Brian got up from the sofa again and walked to the table to get a joint of weed, "I have just what you need for collective amnesia."

Darren was particularly quiet as they smoke. Rachel and Brian were later on joined by Jeff and Jim, and their voices sounded somewhere in the distance. Every song felt more depressing than the later but he told to himself he wouldn't let that get to him. If he stopped to allow himself to feel, he might just would not ever stop.

So he drank, and smoke, and drank some more. Petted Canibal, pretended to laugh at his friends' jokes and convinced himself that he'd survive for another round. But sometime by the evening, the door opened and he couldn't pretend things were alright anymore.

"Hey," Joe greeted them, kind of quietly. He held a helmet on his hand and he fixed his hair, jittery- it was unavoidable to notice how everyone's gazes fixed upon him.

Darren was tapping his fingers on the side of the couch as he watched him walk towards the table to leave his helmet on it.

"I'm sorry, Brian." Darren said. "But I have to do this."

He looked at his friend for a sign of approval, but Brian just winced, wishing he hadn't offered his place for the night. Darren got up and approached Joe.

"You have to go." Darren's expression was plain blank when he said it, which made it much more grave. "It's over."

Joe's eyebrows went up, "What do you mean over?"

"You're not a part of this anymore. I'm paying your lawyer because I don't want to owe you something, but you are nothing to me anymore."

Joe wet his lips, looking at him, astonished. "Because of a girl?"

Darren felt frustrated by still having to remark the seriousness of the fight of the past week. "Gosh. You knew that was the most important thing in my life, and you ruined it on purpose. You didn't need to do that, but you did. I'm ruining the most important thing in yours. Which is only fair. Get it now?"

There was a brief silence before Joe quietly let out, "Darren, you know why I-"

But Darren couldn't listen to this. Not now. "Joe, get-the-fuck-out, okay? Don't make us do this the rough way."

"Us?" Darren could only see the dissapointment in what used to be his best friend's eyes before he turned around and practically shouted, "I created this! All of this! Brian wouldn't be able to afford this place if it wasn't for the races we made. When you first came here, you clinged onto my back like a little kid and you fucking know it. This group wouldn't even exist if I hadn't decided so, and now you're kicking me out over some girl? And do I need to remind you, it was her who screwed me over."

"You should've come to me first. It's over now. Please leave." Darren's voice was monotonous and that somehow made it worse.

"So, you all agree with Darren? You think I should get out of here? Forever?"

Joe looked around. There was an eternal, exhausting silence in which everyone tried their best to avoid Joe's eyes desperately searching for contact.

"Rachel?" Joe called. His last hope.

The girl's eyes finally abandoned her glass of beer to finally land on Joe's. You could notice that she felt miserable for it, but she slowly shook her head.

Joe snorted a hysterical laugh, "Great." He said, heading to the door. "Let's see how all of you end up following Darren around. Worked great for Rick."

The slam of the door made everyone jump slightly, and for the first time in forever, nobody really knew what to say.

Maybe it was the fact that Lauren had stayed up all night and had emptied her jar of coffee thorough it. Maybe it was the slight euphoria about the fact that Mrs. Wood had accepted her essay and read it in front of her -which allowed Lauren to spectate the numerous expressions of surprise and admiration drawn on her face, more valuable than a golden trophy.

"You definitely made me come around about what I said yesterday, and trust me, I am not such an easy target." She grinned and shook her head, and the confidency between the professor and her best student emerged there again, before Lauren hurried to get back on her seat and prepare the presentation she had to give to the class as a part of the project.

But the fact was that she didn't remember bringing a book with a blue cover with her.

"Excuse me, is this yours?" Lauren asked to the boy in the seat next to her. He looked at the book in her hands and shook her head.

Everyone was rushing into the classroom, so looking around trying to spot the person who abandoned it there was useless. She opened the book -it was convenient that it was Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra, having in mind her thesis, and she wondered once more if maybe she had been so fuzzy the last week that she had forgot completely about having that book. Then a quiet gasp escaped from her throat. There was a handwritten quote on the first page that felt so familiar, but it couldn't be.

I know we don't talk anymore, but happy birthday.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep, or the emotions bucketed up inside of her, or the fact that she practically forgot that it was her birthday, but for only a moment, her eyes watered and she sighed and she felt seven months swiping all over her again.

Life is loss after loss after loss.

There was a fog in her mind when she heard the teacher calling out her name. But she acted out of survival. She stood up, walked to the front of the class and pulled out her last-minute exposition, as the professor introduced her.

She felt the class breathing. Eyes like a dag on her. Her hands were shaking.

"Hello everyone, thanks for having me, professor, I really appreciate the opportunity to share something I'm very passionate about."

She met Darren's eyes, who was in the last corner of the classroom. A flash went through her mind as she remembered one of their first conversations in the library.

"Always go for Shakespeare. He saved my ass the last years."

"I'm not doing it just to save my ass. Besides, I don't wanna take the easy way."

"You're underestimating the beauty of simple things."

She gulped and it was bitter.

"Shakespeare was..." The voice that continued to come out of her vocal chords sounded robotic. She was a spectator of the show and the show was her own life, "a fraud."

She cleared her throat, and felt the sound echoing inside her body.

"The dominant theme that moved his work was passion, and its greatest forms- love and fury. I initiated my work on the portraits of romance and the co-relation between modern film, but as I went deeper into the work I got dwell by the real protagonist of the plays: idealization. So I started working on his personal profile, trying to make sense of why I was drawn to the work, and this is my theory."

During the next twenty minutes, Lauren walked the class through the journey she had immersed herself just hours ago, going through a profiling of the author as a person and writer through his most famous works approaching the subject of love: Cymbeline, Much Ado About Nothing, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Anthony and Cleopatra -and she stared directly into the wall as she did-, and of course, Romeo and Juliet. While she cleared it was important to remember that you could never assume the true intentions of the author, and that it was indeed a fallacy to pretend it was as relevant as the work itself, the intention of the essay was to discuss the impact of such assumption in culture. Shakespeare was in many ways an agitator of society's values: if he could mock the monarchy and other rigid forms of oppressing ourselves, why couldn't love be another one of his parodies? No one had dared to think so, and Shakespeare's supposed ideas of love were bombarded in every form of art or media right until the present day. In her project, she quoted various plays as well as some of his poetry and compared it to the rest of his provoking statements.

As the lecture went on, the tension in her shoulders, chest and jaws had relaxed enough to let her do a good job, after all she knew what she was doing. The first shock had passed and the confidence boost allowed her to flow through the presentation as necessary. So she felt fairly proud when she was finished, and looked around the classroom with a grin to ask:

"Has anyone got any questions?"

She could not believe the hand that was raised out of all people.

"Um, yeah, I have a question." Darren's voice sounded way too displeased for whatever he was going to say. "What kind of bullshit is this?"

"Language!", Mrs. Wood stood up straight in her chair, her eyebrows very round and voice very high.

But Lauren couldn't even notice Mrs. Wood even if she were turning into a werewolf. She snorted, the anger in her chest jumping out of the floor to the fucking sky. "Um, excuse me?"

"Shakespeare's greatness is a fraud and he was making fun of people." Darren's eyes were staring at her like he could just not believe that statement was possible to construct and far less be said out loud by a person. "Are you even hearing what you say?"

Lauren snorted again, very quietly, but not quietly enough to not be heard. "Um," she said again, not out of awkwardness but because she couldn't believe he was questioning her academically in her own presentation. "My theory is well justified as I have expended the last half hour saying so."

"You definitely don't believe this." Darren leaned on his chair and shook his head, like trying to contain words. But he didn't seem just annoyed, he seemed furious. "Don't tell me you believe this."

Lauren sighed -again very quietly, but it did take her one second to do so, and she shrugged as she let out, "What do you think?" and that question was a resigned way of saying I definitely do so.

The whole class was in the deepest silence as no one could understand what the hell that dialogue meant. Mrs. Wood was one movement away from jumping from her chair to intervene in the situation.

"You know, you're so obsessed with trying to break down everything you believe in, that you can't even see the absurdity of this."

"You know," Lauren's voice got louder again as she imitated his words. She felt a maddening rage boiling inside of her, "Idealization sounds better than the truth, but it's not real. And the reality isn't always pretty: Arthur Conan Doyle hated Sherlock Holmes with a burning passion. Kafka begged a friend to burn all of his writings before he died. And Virgil wanted the Aeneid to burn as well. You can go on thinking Shakespeare's a legend or a genius, but it could be just a joker who got his way. It isn't the first time this could happen."

Darren let out an ironic laugh as a response to her raised eyebrow and just replied calmly, "You know what? Yeah, you're right..."

But the sarcasm in his voice was oblivious. Instead of waiting for a reply, he gathered his materials from the table, put it back on the backpack that was on the floor, and got up without saying a thing. He walked out so infuriated out of the classroom, that a small breeze caught Lauren as he passed right next to her. She let out an inadvertent sigh as he was away. She was completely speechless out of sudden.

"That's enough," Mrs. Wood said, shaking her hands in disapproval. "That was completely out of place. Let's go back to the class immediately. Thank you, Lauren, for your wonderful presentation."

Lauren smiled, but there was something that felt very, very wrong and she couldn't explain exactly why. The blue book of Anthony and Cleopatra remained there on her desk, untouched as the scene of a crime with a body that was getting stiff and cold.

The next three weeks were followed by class in the morning, long naps thorough the day and late evening rehearsals. Julia's play, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's The Doll House, was headed to premiere after what felt like the most exhausting creative process she ever experienced. Every time she had to get in touch with her character's feelings, the real ones peeked through a window and started walking in one by one. She often got flashbacks of everything that had happened during the last months and she thought she might could have lived everything she ever needed to live for the rest of her days.

Every time it rained, a thunder reminded her of the shots that might've killed her or someone else. If she closed her eyes, she could practically feel the gun Michael had pointed into her head.

Every time she passed by a public telephone, she remembered calling Darren after getting attacked by three strangers, and then him coming inside in literally five minutes to make sure she was okay.

Every time she passed near the river, it was him kissing her for the first time on the middle of the train tracks. And then him taking her at the beach, under the night sky, and the way he would always walk on the bad side of the street so she'd feel safer, and how when they had sex he'd always make sure she came first... And every piece of that puzzle was scrambled altogether, she couldn't pick which memory to keep and recall but she had to take everything in, the good, the bad, the horrible and the poetry of it all.

She hadn't and didn't intent to talk to Darren during all this time. She'd do extraordinary amounts of work every day to avoid walking by him or catch more than a glimpse of his silhouette: arriving late at class, leaving early, focusing on absolutely anything but him. And the very few times this didn't work, she held her breath and pretended not to know who he was. He only glanced at her once, but in the moment he realized what her intentions were, he looked away, and never insisted -not even once.

Another person who seemed to have started that trend was Caroline. She wouldn't direct one look at her, and Lauren felt so overwhelmed by the whole Joe-Darren situation that she preferred not to address it, and well it was just bad that this would mean the end of their friendship but that was how things were.

So by the time they premiered The Doll House, she only had Julia's friends to support her: Nick, Dylan and a few of other cast members. When the show was over and she was changing her clothes, putting on jeans and a black tank top, Julia gave her a soft hug from behind.

"My star!" She cried. "Congratulations."

"Congratulations to you too, coach." Lauren squeezed her friend's arm. "It's all thanks to you."

Julia blushed slightly as she rolled her eyes, "Thanks, I guess. But more importantly... are we going to get absolutely wasted tonight or what?"

Lauren closed her locket and sighed. "You know what?" She said, "We might as well do."

They arrived at Dylan's place in a taxi and worked their way through the crowd to find him doing shots of tequila with a group of people chanting his name.

"Seems we are behind on the run," Julia grabbed one of the bottles and two glasses from the table as she patted Dylan gently on the shoulder, "Didn't know you were suddenly so popular, dear."

The house was kind of exceedingly crowded and every time Lauren turned her head around she saw someone new arriving. They found a spot on the stairs and sat down.

"Here you go," Julia said, pouring the two glasses and handing her one. "To our play," she cherished and raised her glass.

"To us and our humbling but escalating career." Lauren smirked and then winced as the alcohol made its way through her throat. The heat instantly hitting her, she let out a breath.

With five more shots on the go, they joined Julia's group of friends and talked, danced and talked some more. Lauren was sure she wouldn't remember half of these people's name, but that was okay because for the first time in forever she felt only in the present moment and not like in a dream she couldn't wake up from.

But that happiness was only an illusion, and as the alcohol started to wear off again, she found herself knocking the bathroom door because she just might throw up just a little at any given moment.

"I'll be right out."

She let out a sigh and leaned on the wall. She tried to fix her gaze on anything to concentrate on not puking, but the lights were all around, the loud jabbering of too many voices and the strange music suddenly stunned her. There was a guy in a blue shirt at the other side of the door frame, and Lauren hoped he didn't turn around, or better he could leave because she was about to splash something very nasty onto his clothes.

She closed her eyes, breathing heavy one, two, three times...

"Lauren?" A gentle voice asked. "Are you alright?"

Of course it was Darren fucking Criss, right there at the worst or best moment possible as usual. When she opened her eyes she distinguished the guy in the blue shirt as Brian. He apparently had been talking to him before Lauren found this place and started to get nauseous. She hadn't even noticed them.

He looked genuinely concerned.

"Yeah," Lauren replied in complete denial.

"Are you sure?" Darren insisted. This was the first time he talked to her in weeks after their scandalous fight in the class that (of course) the entire campus wouldn't stop discussing and add gregarious details she didn't even want to know of.

Before she could respond, the bathroom door opened and Devin Lytle came out.

"I'm sorry," She said to Lauren as she made way for her. Her voice was smooth and sweet, "All yours."

Then she leaned against the wall, on the other side of the door frame, between Darren and Brian, and resumed an apparent previous talk.

Darren kept on looking at Lauren, maybe still waiting for an answer. She held the gaze for a few seconds, the nausea suddenly just the minor of her problems. She pointed her eyebrows at Devin and gave him a faked smile before closing the bathroom door with a slam.

Oh, she was so pissed she could just destroy everything at her sight and reach. After looking at herself in the mirror for a while and repeating You're not gonna let them see you like this until the thought sobered her up, at least temporarily, she walked out of the bathroom and like if she had tunnel vision she went straight to the front door and walked out of the house.

Instead of going home, she wandered trough a park she had seen from the taxi on the way there, two blocks away from the house. She crossed her arms when the cold breeze reached her. The place seemed to be completely desert. Besides a few birds snuggling in the trees, it was silent and she was very thankful for that. The image of Darren and Devin wouldn't go away from her mind as much as she tried to push it. Was it possible that only after a month of their break up he was seeing someone else? She pictured the possibility of it taking place at Dylan's house, Darren smiling and placing his hands on her waist and leaning into a kiss..

And she felt about to be sick again.

Lauren wandered a bit more in the park until she reached the playground. She almost gasped when she distinguished a silhouette on the swingset, but when she recognized the leather jacket, black boots and red lipstick she decided to approach it instead.

"Hey, stranger."

"Lauren... Oh, God." Rachel replied, failing to hide her shock."It's so nice to see you again."

The last time she saw that girl, she had just been assaulted at her birthday party and she had made a cup of tea and sat down beside her the entire night.

"Same. I guess you know..."

"Yeah. I am very sorry, truly." Rachel shook her head. "Everything that's gone down during the last couple months was just..."

It seemed like she couldn't find the words, and Lauren understood.

"Don't worry about it. But what are you doing here? Were you at Dylan's?"

"Yeah, but I wanted some fresh air." Rachel lit a cigar before continuing, slowly balancing on the swings. "I just start thinking too much sometimes, you know."

"Tell me about it..." Lauren replied lowly. "I kind of got sick at the party. And then, of course, I found my ex with someone else."

Rachel's lower lip fell down as she looked at her. "You're kidding me."

Lauren looked away into the leaves of a tree that was swaying slowly with the wind. "Not sure what I saw. Don't want to know altogether."

"Smart." Rachel pointed at her. She started walking towards the merry-go-round and Lauren followed her. They sat down one next to another, looking at the swings still swaying slightly in their place, and only then she realized the girl had a bottle of beer in her hands. "Want one?"

Rachel handed her a cigarette, and Lauren wondered why she felt that she needed one, but she accepted it. She coughed shortly after taking the first puff and Rachel's elbow hit her arm.

"You alright?" She asked, failing to hold a laugh.

"Oh, leave me alone." Lauren replied, her voice a bit hoarse. She cleared her throat and continued smoking.

"I will not. It's the first time I see you in forever, and I don't know when will be the next one be, so I'm making it count."

Lauren grinned, "I've actually missed you." She looked down at the nicotine degrading slowly in her hand, "Everything is upside down now."

Rachel gulped, not knowing how to properly respond, "Well, if you look at the bright side, you got out of a big trouble... I mean, everyone in that group is a mess, I myself as one can confirm. And if you go out with one, you go out with all of that. Trust me, I love them all but therapy would fail to solve these people's problems."

Lauren shook her head, "It's not just that. I'm just so angry. This is not... Life is not how it was supposed to be. There are not... guaranties. You can do everything just right, or just how you think is right, and things will fall apart nevertheless. I think things have been falling apart my entire life and I've just begun to see it."

The look of disapproval on her mother's face, Rick's body getting cold on the concrete, her white shoes splashed with blood, Darren's hair grazing her neck as he kissed and sucked every pore of her skin. A shot in the rain. The sound of Darren's bike riding away.

Rachel's arm wrapped around her as just one single tear got cold at the end of her jaw. Lauren rested her head on her shoulder, snuggling close to stand the cold breeze. Rachel's hand placed on her knee, and her thumb was slowly stroking her leg. They remained there, sharing the silence, for a long time.

"You have to live for the moments, you know?" Rachel finally said, and Lauren had almost forgot what they were talking about, "Those little moments where you're grasping for air, and you finally catch it. And you say, this is it. It's not a perfect life, but just the perfect person at the perfect time, or the perfect song at the perfect car ride... And you hold onto it. And then you let it go."

The hand on her back had moved slowly to her waist, and the grip became more noticeable for her. Lauren turned her head to look at her.

"You have to let it go," Rachel was looking at her as well, and the hand that was on her knee was placed on her jawline, slowly caressing it.

"How?"

Lauren's voice was barely audible. She felt the soft graze of her fingers up on her cheek, and she hadn't realized at what point she had placed her hands on Rachel's knees, but it didn't feel bad at all.

"You just live, Lauren."

Rachel glanced down just a second at Lauren's lips before deciding she was going to go for it, and somehow Lauren knew exactly at the same moment that she was going to let her. Her lips reached her own in a soft -but not too soft- movement, her hand grabbing onto her jaw to keep her steady enough. Rachel leaned a bit more, her nose crashed a bit on her face, and deepened the kiss.

Lauren allowed it to just be and decided to not decide temporarily. This wasn't too bad and Rachel was warm and it felt good to be drunk and be kissed in a merry-go-round.

Lauren pulled slightly from her leather jacket, and she took this as a sign to make some space for herself between her legs. Rachel's breath got heavier and Lauren liked that someone else got worked up because of her. She wrapped her arms around Rachel's waist and felt its warmness and liked that too.

"Wait just a second," Rachel whispered, and then she grabbed the bottle that had been laying on the floor and finished it in one long drink.

Lauren just stared at her. It was like watching Darren's female form, literally.

Rachel continued making out with her at a very impressive speed, and she felt the grip of a hand slowly running up to her hip and unbuttoning her jeans.

Lauren gasped as Rachel's fingers found just the right spot almost right away. Her hands clutched behind Rachel's neck and she threw her head back, closing her eyes. Rachel's lips were on her neck, and she couldn't help but to let out a moan here and there.

And there it was again, hazel eyes, and the remembrance of calloused fingers knowing all the right spots to make her mad, to profess that everything was going to be okay, to make her scream. And she was once again in a strange land, where they had divided her from her body and there was a filter between her mind and a reality she couldn't fix her gaze upon.

"Wait." The words actually came out before she could decide it, "I can't."

Rachel slowly pulled away and looked at her, "Is something wrong?"

"Yes." Lauren replied. "No... I'm not sure."

"That's alright." Rachel said calmly, though the redness on her cheeks wouldn't disappear instantly. "Just tell me if there's something I can do."

Lauren shook her head, "I think I might just go to Dylan's and call a taxi. I've had a long night."

"Let's go, I also need more alcohol, so..." She stood up and offered her hand. Lauren accepted it and then slowly let it go as she got up.

"Listen, about this..."

"Yeah, I know, I know... You're like, so straight, or something, aren't you?" Rachel said bitterly as she lit another cigar, like if she had that exact same conversation before, and they started walking towards Dylan's house. "I'm just messing with you. I won't tell anybody if you don't."

"Thanks," Lauren replied. "I think I just need a friend."

Rachel looked at her and Lauren hoped that it was not pity what she saw in her eyes.

She put an arm around her, "I can just be a friend perfectly fine."

At Dylan's house, Darren had looked for Lauren everywhere before giving up. He had asked Julia and it didn't work, and instead of getting drunk and enjoying the party, his mind was just quivering with possible scenarios he didn't want to deeply explore.

"I think I'm gonna go now, guys." He finally said to Brian and Devin. "I'm not feeling so good."

Devin's eyes showed a bit of misery as he said it, but Darren wouldn't explain any further, after all they had just bumped into each other and decided to talk for a while. Brian said goodbye with a sign of his hand and Darren headed to the door.

His bike was parked one block away, so he lit a cigar for the walk. He rested a shoulder on a lamp post as he let out the smoke and enjoyed the silence for a little while. The party was impressively crowded in comparison to the solitude of the night. Darren turned around as he thought he heard a distant noise, but there was no one in the empty street.

He continued to shake his head at the constant memory of Lauren's eyes on his. She had never looked at him with such disgust. That was how they were going to be now? Were they going to pretend they were strangers for the sake of their well-beings?

He wouldn't dare to approach her again. Not after she had made clear that she wanted nothing to do with him.

And what she did to Joe was... he couldn't name it or address it, but somehow he understood.

He understood Lauren and he couldn't stay mad at her, but she had made her choice and it was clear that he had to move on. He didn't know how or when or if that was truly a possibility but he hoped to God there was some way of erasing any trace of her from his mind, and to have clothes she hadn't touched, hair she hadn't played with, skin that wouldn't call for her every single night...

Darren turned around again. He had the strange feeling of being seen.

He threw the cigar on the floor and walked to his bike. After reaching down to his helmet, he was one hundred percent sure he heard something, but there wasn't any time to turn around, and there were suddenly many arms around him, and before he could understand, everything went black.