So you sit on the back step of the catering hall, drinking another glass of wine you stole from the kitchen when Roberto wasn’t looking, and you say the words. “Rejected,” you say, “rejected, rejected, rejected.” You look at her and it hurts; you physically ache from her beauty, but you can’t look away. Her perfection is undeniable and it makes you almost regret trying in the first place.
You glance through the window back at the dance floor, and your eyes find her: the golden beauty of the hour, dancing amongst a cluster of teenage girls who are just beginning to come out of their awkward stages. She’s the kind of girl whose white-blonde curls are forever immortalized in volumes of romantic prose. And she’s dancing. Her movement is careless and loose, radiating innocence and joy. You watch her and you love it. You love her. She flails around, giggling, and you laugh along with her.
Do you even remember how much you drank tonight?
Enough to make a complete idiot of yourself, you're reminded. You cringe as you try to remember the incident that occurred only minutes ago – the transcript of which you imagined would go very differently. You replay the scene in your mind:
You jerk up to her, sloppily draping an arm around her shoulder. As you pull her in to whisper in her ear, she smells the booze on you - it offends her. You take no notice. You coarsely brush her hair out of the way, and murmur what you think is the smoothest line in human history. What does she hear?
“Heyyyy, baby. Why don’tcha c’mon ovah heeeere and dance wit' me?”
She politely excuses herself, leaving you drowning in a sea of girlfriends, all pretending not to see you. Out of the corner of your eye, though, you notice them snickering as they play with the ends of their meticulously-straightened hair. Your cheeks start to burn as you mutter something incomprehensible and scamper away.
You remember that last part plenty clearly.
So, here you are. A twenty two-year old man, drunk and cold, pining away after some sixteen-year old girl.
You loosen your bow-tie and undo your apron.
You really have to stop drinking on the job.