We walked into the party hand in hand. The atmosphere made me feel sick almost immediately. The scent of beer and sweat was all too obvious, but I came because he wanted me too. Besides, I loved dancing and Friday nights seemed like the time to live a little.
                Some unknown song blasted off a stereo so loud, I could barely understand the words. All the pieces of the song unraveled until they were entirely detached. There were bodies everywhere and voices following.
                My eyes wandered, searching for Madelyn. I invited her the second Logan convinced me to come with him. He always ended up spending the entire time with his other friends anyways. Madelyn hates parties, but I won’t drink if she’s with me. I hate myself when I’m drunk.
                We dodged intoxicated bodies and wound through the crowd until we found the kitchen. The only people in there were ones passing by for another drink. I hopped up on a marble counter, dangling my legs and facing Logan. He ran a hand through his brown hair before smiling at me and moving closer. His hands found the edge of the counter on either side of me, his face only inches away from mine.
                “I’m going to go find the guys, okay?” he whispered.
                “Okay,” I whispered back. He gave me a small kiss before turning away and disappearing into the mass of bodies.
                I swayed to the music playing in some other room, tapping my fingers on the edge of the counter. I wanted to drift to wherever they were dancing, but I had to wait for Mads. I was about to call her and tell her she could just stay home when she showed up in the doorway, staring at me and smiling.
                I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and motioned her over. She swung herself up next to me. I didn’t notice how close she was sitting until I started feeling hot.
                “Where’s Logan?” she asked even though she knew the answer.
                I shoved her with my shoulder and laughed. I swear she started blushing.
                “Honestly, he can’t keep leaving you alone,” she continued.
                Resting my head back on a cabinet, I sighed. “Mads.”
                “Let’s go find him,” she said, tugging on my arm. “Al, come on. Alana,” she dragged out my name.
                Amidst all her talking, I started laughing again. “I need a drink,” I mumbled.
                I don’t know why I said it. She stopped. She stopped talking and she stopped pulling on my arm. She stopped laughing. The look on her face made me feel awful.
                Before I could apologize, the moment passed and she was back.
                “Al, let’s go looking for him. Maybe we can dance a little?” She was smiling and pretending nothing had happened. I nodded.
                Mads dragged me around the house for at least ten minutes before we found him playing a stupid drinking game with his friends. They were all picking on one kid wearing a faded blue shirt. I had seen him around school some, but I didn’t even know his name. Logan kept looking at him.
                “Guys, really?” he started. He was drunk. Looking back at the guy wearing the blue shirt, Logan continued, “Who cares if he likes boys?” His comment received laughs from all the guys surrounding him. They thought he was being sarcastic, but I knew what his sincerity sounded like.
                One of Logan’s friends caught on, and when he did, he almost spit out his beer. “You’re being serious?” He laughed lightly and shook his head, taking another drink. A second of his friends pointed his beer bottle at Logan.
                “Why don’t you kiss him then?”
                “I don’t like boys.”
                “Kiss him or ten shots,” he nodded to the drinking glasses that were leaving rims on the hardwood table.
                Mads grabbed my hand instinctively. She knew what anger could do to me.
                I looked back at Mads for a second and when I turned around, he did it. Logan kissed him. It wasn’t a peck on the lips. Soon enough, their hands were in each other’s hair and they wouldn’t break apart.
                A few of the guys whistled.
                “Al,” Mads voice faded away.
                Suddenly, there was so much anger. I couldn’t think. I could hardly hear anything. My ears were ringing. Logan was kissing that guy the way he kissed me.
                When they finally pulled apart, I wasn’t thinking straight.
                “Hey, Logan,” I called to him, mockingly. All his friends turned their heads with him.
                I turned to Madelyn. She looked at me, confused. I squeezed her hand.
                Then I kissed her. I put my hands around the back of her neck. I kissed her the way I kissed Logan, and suddenly everything around us fell away. She smelled so much like herself, like sand and lavender, and I swear every moment we had ever had together pulsed through my head.
                She kissed back.
                A new song began playing, bringing me back. I pulled away from her harshly. I couldn’t look at her, but she just kept staring at me. My eyes found Logan – he was glaring at me with his jaw tightened, angry. His blue eyes seemed so intense when he was drunk.
                I stumbled back and threw myself into the crowd. I didn’t want to look at anyone, so I got a drink. It was stupid.
            Six months.
            It was stupid.
            I downed it in seconds and grabbed another, tears leaving trails down my cheeks. The red cup in my hand was shaking.
                My chest was hurting and I got a pounding headache. My head was spinning. Nothing was right. Everything hurt. Everything was a blur.
            I closed my eyes and tried to feel like the whole world wasn’t shaking.
            The hurt was swallowing me whole.
                At some point, Mads found me in a mess on the floor of some hallway and got me into her car. When she shut her side door, she let out a long breath and let her head fall. Nothing happened for minutes. I stared at her. I didn’t know she had started crying, but when she pulled her head back up, there were tears falling.
                I wanted to move my fingers up to her face and brush the tears away, but I couldn’t move. She never cried in front of me.
                “We didn’t get to dance,” I slurred.
                Mads smiled, just barely. She let her hair fall in front of her face. She did that all the time – shy smiles she covered. God, she had the most beautiful smile. God, she was so beautiful. With her long dark hair tucked behind her ears, her favorite red lipstick, and her bright eyes, she looked so beautiful.
                She looked so beautiful.
                She looked so beautiful.
                She looked so beautiful.
                I kept saying it in my head over and over again, kind of like counting sheep.
                We pulled up to her house. The lights were on inside, but her parents wouldn’t care if they saw me like this. This wasn’t the first time. My parents, on the other hand, would kill me if I showed up in this condition.
                I closed my eyes and let her guide me up to her room. It was the first door on the right, the one with soft blue walls and lavender in a vase by her bed.
                She set me down on the side of the bed, then turned to close her door and take off her sweater, leaving her in a cami and worn out jeans. She moved her hands up to rub her face. She moved in slow motion. Turning on a lamp, she looked at me.
                She looked so beautiful.
                “I’m going to sleep on the couch downstairs.” Mads paused for the slightest second before turning.
                “Mads,” I whined, grabbing her wrist. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than for her to stay.
                Sitting for a moment on the edge of the mattress, Madelyn started looking around like she could find a reason to leave. Our knees brushed, I laid my head in the crook of her neck. I grabbed her hand and intertwined our fingers. We had always done that.
                “Stay,” I whispered.
                When I moved my head, she was crying again. This time, I managed to move my free hand up to brush the tears away. She looked at me, confused. I swear my heart started racing.
                I crawled under the covers. The sheets smelled just like her, like sand and lavender. Madelyn stayed there, biting her nails and fidgeting with her hands.
                “Stay,” I breathed, fixing my eyes on the ceiling.
                She gave in and collapsed next to me.
            Morning light poured in from Madelyn’s open curtains. As I sat up, head throbbing, I found her sitting by her mirror, wiping away the smudges of mascara and faded lipstick. She must have changed clothes, too.
                “There’s some water and aspirin on the table.” I could hear her trying to act like everything was normal, but it wasn’t.
                I stared at her through the mirror. Mads kept looking down to avoid my eyes, and she started fidgeting with her hands like she had last night. I could see them shaking. Glancing away, only because I couldn’t stand seeing her like this, I reached over to the glass of water and aspirin she had set out.
                “Thanks,” I said, and I hoped it sounded like everything was normal. I guess that didn’t change the fact that everything was wrong. I had never gotten so drunk, not for months at least, and she had never been the one to drive me home. It had always been Logan.
                I had kissed her, too. Maybe pretending I was too drunk to remember anything would work for everyone else, but not for Mads.
                Once I stood up from her bed, I noticed it – her room smelled like cigarettes.
                “Mads?” I asked cautiously.
                Her head shot up. “What?”
                I looked at the lavender flowers so I didn’t have to see her. “Your room smells like cigarettes.” She did not smoke. She would not.
                “You want one?” Mads sounded so calm.
                Glimpsing a pack of Marlboros on her desk, I finally turned to gaze at her. I swear she hardly looked like herself.
                “When did you start?” My voice trailed off, and I was only partly sure I even said something.
                “Not too long ago.” Standing up, she shifted over to the desk and pulled out a cigarette. She rested it between her lips as she rummaged around for a lighter.
                “What the hell?” I scream, walking over to her and forcing her to look at me. When I grabbed her shoulder, Madelyn shrugged me off and ran her hands through her hair over and over again. In one motion, I reached up and pulled the cigarette out of her mouth. I was so close to her then.
                She kept looking at me with this expression I had never seen from her before. I didn’t get it. I couldn’t stand being there, so I turned to leave.
                “Two weeks ago.” Mads said confidently, but harshly.
                “Why? God, Mads.”
                “I don’t have to feel, you know?”
                Her voice sounded so dead.
                I could feel her brown eyes tearing a hole through the back of my head, but I stayed where I was, tapping my fingers against my leg. I wanted so badly to ask her what was wrong.
                “I think I’m going to go talk to Logan.” I spun around. “Try and fix things, I guess.”
                Her eyebrows were raised. “You’ve screwed up a lot more than just that, Al.”
                My heart started beating faster and faster and my head was spinning. I tried to ignore it. I tried to ignore how Mads had seemed oddly sad when Logan and I began dating. I tried to ignore when I caught her holding hands with some girl. I tried ignoring that two weeks ago was the first time I got drunk in six months. I tried ignoring the way she blushed last night at the party. I tried ignoring when I woke up at two in the morning with our faces an inch away and our legs intertwined. I wanted to ignore it when she kissed back.
                “I’m sorry.” It was lame, but it was all I had. When she didn’t answer, I started leaving.
                I couldn’t.
                I spun around again. My mind was just a jumble of thoughts. It’s like I was moving and still restless.
                “Mads?”
                She remained silent.
                I tried to ignore the fact that I wanted to kiss her again.
                “Do you…” I couldn’t get it out.
                I stepped closer, close enough that I could still see smudges of mascara under her eye.
            She looked so beautiful.
            She looked like she was about to cry. She bit her lip and let her hair fall, covering her glassy eyes. With my stomach in a knot and my heart pounding like my hangover headache, I brought my hand up to her and pushed her hair behind her ear. If Madelyn felt my hand shaking, she didn’t say anything.
            It felt right to not move my hand, so I didn’t. I left it, fingers curled against her cheek. I brushed my thumb over her lips.
            As soon as my hand hooked around the back of her neck, I kissed her. I wasn’t drunk on anger or alcohol. I just wanted to. I didn’t kiss her like I kissed Logan, because she wasn’t Logan.
            Logan.
            I pulled away suddenly, still only inches from Madelyn. My face must have looked panicked, because Madelyn’s eyebrows furrowed, and her mouth opened just the slightest bit – she always did that when she was worried.
            “Al?” she said lightly.
            “I don’t-“ I couldn’t.
            “Like girls?” Mads finished.
            I couldn’t.
            “I should go talk to Logan.”
            “Alana.”
            “You and me, I mean…”
            “Al.”
            “I love Logan.” It’s like I was trying to convince myself.
            “I love you.”
            I was empty. There was nothing to say to that.
            “I’m in love with you, Alana.”
            I tried to ignore that I kind of wanted to say it back.
            “I should,” I paused, feeling entirely detached, like that music from the party. I swallowed. “I should go work some things out with Logan.”
            “We never got to dance.” Mads was so unreadable. She was just Mads, that’s what I didn’t get. She smelled just like herself, like sand and lavender, and maybe a little like cigarettes.
            “I should go.”