Inferno

eighteen | the accident

"This looks like it," Marianna points at a pub to our left, shrouded in dark with a green board atop, reading 'Irish pub and restaurant.' "There's two of them here, and I'm the worst bridesmaid in history to not even know which one do I need to be at."

"Well, we can go and check if this one's it, and if not, the navigation system on the screen apparently says it's only ten minutes ahead."

"I guess," she clambers out of the car, and I follow her stride to the pub, feeling dizzy as soon as the wide black doors open to the glitzy interiors, the rancid smell of vodka unfurled in the air. Regret's somewhere there too, but it's too late I realise and so just cling to Marianna like a lost kitty. "Do you see your friend?"

"I see a group over there," I do too, settled on a table right across the platform with multiple steel gray poles that I'm surprised are not glaring pink like everything else is in here. Seems like a bachelorette, yes. All the women at the round table are, unsurprisingly, dressed in shades of pink too, except one of them's got a sparkly tiara barely atop her blonde head and she's the first one to spot us. "You're here," she squeals, running over in our direction and plummeting onto Marianna faster than I could reckon. "God, I missed you."

"Me too, I'm sorry I'm late," Marianna, gasping for breath, mutters when she loosens her pointy nail clawed grip and instead directs her attention on me. "Leia, this is Grace, Grace this is Leia.

"Freaking awesome," She pulls me in a hug, her Gucci perfume overwhelmed by the scent of rum, that I feel transfer onto me while she nearly tackles me down. "Come on, let's get this party started," a wee like noise escapes her mouth or possibly her nostrils, before she drags Marianna and I along.

"Actually I need to—" my pleas are disrupted by a collective cheer from the rest of the group, all synchronised with perfect tans, corset tops and chiseled faces cut out of the new issue of vogue in all probability. "You were saying something?" Grace turns to me, eyes wider than an upstate chihuahua deprived of a cushy bed.

"Yeah, the thing is I can't really stay," prior to getting a reaction out of Grace, one of the other girls, one with wild amber waves comes grabbing my hand, sneaking me off to the side.

"You can't leave now. Grace is only short of the strawberry daiquiris turning out of stock to have a full blown mental breakdown, and if her pictures have smeared mascara, she'll raise hell. I'm not kidding," she looks at me, her voice of stone and meaning business.

I'm not sure how I should respond, glad when Marianna comes to my rescue. "Waverley, you can't force Leia to stay, she's already done enough for me."

"Fine," Waverly says, her nonchalance unbelieving. "Then I guess you'll be happy informing Grace why she'll not be having a reunion with her sorority sisters at her wedding."

"Alright, why not?" Marianna asks, just as riddled as I am.

"Because she mailed you with their special invitations and I'm guessing you didn't forward any of those," Waverly smiles, rather smugly and then raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow at me, her blackmail silent yet killing as Marianna loses colour, blanched under the flickering blue lights. "It's sorted then," sashaying in her heeled black boots, we follow Waverley back to the table.

"I'm sorry you're having to do this, I didn't realise she's even using mail after her obsession with Twitter," Marianna grumbles, while I can just pass a concerted smile.

"No worries. I had to be somewhere tonight anyway and your company's better than a DVD player, so," I forget that priceless look everyone gives me for ditching Netflix and yet I never get used to it. A glass of that daiquiri might help, but I'd rather not flip on it.