Empty Connections

Chapter Twenty-Two

I should have known, realistically I did know that any party hosted at the boy's house, (and the handful of times we have held one) means that things get messy. By things, I clearly mean us. Where we should all have our eyes peeled for things happening to our rental and possessions. It is hard when there's something freeing about letting go in a place so comforting.

One of the many oversights I had tonight, was just how drunk the people I loved planned on getting, where I thought Cassie and I were going a little overboard, everyone else went full force, no breaks... or water. By everyone else, I do mean myself as well.

It seems all my thoughts have morphed into jumbled words that hardly make any sense, where Rosie and Claudia seem to burst with sentences that make no sense. Lose their filter and blurt everything that pops into their head, I have gone quiet.

The other girls might be far chattier than I ever am, but I usually find myself giggling along to whatever it is they say. Tonight, feels different, like nothing is hitting me as fast as it usually would, ignoring the glaringly obvious reason is hard when inebriated.

When it comes down to it, I blame Cameron once again because he keeps me fully fed even on the days one bite makes me cry into his shoulder. He wraps me up in my weighted blanket and takes apart every gross mis-thought that takes over my consciousness and wraps it in something dark.

Where most people find the eating an abundance of crappy food one of the best parts of pre-drinks, some people opt out of it because getting shit-faced before the party is their goal. I would always skip the food and drink my body weight in alcohol after we got to the party because dealing with the repercussions of putting one awful thing in my body was better than both.

Perhaps saying I am a lightweight only applies when my body was aching for something, and I supplied vodka instead of sustenance. Eating with Cam, against my own desires, before the party is the only reason, I am not with Cassie on top of the sofa cushions.

"I tried to cut her off," Sophie smiles, blonde hair curled down her back as she comes to join me, leaning against the wall with a red cup in our hands. "But she was not having a bar of it, if anything I am glad that Alfie is staying sober for Madeline so he can make sure she doesn't fall of anything"

"I keep going back and forth between talking with her, I feel like there's a difference between going through a rough patch and whatever is going on... I don't know how they feel for each other, but should a person change this much?"

"It depends, maybe we aren't qualified to give out advice because getting into relationships was healing in a lot of ways, or at least lead towards that direction"

"We have no right to push her to share more than she already is, but at the same time all I can thing about it sitting her down and forcing her to tell us why she looks so sad all the time"

"Imogen" Her face splits into a drunk grin, I must blink the alcohol haze from my eyes. "Cassie might have changed in a way that worries all of us, but you are different too?"

"A good different? Cam and Rosie have been telling me the same thing but even though I know it, and feel it, it still feels kind of strange that what I have known for so long is no longer the case"

"It probably feels like you're a different type of person, being more open to everything but you are the same, it's more like you don't hide away as much"

"I could say the same about you" I wiggle my eyebrows in her direction, something light and playful that sits happy in my chest. "You don't run and avoid all of us when things get hard or you're having a bad day as much anymore"