All We Will Never Know

Chapter 14 - Alexis

Alexis squinted her eyes, her face looming over the steering wheel as she struggled to maneuver her way down the winding dirt road that led to the Tate's beach house. She had been here before, but she was far too drunk to remember the way the road twisted through the trees and tapered off into a narrow, endless path that looked as if it dropped straight into the Masonboro Inlet. The dense fog didn't help, courtesy of the random drop in temperature, nor did the fact that her mind hadn't been able to rest since her fitting earlier in the day.

She still felt that familiar burn in her throat, the aftereffects of throwing up the contents of her stomach into the toilet at Regina Coolidge's studio. As soon as Regina had spat those words at her, like salt into an open wound, Alexis felt the need for relief. She knew what she had to do. It was what she had been resorting to all summer, when she realized she wasn't cut out for typical dieting. She was able to eat whatever she wanted, without the restrictions of grotesque vegetables and mundane calorie counting. She didn't have to deal with peer pressure, when her friends wanted to order pizza or go out for Thai. All she did was eat, run, and vomit. And it worked.

But lately, Alexis had only been participating in the first activity on her list. She thought that she had more time, forgetting about the early fitting. She thought that she had made enough progress that a few weeks of letting the acid burns in her throat heal would be okay. She thought that, just this once, the person that she was would be good enough. That is, until today.

When Alexis came home from the fitting, after dropping Cordelia off as casually as possible, she broke down. A wave of emotion came over her, and it was the first time in her entire life that Alexis really thought she would be better off dead. Anything would be better than the humiliation she had felt, the sheer embarrassment. Absolutely anything. She went to the bathroom and turned the shower on to drown out the noise. Then she knelt by the toilet, and stuck her finger down her throat again. She had already emptied her stomach, there was nothing left but bile, which stung as it came up. Still, she continued, until her stomach was sore and her mouth was raw and her finger was pruny. When her body simply couldn't purge anymore, she climbed into the shower fully-clothed and let the cold water consume her. She needed to wash away the filth, the guilt, the regret; and if she was lucky, if she scrubbed hard enough, she could wash away the fat, as well.

As crazy as it sounded, it made her feel better. An hour later, when her father came knocking on the door, she was able to open it and smile, the towel wrapped around her body, and pretend that she was okay. She even pulled off a marvelous lie; she told him to tell Olivia that the fitting went just fine, and then hoped and prayed that Regina hadn't called and told her the truth. Just before leaving the house, Alexis snuck to Olivia's bathroom and snatched a handful of party favors. She slipped them into the front pocket of her Guess jeans, knowing that they would save her later.

As she pulled her car around the last corner, the lights of the beach house in her peripheral vision, she felt the heat of the pills in her pocket. She might need them sooner than expected. Already, her skin was crawling and her heartbeat was quickening; another anxiety attack was just on the horizon. She was just glad she was here, at the party with a million distractions, and not at home alone.

It wasn't until she had put the car in park and cut the engine, that she realized she wasn't the only person who had been silent the whole ride. Without the background noise of Lady Gaga blaring through the speakers, there was an incredibly awkward silence.

"Damn," Alexis said quickly. She had to be the one to break the ice, as she normally would. She had to hide the fact that she was miserable inside. "We're not dead yet, ladies." She turned and winked at them.

From beside her, Mia snapped out of the daze she was in and smiled. In the backseat, at last, she heard her friends come back to life. They all seemed to be frozen by their own problems and worries. Though it was nice to know she wasn't the only one, Alexis hated how reticent they were all being. On any other day, on the way to any other party, they would have spent the entire ride singing and gossiping and having the time of their lives. The silence among them was strange. Was everyone really that preoccupied with Will's return to town? Were they that upset by Kassidy's absence? Or were they all hiding secrets of their own? As much as Alexis wanted to be irritated by their unwillingness to share what was going on, she was technically doing the same.