I rushed into the bathroom and closed the door behind me still sort of flustered at the presence of Ziyah and the voice of my now single brother.
"It was just a guy," I said leaning against the marble counter. The bathroom unlike the rest of the house didn't smell of alchohol or sweat, and instead was pristine and relaxing. If Alessia Cara didn't stay in the party and instead went to relax in the bathroom she probably never would have wrote "Here."
Vince's voice became filled with even more confusion. "Where are you?"
"A party," I stammared already aware of how weird it must have been for Vince to hear that his little introverted sister wasn't home watching netflix and was instead at a party with people and drugs.
"Whose party?" Vince now sounded exactly like dad, who was actually fine with me going to the party because he knew I was going with Harper. I think he still thought of Harper as the little kid who always stuck beside his shy daughter on the schoolyard. He didn't know the Harper who who left me alone to hang with her soccer buddies, if he did I probably would've been on the couch with him and Sawyer watching paw patrol.
"One of Harper's friends," I asnwered. I took a second then to look around the bathroom and try to find any clues about who lived in this house. All I found was a full bottle of lavender soap, a Live Laugh love bath rug, and rows of tampons and pads next to the bathroom sink.
"One of Harper's friends, aint that some shit," Vince mumbled.
I tried to change the subject. "What are you doing? Where are you?"
"I'm just sitting in my dorm eating a bag of sun chips." Hearing those words I wished I could pull Vince from his matress topper and transport him to somewhere fun, a party, a game, anything, where he could distract himself from hisself and his thoughts.
"What flavor sun chips?"
I could hear the noise of plastic crinkling. "Garden Salsa, look Daya I'll call you later." His voice was sad and I wanted to be back at home on our brown bedraggled couch watching movies. I thought at College Vince would be freed from being alone, he had a roommate for gods sake. I thought he would be away from the dark place that was drowning him last year, but heairng his mellow voice and the crinkling of the sun chip bag I realized that this dark place was embedded in him and a change of environment wouldn't free him from it.
"Vince wait, I-
"Daya its fine, have fun I love you." And with that he hung up before I could even say I love you back. I felt stuck in the bathroom, like I couldn't go back into the party, and have fun like Vince advised. I stayed there leaning against the marble countertop facing the toilet that had three bottles of puporee on top of it.
I was going to stay in that bathroom for the remainder of the night but then I remembered Ziyah and his starburts and my own hunger. I opened the door but he wasn't standing in that place anymore, I turned to my right and saw Ziyah at the end of the hall but this time he wasn't alone. He was with Lucas who was talking with his hands and a big smile. I also noticed he held a pink starburst in his right hand and he was incorportating the small square into whatever story he was telling.
The only words I could make out from his story were. "So I was eating the dino nuggets... She's going to tell me I'm trifling, and I was like you literally eat ass on Sundays... Mind you I didn't even know shortie had a thing for that."
I watched them for a moment until Ziyah turned to look at me and Lucas followed his lead. His big smile remained and he said one last thing to Ziyah before waving at me, patting Ziyah on the shoulder, and heading back downstairs.
