I don’t converse with the intellectually challenged. That’s always been a rule of mine. And it’s not because I’m some sanctimonious bitch on a high horse or something, it’s just that the dim witted are so aggravating. This particular thought was crossing my mind as I sat idly on a cold bathroom floor just moments after some blonde bimbo with five pounds eyeliner asked me what I was trying to smell as I was doing a line off the bathroom sink. I must have gotten a look on my face that screamed “do you have any functioning brain cells?” because she backed off quickly and shut the door behind her.
“Jeez, Ivy, calm down,” my best friend Lucie laughed. Lucie doesn’t share my views on stupidity mainly due to her own lack of brain cells.
I stood up, using the wall as leverage to drag myself off the ground. The dress I was wearing made it even more difficult to stand up while maintaining dignity. Though, being high as a kite may have already classified me as undignified.
It took all the effort I have to follow Lucie out of the bathroom and down the stairs, re-entering the party meant to signify the start of the school year. As we brushed the party goers we got the usual looks from the guys and choruses of people saying things like “it’s good to see you” or “how was your summer” or “who dealt that to you?”.
I am usually not an avid party goer, but there was good music and this high I was on had me practically on the clouds. Everyone was dancing and everything felt so hazy and good; I had escaped my mind. I could’ve really gotten into the dancing or the guy that was so clearly trying to get my attention, but I felt an urgent tugging at my arm.
“Ivy, Ivy!” Lucie shouted almost into my ear. “Jason’s here! I didn’t want to see him! Ugh, he’s with another girl!” Her loud shrieking gave me the feeling that I was going deaf.
“Luce, you had to have known you were going to see him again sometime. I mean, I’m surprised you haven’t seen him before this. We’ve been back in school for a week.”
“I knew I was going to have to see him, Ivy, but to see him here! With someone else!” Her voice was no longer just a scream, but a shrill high-pitched nightmarish noise.
“Babe, I know he broke your heart when he broke up with you, but we spent the entire summer laying in the hamptons preparing you for this moment. He’s moved on, and I think you should too. With him,” my voice sounding more confident than ever and my eyes leered in the direction of a tall boy with blonde hair who was on the baseball team.
“Can we just go? I know I need to move on, but I can’t just use sex to solve all my problems like you do Ivy.” She didn’t even sound insulting, just as though she was stating a fact.
Shrugging, I casually started walking to the door with her. It’s not like she was wrong, I do use sex to solve my problems. Lucie and I made it to the door before Tyler, a friend with occasional benefits, stepped in front of me.
“You’re leaving? Already? The party was just getting started. I was hoping you’d save me a dance and end up leaving with me.” He so clearly tried to be confident and suave but his voice shook.
I looked sympathetically back at my friend before giving him a small shrug. “Sorry, Ty, but we just don’t like the crowd here,” I said as I used my eyes to point out Jason. There was no explanation necessary after that, everyone knows about Lucie and Jason.
They dated for two and a half years and were basically everyone’s favorite couple. She even gave up her virginity to him, even though she was very catholic. Until she met him, she believed in abstinence. I never shared the same views on that, but I had really respected that about her. But then she gave it away. At the end of the last school year, he dumped her. It was really out of the blue. All of a sudden he just stopped loving her and spent the summer with his brothers little black book. As though Lucie had never even mattered to him.
Hoping to put Jason out of her mind, I dragged Lucie out of the brownstone the party was at and pulled her along behind me on the empty Soho sidewalk, where she pulled off her Louboutin heels and handed them to me. She remained quiet but pulled away from me to walk on the curb of the sidewalk with her arms stretched out to keep her better balanced, her eyes never leaving her bare feet.
I decided not to break the silence. If I was pissed about seeing my ex at a party with some other girl, I wouldn’t want to talk about it. It was easier just to enjoy the warm, breezy New York night and look up at the black sky that used to fill me with a sense of promise. Looking around began to make me think of when I first moved here with my parents. I was ten and my dad was a musician in a band and my mom was a groupie. We moved here for my dad, but even though I was only ten, I was sure that the God I didn’t believe in had actually sent us to the Big Apple for me.
New York had always been this mystical, magical place in my mind, but it was so much better once I got here. I was so innocent, and the feeling that the city gives you is this evangelical feeling that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. I’ve grown up to be more and more cynical with each passing year, diminishing this hopeful girl who believed in fate, but one thing that has never changed is my love for this island.
My thoughts were interrupted when Lucie fell off the curb and instead of getting up, just sat there in the street.
“Luce, come on, let’s go!” I grunted as I tried yanking her off the ground.
“No.” Lucie crossed her arms and put a pout on her face.
“No? So you’re just going to sit here. In a designer dress. On the street. High. Looking like a working girl. Genius,” I stated, sarcasm oozing out of my mouth with each word.
“My parents are in the South of France on their yacht and I don’t wanna be alone tonight.”
Sighing, I finally pulled her up and put her arm through mine. “You’re not gonna be alone, Luce, we’re going back to my place.”
Arm in arm, we made it all the way back to my place in one piece. My place being a fifth floor walkup just a few blocks from where the party was. It’s a small space but since it’s just me and my mom now, it’ll do.
“Shh,” I said in a hushed tone as I opened the door to the apartment. “My mom’s sleeping and she’ll kill us if we wake her.”
Lucie knew the drill and we crept to my room, lightly stepping over laundry baskets and clothes and books and binders and a million other things. For someone who cleans for a living, my mother sure doesn’t ever clean up after herself.
As we got into my room, Lucie tripped over her feet and fell into my dresser, knocking a picture frame onto the floor. She stumbled to get it whispering “sorry” almost putting it back on the dresser, until she saw the picture in the newly cracked frame.
“Oh, Ivy, I’m so sorry. I’ll buy you a new frame, I promise!”
I picked up the frame and ran my fingers over the cracked glass, and let out a small sigh looking at the picture of my dad and me.
“Luce, don’t even worry about it, I don’t need a new frame. I don’t even know why I even had this picture still up,” I laughed as I put the frame face down on my dresser.
Even though I tried to laugh it off, Lucie still looked at me with sympathetic eyes.
“You wanna talk about it?”
I shook my head. “I just want to go to sleep.”
Unconvinced that I was fine, she sat there looking at me.
“Seriously, Luce, I’m fine.”
Finally, she shrugged it off and slipped out of her dress and into my old gym shorts and a sports bra that she found on my floor and got into bed. She was asleep before I even said goodnight.
After I changed, I grabbed the bottle of vodka that I kept under my bed and headed to the roof. I held the bottle by it’s neck and hurried quietly up the stairs and and once I got there, I started to drink.
I do this every chance I get. The city looks so beautiful from up here and it’s a nice escape from the apartment that is full of so many bad memories. Mainly, I just come up here to forget. And nights like tonight, I’ll do just about anything to forget. When I heard the to door to the roof open, I put the bottle on the ledge that I was leaning on and turned to see who it was.
A dark figure began walking my way, and once he stepped into the moonlight, I could see who it was.
To my delight, it was Charlie.
