DONE ✔️ (UNDER EDIT)

Chapter Sixteen.

Chapter Sixteen.
***************

The music was loud. Too loud.

Under any other circumstances, I would've been as far from it as physically possible. Tonight, though, my ambitions were gone. My restraint was gone. I was drunk enough not to care, and for once, that felt like freedom.

We'd been here maybe two hours. If I hadn't been wasted, my leg would've been screaming at me. The crowd would've had my nerves shot. I'd be pressed into a corner somewhere, tracking exits, counting heads.

Instead, I was on the dance floor.

Lights flashed overhead, neon and pulsing. The bass vibrated up through the soles of my shoes and straight into my bones. Kimmy was on one side of me, Marie on the other, all limbs and laughter and sweat. I let myself move with them, clumsy and uncoordinated and completely unbothered.

I'd lost my crutches at some point. That was probably bad. Definitely bad.

But I didn't care!

The alcohol had loosened something inside me. Anyone who bumped into me too hard got a casted foot stomped in retaliation. I danced like a maniac, no thoughts, no memories, no past or future. Just noise. Just motion.

And then I felt eyes on me.

I looked up, and there he was.

Tall. Like, obscenely tall. Broad shoulders, hair that glowed different colors in the light, sharp smile. He caught my gaze and didn't look away, didn't hesitate. Just grinned like he'd already decided something.

Before I could overthink it, he was there and the girls had disappeared. Suddenly, he was dancing with me. His unfamiliar yet firm hands careful, guiding up and down my body making my pulse jump with each graze. He smelled good and felt nice pressed against me.

We moved together easily. Too easily.

His hands slid to my waist. He leaned in, said something I couldn't hear over the music. I laughed anyway. He smiled wider. Then he kissed me.

I didn't stop him.

For a few seconds, I let myself forget everything. Let myself pretend this was normal. That I was normal.

That I don't love-hadn't loved someone so deeply it had ruined me.

He pulled back just enough to look at me. A silent question flitting among them. Then he took my hand and started guiding me off the dance floor.

That's when it dawned on me what it was that we were doing and going to do.

The room tilted and my bad leg wobbled with each step. Reality slammed back in all at once.

I really was too drunk. And everything was happening too fast. Is this too much?

And then... I saw him.