My Favourite Part

54: blame it on the alcohol

Despite having traded out my heels for fluffy socks hours ago, I'm still not as fast as Babe in her stilettos, and she gets to her room and shuts the door before I can reach her.

"Babe?" I knock. She doesn't answer, but I hear faint grunts and huffs of effort from behind the closed door. "Babe, it's me." 

She sighs, her frustrated mutters ceasing for a moment. "I'm tryna get my birthday dress on," she says in a low voice, and even through her tipsy slur I can hear her sheepishness.

"Trying?" I ask, biting back a smile. "B, do you need help?"

"...Yes, please."

"I was going to ask if you were having a good night, but things must be going well if you're already too wasted to dress yourself," I tease as I enter and take a seat on her bed.

"I don't think I've eaten this many Milky Way Magic Stars since my 7th birthday, when-"

"When you threw up chocolate goo all over Libby Fraser's back in morning assembly," I finish, chuckling at the memory. Babe winces, although she can't help but let out a laugh too.

"Ange... I feel weird," she sighs.

I reach my hands out cautiously. "Uh oh – will we make it to the bathroom, or d'you want a barf bag?"

"No, no, I'm good, I just mean turning 19 feels weird."

"Oh. How do you mean?"

Babe leans against her dresser to steady herself as she explains. "I dunno. Like, technically I'm still a kid but 19 just sounds so... grownup. And I am definitely not all grown up yet."

I tilt my head in thought. It is a bit of an in-between age. Not quite a kid; not quite an adult. But if I've learned anything this year, it's that age is just a number.

"Well," I smile, "you're definitely the most 'grown up' of the three of us. Physically and emotionally."

Her thick brows droop into the sweetest puppy dog pout. "You really think so, Ange?"

"Hell yes! "I look up to you, B, you know that."

With the dampened sounds of Drake coming from downstairs, it's a moving moment of openness, until Babe bursts into side-splitting laughter, holding her torso as she cracks up.

"I'm, I'm sorry, Ange," she manages through her hysterics, "it's just – you're saying you look up to me, and I'm standing here, too drunk to even zip my own fucking dress."

Her contagious giggle spreads to me too, and when she laughs herself into producing an actual tear, I stand up to help her before her makeup gets ruined and Caz murders us both.

"Well, we all have our moments," I chuckle, zipping up the silky ginger-coloured dress. "Turn around – I think if I put some concealer under your eyes, Caz might spare us."

Another Drake-infused silence falls as I dab the almond-coloured cream along her under eye, and I feel her staring as I do.

"What?"

"Nothin'," she laughs lightly, and I smell the chocolate and champagne on her breath. "I just love you."

I smile, both at her sentiment and at the thought of telling her all about this sudden outpour of emotion in the morning. "Love you too, B."

I focus on her makeup for a while, blotting and dabbing in sequence. Minutes later, I meet her eyes again, still wide and staring. 

"What? You're starting to creep me out, B," I whisper in mock discomfort. But Babe doesn't answer. She doesn't say a single word as she leans in, meets my gaze once more, and gingerly presses a kiss to my lips.