Apartment 5C

four.

"Hey Lana!" The distant sound of my voice being yelled catches me off guard. Was I hearing voices already? This was a new progression in my steep decline of mental health.

I decide to ignore it and continue to try and focus on the conversation Jace was having with the group of people loitering the loft's couch. The party was much bigger than I expected. I didn't recognize half the people here.

"Lana!" I hear again from the right close to me. I decide to take my chances and turn my head to the side. My vision lines up with the eyes of a vaguely familiar girl. I think we had gym together junior year. My memory is honestly just below a fly's at this point.

"Hey." I force a smile at the redhead. I felt horrible I couldn't remember her name.

"At first I didn't recognize you! You look so much—different?" She finishes her sentence as more of a question as she eyes me up and down from my spot on the arm of the brown leather couch.

I decide to ignore her comments. "How are you?" I quiz her.

"I've been good! I know we haven't talked much since we had gym together last year I know we weren't really friends, but I just wanted to say hey and see how you were." She's slightly leaning over to meet my height, pausing halfway through her words to take a sip from her blue plastic cup.

I look back over to Jace and see he had now relocated to standing by the coffee table, lost in some conversation about the soccer team with 5 other people.

"I'm good too." I chuckle trying to mask the fact that I still couldn't remember the seemingly sweet girls name.

Her hair was so bright red it was almost fluorescent under the red LED lights that covered every perimeter of the room.

"I was sorry to hear about your brother. If you ever need anything, I'm here for you." She lays her perfectly manicured nails on my leg as a comforting gesture. Instead it made me flinch out of instinct, accidentally jerking it away like a reflex test during a physical.

"Thank you." I begin to stand up from my spot, taking a few seconds to steady myself as black spots cloud the corners of my vision.

"There you are Macey!" Another girls voice breaks in as she joins the redheads side. Macey! That was her name. That solves that question.

"I have to go to the bathroom. Thank you again, Macey." I nod at the two of them before turning away and make way to find the bathroom.

I should probably tell Jace I was stepping away. I turn around to inform my boyfriend but he was nowhere to be found. That's weird he was just there a second ago. Oh god was Jace a figment of my imagination too? I'm losing it.

I make my way around the corner of the extremely long hallway and begin my search for the bathroom. 3 of the doors were locked and luckily the 4th one was open. I pat myself on the back for being able to find the bathroom so easily without accidentally walking in on any couples. I already have enough images I wanna bury in my mind, the last thing I needed was another sight to bury in the vault.

I lean against the counter of the sink, leaning in towards the mirror to stare at my reflection. You look so different, Macey's words repeat in my head. Did I really look that bad?

I analyze my face like I was under a microscope. My once vibrant eyes were now dull and lackluster. My brows were now the only prominent features on my face besides my protruding cheekbones. It looked as though I just learned the new art of contouring and went overboard. My cheeks were flushed from the warm air. My lips were extremely red from me excessively chewing on them. My collarbones were now more evident than before. The underneath of my eyes looked like I had my shit rocked by a boxer.