Life of the Party (37 page)

“Hello?” I was
breathless with excitement; I couldn’t wait to hear his voice
again.

“Mac?” It was
Charlie.

“… Yes?” I let
out a sigh. “What’s up?”

“Come in here
and get high with me.”

“What?” I
laughed. “Where are you?”

“In my room.
Let’s smoke a bowl!”

“Did you
seriously just call me from your room?”

“I’m comfy.
Come on, I’m waiting.”

“Okay, okay,
I’ll be right there.” I hung up my phone, giggling. Thank God for
Charlie. I didn’t know what I’d do without her.

I jumped out of
bed and ran down the hallway to her bedroom, my cell phone still
clutched in my hand. Her room was bigger, but it was just as messy
as mine. The only major difference were the posters and pictures
that plastered her walls, making it feel homey and lived in, unlike
my hospital/jail cell room. I made up my mind to put up some
pictures or hang some art or something soon.

My favourite
Tool song was playing on her stereo—
Sober
. Charlie laughed
and moved over to make space for me in her bed, and I crawled
eagerly under her covers.

“You do the
honours, my dear.” Charlie handed me a pipe packed with weed. I lit
the lighter and pressed the flame to the bowl, sucking in the
sweet, fragrant smoke. I held it in for a moment, passing the pipe
to Charlie before I blew it out.

“What’s with
you and that thing?” Charlie wondered then, pointing at my cell
phone as she tapped the bowl gently with her lighter. “Can you not
be separated?”

“Apparently
not.” I coughed. “I’ve been expecting Grey to call.”

“Ah, yes.” She
chuckled mirthlessly. “I gave up on that already.”

“You did? Why?
I’m sure Zack will call you.”

“Well, I’m not
holding my breath for it.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Mac.
I know what they’re doing up there.”

“Um … recording
their album?”

“Yeah … maybe,
during the day. But the rest of the time, they’re getting as fucked
up as they possibly can. Trust me, that is all Zack talked about.
They have wicked friggin’ clubs in that city, and they’re going out
every night and getting blotto’d. Totally shit-faced.” Charlie
looked at me pointedly. “Just like you should be. I can’t believe
you’ve ditched me two nights in a row so you can stay home just in
case your phone rings.”

“I know, I know
….” I shrugged, “But I told Grey I’d be careful while he was gone.
And I just really wanted to hear his voice again, you know?”

“I know, just,
please don’t turn into one of those girls who gets all crazy and
depressed whenever her boyfriend leaves. I don’t want to come home
one night and see that you’ve, I don’t know, dressed up a
broomstick or something.”

“I won’t,” I
laughed, “I won’t, I promise. I just miss him. I can’t help
it.”

“Yeah,” Charlie
allowed. “I know how you feel. Trust me. It’s impossible for me not
to think about Zack, but then every time I do, I just picture him
out partying and getting super wasted, and then I start thinking
about him being with other girls and ….” She shook her head, as if
trying to clear the image. “It makes me crazy. It’s not good for
me.”

“Really? Other
girls?” I frowned. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Whenever I paused to think about Grey—wondering what he was doing,
who he was doing it with—I just always assumed he’d be at the
studio, working. Or at the hotel, sleeping. Now, I pictured the
exact scenario Charlie had described.

I imagined Grey
out with the guys, at some club, the music loud in the background,
strobe lights flashing. They’re being rowdy and loud, like always,
and it’s the five of them like usual. But then, some tall, leggy
blonde dressed in some super skanky dress comes up and put her arms
around Grey. I see him laughing and joking with her, see him giving
her
my
favourite smirk. They flirt and drink and dance. Then
I see—crystal clear and painfully real—the moment when they first
start to kiss, his hands moving over her body and his lips pressing
against hers.

I shook my
head, my mind shying away from even the thought of such betrayal,
my very being rejecting the possibility, refusing to accept it.

“No, no, no.” I
refuted stubbornly. “There’s no way. Come on Charlie, just because
they’re gone doesn’t mean they’ve just like … forgotten about
us.”

“I know, you’re
probably right.” She sighed. “But, they’re guys, you know? Guys do
that kind of stuff all the time. And they stick together too. If
Zack was cheating on me, I’d probably never find out. There’s no
way one of his ‘bro’s’ would tell me.”

I relented.
“Yeah. That’s true.” She did have a point. We sat in silence for a
minute as Charlie packed another bowl, both of us lost in
aggravated thought. I bit my lip and contemplated. Grey had never
given me any reason not to trust him. Just because he hadn’t called
didn’t mean he was shacking up with some stranger. I didn’t want to
jump to the wrong conclusions, I wanted to give him the benefit of
the doubt, I wanted to believe there was no way he could do that to
me. No way that he would.

I sighed
heavily and took the pipe eagerly from Charlie’s hands. She gave me
an apologetic smile and rubbed my arm soothingly.

“I’m sorry, I
didn’t mean to make you upset.”

“No, it’s
okay.” I gave her a brave smile. “I just, I couldn’t picture
anything worse, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.
Trust me. But, Mackenzie, honestly, moping around the house and
making yourself sick with worry isn’t going to help anything. You
should come out with me next time. It really helps to get your mind
off things. I mean, Grey’s out having fun, right? So why shouldn’t
you?”

“Yeah.” I lit
the bowl and sucked back the weed smoke deeply, until my lungs felt
like they might burst. I could see her logic, but at the same time,
I wanted to keep my promise to Grey. I didn’t want him to be
worried about me. I blew out the waft of smoke and winced, not just
to keep from coughing, but from the new thought that just
occurred.

How could Grey
be worried, if he didn’t even care enough to call?

Charlie and I
stuck together over the next couple of days, even more than we
normally did. It was kind of nice, actually, just to be with her
when there were no guys around. She stayed home with me at night
after work although I knew she’d rather be out at the clubs. I made
it up to her with copious amounts of cocaine. We talked and painted
each other’s nails and watched mindless comedies we found totally
hilarious in our drugged out state. Neither of us could even
stomach the thought of watching some gushy romance. No need to rub
salt in the wounds.

Needless to
say, the guys had not called. Either of them. It was like the
elephant in the room—we both knew about it, but chose not to talk
about it. Really, there was nothing left to say. With every day
that passed I was that much more thankful Charlie was my friend. I
don’t know what I would’ve done without her.

It was on one
of those nights that I suddenly discovered a solution to my
problem. I wanted to hear from Grey, but he wasn’t calling. The
answer was simple, really.

I was just
going to have to call him.

I had to work
up the nerve for some reason. I felt stupid, sneaking off to my
room with my phone while Charlie was in the shower. I had a feeling
she wouldn’t approve, but I just had to do it. I was past the point
of trying to play it cool, and I knew the moment I heard Grey’s
voice it would totally set my mind at ease. So I took a deep
breath, shut my eyes, and dialled his number.

I lit a smoke
as the phone rang in my ear, and the rush of nicotine helped me
relax. It rang and rang, and I was just about to give up,
disappointed—when finally he answered.

“Hello?” There
it was—his lovely, velvety low voice.

“Hey,” I
greeted, almost giddily.

“Hello? I can’t
hear you.”

“Grey? Hello,
can you hear me?” I plugged my other ear. There was a great deal of
noise on his end—the loud, pulsating beat of techno music and
numerous voices jabbering away in the background, I couldn’t tell
who they were in the din.

“Are you there?
Hello?”

“Grey? Grey,
I’m here. Hello?” I walked towards the window. Maybe I was getting
bad reception or something, but I could hear his end fine. He was
muttering to himself, maybe trying to make his phone work, I didn’t
know. I was about to giggle at his muffled swearing, but then I
heard it.

“Grey, baby,”
said a female voice, one I didn’t recognize but instantly hated,
“get off the phone. You promised to dance with me, remember?” She
beckoned, giggling ditzily.

He laughed.
“Yeah, okay. I’m coming.”

I didn’t hear
anymore. I dropped the phone and it landed with a thud, bouncing
across my carpeted floor. I stood, struck, like I had been slapped
in the face or punched in the stomach. I was shell-shocked,
stunned. I stared at the phone in horror and clutched at my chest,
my stomach plummeting somewhere down towards my toes, my heart
beating loudly in my ears.

“
He’s going
to hurt you, Mackenzie.”
Suddenly Riley’s voice invaded my
mind, stabbing into my already wounded psyche. I hadn’t thought
about him in months, but there was no mistaking the unexpected
sound in my memory.
“I know his type,”
he had said,
“I
know what he’s like. He’ll hurt you, in the end.”

I didn’t even
allow myself to think about it. I couldn’t. Frantically almost,
trying to outrun the heartbreak striving to catch up with me, I
threw on some different clothes and pulled my hair roughly into a
ponytail.

“Charlie!” I
yelled—my voice bordered screeching. “Put some clothes on. We’re
going out!”

I left my room
without looking back, my cell phone abandoned on the floor.

I can honestly
say that I have almost no recollection of the weeks and days that
followed. I wouldn’t allow myself to be sober enough to let my mind
work properly. At work I screwed up orders and dropped plates and
walked around with glazed over eyes, but still I managed to make
enough money to pay for my drug use. I learned some things from
Charlie; she showed me how to dress to make the most tips. Since I
needed the money, my skirts got shorter, my tops got lower, and my
heels higher. At the end of every night, I would gather almost all
my earnings and hand them over to her—my source—who would in turn
procure whatever drug she felt I might like to try. I don’t know
where she went or how she got them, I preferred not to know. But I
was more than eager to do whatever she brought home for me,
whatever would get me fucked right out of my tree.

I tried meth
and crack cocaine. We did PCP and Dilaudids, ecstasy and MDMA. I
laced my cigarettes with cocaine. We’d go out to the club nearly
every night, drink our faces off and dance and smoke up. Guys would
hit on us, which felt good, but sometimes they would get too
friendly, too persistent, and I’d barely remember myself in time
before doing something totally regretful. I was so mind-breakingly
stoned it was nearly impossible not to have a good time, nearly
impossible not to forget. I was being stupid and dangerous, but I
didn’t care. Grey had wanted me to be careful, so I rebelled,
giving him a physical “F-you,” by being as reckless as I possibly
could be. I almost wanted something bad to happen. Then, maybe he’d
remember me.

Somehow, I
survived the binge mostly unscathed, except for a majorly deflated
wallet and some severely crippling hangovers. I only came too when
Charlie reminded me, somewhat painfully one morning, that Marcy’s
rehearsal dinner/wedding was happening that weekend and I had to
sober up for it. I didn’t want to, I craved the numbness I’d
depended on and dreaded what would come once normal thoughts were
allowed to form again. But Charlie forced me. She nearly dragged me
into the shower, then sat me down afterwards and did my hair and my
make-up. I was complacent for the most part, blinking stupidly in
the mirror while she fixed me up—on the outside anyway. My insides
were beyond her repair.

Charlie drove
me into the city so I wouldn’t be forced to ride with my parents. I
thanked her profusely, over and over again, forgetting the initial
irritation I’d felt towards her after she manhandled me all
morning. I stared out the window as we drove, my eyes darting over
the never-ending blanket of prairie fields stretching out towards
the horizon. I began to feel more and more like myself and less and
less like the fake, chemically diminished version of Mackenzie as I
sobered up. But with that, just like I’d expected, came a world of
hurt I wanted nothing to do with. With it came remembering that
Grey had completely forgotten about me.

“Charlie?” My
voice was faint.

“Yeah,
sweetie?”

“Thank you for
coming with me.” I looked at my friend, her pretty blonde hair
tumbling down her back, wide-lens sunglasses perched upon her nose.
She blew her smoke out the opened window

“Don’t mention
it, Mac.”

My parents had
rented the entire private room of a restaurant in the city, La
Grille it was called, some fancy kind of steak house, for Marcy’s
rehearsal dinner. My mom was simpering with pride; my dad was
strutting around the place quite importantly. Marcy and Greg seemed
to have their own personal spotlight on them at all times, they
nearly shone from all the attention. She was wearing a sleek golden
coloured dress with jewelled shoes; he was dapper in a dark suit
and tie. For the most part, their friends and family closed in
around them, oohing and aahing at their matching beauty and
cracking clichéd, cheesy jokes about marriage that have been around
since the stone age. Charlie and I sat at the private bar, our
backs to the room, having a glass of wine. No one paid us any real
attention, but I could still feel the cautious eyes of my parents
and sister upon us, as if we were ticking time bombs that could
explode at any minute.