But Lily and Kendall were twittering in my ear, brushing my hair away from my shoulders and talking about how much fun we were having. I swallowed and banished the worry once more to the back of my head. That was a problem for another day. I was here, with my friends, having a good time. That's what I needed to focus on.
"You're right, you're right, now shush already," I admonished.
They laughed but they knew they'd won me over. We headed back out to the table. Just before we split ways to sit next to our respective guys, Lily grabbed me and whispered in my ear, "Just live a little." I smiled. Maybe she was right. Chris was pretty cute, after all.
James spread his arms and gestured towards a fresh battery of shots laid out on the table. "Took you guys long enough!" he said. "We thought we were going to have to drink all of these ourselves."
"Oof," said Kendall, holding a hand over her stomach. "I don't know if I can handle another shot of vodka."
The guys all looked at each other immediately. A slow smile crept across their faces one at a time. After a long, confusing pause, Santiago was the first one to speak. "Well, now that you mention it … " he began.
James chimed in, "We could mix it up a little bit."
I wrinkled my nose. I had no clue what was going on. But judging by the pleased grins on Kendall and Lily, I was the only one left in the dark. I opened my mouth to ask, but just then, James reached into the pocket of his shirt and withdrew a small vial. Chris cleared a space on the table as James unscrewed the vial and tapped out a small mound of white powder onto the glass surface. Santiago handed him a credit card and he began to divide it into even columns.
My friends were looking on in eager anticipation, but I wanted to recoil. I wanted no part of this. Daddy had been so firmly against drugs ever since I could remember. How many times had he sat me down to tell me about his rules? A memory flashed through my head.
He was sitting in the living room. I was a freshman in high school, on the night before my first big high school party. I was excited. I'd spent days with my friends, picking out the hottest outfits we could cobble together. We'd been discussing the party for weeks. We dissected who would be there and who they be with, how much we could drink without getting sloppy, how long we would stay without risking getting grounded. All that anticipation was finally coming to bear fruit.
Daddy had been remarkably calm about everything. He had hardly said a word about it, which was the way I preferred things. As a fourteen-year old girl, the thought of discussing boys and beer with my dad was mortifying. I would have done anything to avoid that particular conversation. Up until now, I'd been successful.
I was on my way out the door, ready to go over to Lily's house to get ready together before the party. Just before I left, he said my name. "Corinne," he called from the living room. I was two steps away from the front door. I cursed inwardly. "Come here for one sec, if you don't mind." He had that tone of voice that I couldn't say no to. It wasn't rough or mean, but it was coolly powerful. I turned and trudged into the living room.
"Come sit, doll," he said, patting the couch beside him. He had a beer in one hand.
"Daddy, I really have to go. Lily is waiting for me."
"This won't take long, I promise. Just a quick chat."
"Fine." I plopped down next to him and crossed my arms in a huff.
He gave me a fatherly raised eyebrow. "Can't even have a conversation with your pops?"
"Lily's waiting, Dad!"
He chuckled. "Well, I can't talk to you if you're gonna be all grumpy." He took a long sip of his beer. "That ain't a fun conversation at all."
I sighed. I knew he was serious, that he wouldn't tell me what he wanted to say until I relaxed and took him seriously. I'd gotten all my stubbornness from him. Uncrossing my arms, I let my head fall against his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around my frame and hugged tight.
"Now, I know you're gonna hate hearing this, but I just want you to be safe tonight." I opened my mouth to speak, but he interrupted me. "And I know you think that's silly, because of course you're gonna be safe, and of course you can take care of yourself. You're my daughter. I know damn well you can do that."
I stifled a laugh as he continued. "I may not always act according to the law that most people follow," he said, "but as long as I'm president of my club, there are rules that I make sure everyone under my roof sticks to. That includes you, princess," he said while tweaking my nose and coaxing out a giggle. "One of the biggest rules I have is no hard drugs. I want you to promise me, Corinne, that if you come across something like that - tonight or any other night ever - you'll call me. I don't care where you are or who you're with. Just call me and I'll come get you, no questions asked. Do you promise?"
"I promise, Daddy."
"I can't hear you."
"I said, I promise."
"One more time."
"Daddy, I told you already, I promise!"
"Good. That's three times you promised. Don't make me come after you, kiddo." He kissed me on the forehead and unwrapped his arm from my shoulders.
"Can I go now?"
"Depends," he said after another sip. "First you gotta tell me if you have plans to mess around with any boys tonight."
I rolled my eyes and turned beet red as his serious expression broke up into a huge smile. He flat out guffawed, big snorting laughs coming through his nostrils. I left him hooting to himself on the couch as I turned and ran through the front door on my way to Lily's.
He was a scary man when he wanted to be, but he loved me. I knew that. And I knew that, whatever it came to, I'd honor that promise. "A person has to have a code," he always said. "Rules to live by." I admired that about him, and I'd do everything I could to live up to what I was: my father's daughter.
James offered a short straw to Kendall. "Would you like to do the honors?" he asked. Without hesitation, she took it, bent over the glass table, and snorted up the first fat slug of a line. She coughed as she straightened back up and wiped the traces of white dust from her nose and upper lip.
I looked on, frozen in place, as Lily, James, and Santiago all followed suit. Two lines remained on the table after they were done. James handed the straw to Chris, who looked at me with twinkling, mischievous eyes. "You first," he said, holding it out to me.
I didn't know what to say. "I, um, uh … " I looked over at Kendall. She gave me a sideways jerk of the head directed at Chris, as if to say, Follow his lead. Go home with him. Santiago's hand had disappeared below the hem of her dress now. Lily and James were a mirror image of them, limbs crossed and flesh touching.
I felt sticky and gross all of the sudden. I didn't want to be here, not for one second longer. The calm I'd rediscovered in the bathroom vanished, and the hazy drunk that had made all of this seem fun disappeared just as quickly. I felt stone cold sober. I wanted out. "I need to go," I blurted, rising to my feet. I accidentally clipped a bottle of cranberry juice as I rose. It fell on the table. A big crack spiderwebbed across the glass surface, followed quickly by a flood of crimson liquid. The juice poured over the remaining columns of cocaine. James cursed and tried to rescue what little he could, but it was too late. The clumps of powder were floating in the maroon sea. "Goddamit!" he snarled. His mouth became a hideous slash of twisted anger.
I stammered, but no words would come. Instead, I turned and took the stairs two at a time. "Corinne, wait!" I heard Lily and Kendall calling my name behind me. I didn't stop for them. Pushing my way through the crowd at the foot of the stairs, I swept towards the exit. It felt like my throat was closing in on itself. All I needed was one breath of fresh air. As soon as I was outside, away from the drugs and the strangers we'd been drinking with, I would feel better. The same memory kept playing like a broken record in my head.
Promise?
I promise, Daddy.
I wound around a series of low couches and finally - finally! - I found the exit. Bursting out into the night, I took in a huge breath of air. It filled my lungs and took the edge off the sudden panic that had overtaken me.
"You're outside, you're okay," I muttered to myself. "It's okay."
I leaned against a brick wall outside. My chest was rising and falling rapidly as I caught my breath.
I wanted to be mad at Kendall and Lily, but I couldn't find the energy. If they wanted to have fun like that, by all means, they should be allowed to. It wasn't my place to stop them. They were my friends and I loved them, but that didn't mean I had to do every single thing they did. None of this was for me. The club, the drugs - it wasn't my cup of tea. I'd tried to pretend for a night that it was, but now that I was outside and away from it all, the pure wrongness of it came catching up to me. Who was I kidding? I wasn't a partier, not a club girl, and definitely not the type to go home with a random man just because he bought me drinks and fed me drugs and smiled at me prettily in a place where the music was too loud for me to think straight. I never wanted to be tricked into having sex. If I was going to go to bed with someone, it would be because I chose to. I wanted the man to make me feel alive, not the drinks or the drugs. Besides, I'd made my dad a promise a long time ago. I wasn't about to break that oath for Chris and James and Santiago.