I reach the edge of the terraced back yard. There's a stone wall, and I rest my champagne glass on it, looking out over Los Angeles.
These lights are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, I think, looking at the buildings, watching the slow crawl of headlights on the freeway.
They just keep going, like stars on the ground or like snakes with stars on them. There's so many people here, and they've all got their own individual lives, every one of those lights down there, and-
I have a quick, bright moment of clarity.
I'm not drunk. This isn't what drunk feels like, not at all.
I didn't lock my knees, I'm not hyperventilating.
Nope. I'm stoned.
Really, really stoned.
19
Gavin
"I know it's cliché but I really did like their first album better," Billy says.
I drain the rest of the club soda from my glass, the lime hitting my upper lip.
"It's cliché for a reason," I say. "The first album is five, ten years in the making sometimes, the stuff you've been working on for ages. The second album you've got two, maybe three years and everyone expects it to be genius."
"True," he says, looking thoughtful.
I glance around the room again, looking for Marisol. She's been gone for a few minutes now, and I'm starting to hope she hasn't gotten lost or something.
I'm not exactly worried - she's an adult, I trust her ability to navigate a party perfectly well - but if she's gotten sucked into a tedious conversation with some executive's wife or someone's trying to quiz her about me, I should probably go rescue her.
After all, good boyfriends don't just leave their girlfriends to fend for themselves around wolves. Or vultures, for that matter.
"I'm going to go make sure Marisol's not trapped in conversation with that bloke Titus or something," I say.
Billy laughs. Titus is a drummer for a band called Black Acid Rain, and he's known for cornering people and simply listing different types of drumming equipment. Impossible to escape.
"I'll catch you around," Billy says, and we walk in separate directions.
I'm taller than most people here, but there's still no sign of Marisol as I glance through different rooms, looking for curly hair and a black dress. Nothing, anywhere.
It's odd. It's very odd.
She ran off because of your dreadful kiss, I think.
It's a rubbish thought, but it still stings. I know she wouldn't just leave without telling me, but for the past hour or so she's seemed a bit quiet, a bit distant.
I can't help but think it's because we kissed like a couple of toddlers imitating adults.
It caught me off-guard, and it caught her off-guard, and I doubt that kissing for a camera is ever a particularly enjoyable or natural thing to do, but still. I hate it. I knew that we'd have to get to lip-on-lip, as Valerie's increasingly urgent communiqués call it, but I hadn't meant it to be like that.
I didn't want our first kiss to be for the cameras. That's half the reason I haven't done it yet, because I've kissed dozens of women but I wanted it to be right when I kiss Marisol.
And, well, I buggered that up.
I head through room after room, but she's nowhere at all. Not outside, not near the bathrooms, not in any of the massive house's half-dozen rooms filled with well-dressed people and lounge furniture, so I start asking people if they've seen her.
Trent and Darcy haven't. Billy hasn't, and neither have any of the other several people I ask.
Until it's Eddie to the rescue. He's waving his arms about, a beer in one hand looking precarious, talking to a few other blokes dressed almost exactly as he is.
"That's your girlfriend, right?" he asks, practically winking at the world girlfriend.
"Yes," I say, holding up one hand, palm down. "About this high, black hair, black dress?"
"Oh, I think she went upstairs," one of Eddie's mates says.
I frown.
"Upstairs?" I ask.
He shrugs.
"Yeah, some girl went up there. I figured the bathrooms down here were full or something?"
"Has she come back?"
He scrunches his eyebrows together as if remembering is quite a task.
"I don't think so," he says.
"Thanks," I say, and make for the stairs myself.
The grand staircase leads around a landing and then into a dark hallway, and I walk into it slowly, heart pumping.
"Marisol?" I call softly.
Maybe she got too drunk, I think. Maybe she's upset about something - about me - and wants to be alone. Maybe she just wants to be alone.
No answer. I walk into the dark, and as my eyes adjust, I realize there's a sliver of light near the end of the hall, a door partly open.
I head for it and call her name again.
There's a slight rustle inside, then Marisol's voice.
"Shit," she says.
I push the door open. It's a palatial bathroom with a huge glassed-in shower, two sinks, marble floors, a walk-in closet, and a jacuzzi tub in the corner.
Marisol's curled up at one end of the empty tub, perfectly dry, head against the lip, eyes closed. I've no idea what's going on.
"Is everything all right?" I say.
It's a stupid question - she's in a tub in a dark bathroom at a party, obviously something's awry - but I don't know what else to ask.
Marisol clears her throat without opening her eyes.
"Yeah," she says, her voice a little too high-pitched, the tiniest bit shaky. "Everything's fine. I'm fine. Totally fine."
I don't believe her. Alarm bells are going off in my head, big screeching sirens, so I walk over to her and kneel.
"You're curled in a bathtub at a party," I say, trying to sound as calm as possible.
"I'm really stoned and I think I might be dissolving," she says. "And on one hand, I know that sounds a little insane but I also can't prove that I'm not dissolving and I would really prefer to stay in this tub so that if I am dissolving, I can just plug the drain and collect myself later."
"You're not dissolving," I assure her.
"I have to stay here, though," she says. "I don't want to dissolve everywhere, it would be a huge mess, and if I move I'm just going to dissolve faster."
I've got no idea what's happened. A few minutes ago she was fine and now she's completely toasted.
"Did you smoke?" I ask. "Did someone give you something?"
Not that I think Marisol would just smoke something that was handed to her.
Even so, anger starts a slow simmer somewhere beneath my sternum that someone, somehow did this to my Marisol.
She just shakes her head.
"I hate this," she says, her eyes still closed. "I'm dissolving and I broke my brain. I'm never going to be able to think again, but I'm also not even going to have a body unless I stay here and all my atoms get collected in the tub..."
I take her hand in mine and kiss the back of it. She doesn't respond.
"Is this my brain forever?" she whispers.
I swallow hard, flexing my other hand into a fist, because even though I've got no idea how she got this high, I'm fairly sure it wasn't her idea and I'd like to hit whoever's made her this miserable.
I swing my legs over the side of the enormous tub and sit with her. She doesn't move.
"I'll tell you if you open your eyes," I say.
"You're getting my molecules all over you," she says.
I don't think she's on anything besides enough pot to get a horse stoned, but you never know.
"Come on," I say, putting one arm around her.
She looks at me without moving anything but her eyelids. Even in the near-dark I can see that her eyes are bloodshot red but her pupils are fine.
"Your brain's not broken," I tell her. "It's going to be a little while but you'll get back to normal."
Marisol just shakes her head and closes her eyes again.
I'm going to kill whoever did this, I think, even as I put one arm around her. Did they think it was fucking funny?
"Did you smoke?" I ask, even though she doesn't smell as if she did.
Marisol just shakes her head.
"I had champagne," she says, her voice slow and dreamy.
Everyone had champagne, so I doubt it was that.
"Anything else?"
"I can't..." she says, her voice trailing off. She swallows again, her mouth probably dry. "My brain is dissolving kind of fast right now but maybe that piece will go by."
"You don't look as if you're dissolving," I say. "You seem in one piece."
She shakes her head, but I don't argue with her. I've been here before, so high I was utterly convinced that my teeth were melting out of my mouth, and someone trying to argue with me didn't help in the least. The best I can do is stay calm and tell her, every few minutes, that she's still intact.
But it doesn't mean I'm not angry. Fuck yes I'm angry. I want to hit whatever utter imbecile did this to her, stuff pot down their throats until they're too high to move and in a bathtub, see how they fucking like it.
"There were those mini tacos," she murmurs.
Then she sighs.
"What if the tub dissolves too?" she asks. "I think maybe everything is dissolving."
"Porcelain can't dissolve, everyone knows that," I say, thinking furiously about what she might have had. Couldn't have been the mini tacos, I had them as well. Couldn't hardly be any of the hors d'oeuvres here.