It’s the first time she has responded to me since our fight. I breathlessly call her back right away despite my phone almost being dead.
She answers on the first ring.
“Hello?” she slurs, her voice sounding garbled. Instantly, I can tell something is wrong.
“Clara? What’s going on?” I ask, worried.
“I—hic—I don’t feel so good,” she moans.
She’s drunk.
“Where are you?”
“I don’t—hey, where am I?” she slurs, presumably to someone near her, who mumbles a response I can’t make out. “The frat house on Monroe,” Clara giggles.
“Okay, stay right where you are,” I instruct her. “I’m coming to get you now.”
I hear the sound of Clara vomiting as I hang up.
I throw my stuff into my backpack as quickly as I can and use the last of my phone’s battery to call a cab to take me to the frat house.
It’s not far from campus. I haven’t been here since my partying days as a freshman, and what few blurry memories I have of the place are not very good ones. People are always telling stories about the bad things that happen when a frat party gets out of hand, especially to young girls. Clara is totally wasted; I have to get to her before anything bad happens. What if someone takes advantage of her? What if she tries to drive her car?
I’ve worked myself up into a near panic attack by the time the cab driver pulls up in front of the frat house, where I see Clara hunched over the large front porch, puking violently into the bushes. Another girl, someone I don’t know, is sitting next to her, rubbing her back and offering her a water bottle.
“Oh, thank God,” says the girl when she sees me approaching. “I just found her alone out here throwing up and didn’t think I should leave her. She told me someone was coming for her, so I thought I’d wait until her ride showed up.”
“Thank you,” I say sincerely.
“Yeah, well, us girls have to watch out for each other, you know?” says the girl, standing up to go back inside. “I’ve been trying to get some water in her, but she needs food and sleep.” The girl hesitates. “She probably shouldn’t be left alone tonight. You know, just in case.”
“I’ll take over from here. I’m her roommate. I’ll be by her side all night,” I promise.
The frat house is only a few blocks from our apartment building, and I figure no cab driver is going to want Clara vomiting all over their backseat. I hold Clara up and help her stumble home, practically carrying her the whole way. As short of a walk as it is, we have to stop several times for her to throw up.
“What on earth did you drink?” I ask.
“A little bit of this, a little bit of that…” Clara slurs, before her words turn into more vomit.
I manage to get her into the apartment and into the shower, where I sit on the toilet while she washes up to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself somehow. I help her pull on her pajamas, then coax her into eating some toast and drinking club soda.
We’re sitting on the couch with the TV on quietly in the background, with me sitting up and her stretched across the couch with her head in my lap. She hasn’t thrown up anymore since we’ve been home, thankfully. She’s also sobered up a little, enough to really talk to me while I stroke her hair and feed her bits of toast.
“I’m really, really sorry for how I acted,” she says mournfully. “I was just so mad at you for hiding things from me.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” I sigh. “I know I haven’t been a good friend lately. Even before the stuff with Maddox. I’m the one who should be sorry. And I’m going to make it up to you, I promise.”
“No more weird secrets?” Clara asks, and I laugh.
“No more weird secrets,” I promise, smiling.
“I don’t want to hear about the sex, though,” Clara grumbles from my lap. “Because that’s, like, gross.”
“Deal,” I say, glad to have my best friend back.
It’s not until Clara has fallen asleep that I realize I haven’t told Maddox about what was going on. My phone is still dead in my backpack in the other room. He probably waited outside the library for me.
I look down at Clara’s sleeping face, a puddle of her drool forming on my pants, but I don’t care. I can’t believe how close I came to jeopardizing our friendship. I meant what I said when I told Clara I was going to be a better friend to her, and that starts now. I won’t even wake her up; she needs to rest and recover, and I should keep an eye on her anyway in case she gets sick in the night.
Maddox will understand, especially because it’s Clara. I have to put her first right now. I’ll charge my phone and call him as soon as Clara gets up, but until then, I need to take care of her.
21
Maddox
I waited for Madison for almost an hour outside the library before I finally went in to look for her. I called her a million times, but she never answered. She’s been acting really weird lately, and we’ve barely spent any time together since the day I told her I love her. Was it too much, too soon? Did I scare her off?
I know Clara is mad at us, and Axel too, but if anything, that just makes me want to be with her more. If I don’t have either of my siblings, I need Madison to talk to, at least. But she hasn’t been there for me. I’m hoping she’s just busy with work and school, and I’m trying to be understanding, but it still hurts.
I was more confused than ever when I went into the library and no one was there. I even went to her and Clara’s apartment; nobody was home. It was much too late for her to possibly be working at the pro bono office. Where could she be?
Frustrated, I got back into my car and sat in her driveway, figuring out what to do until Axel called me.
“Hey, shithead,” he said when I answered. “Come over, Declan and I are going to talk some sense into you.”
Not in the mood for Axel’s shit, but also not wanting to go home alone, I headed to Axel’s bachelor pad, where he and Declan persuaded me to go out drinking with them.
Which is how I ended up back at the sex club.
Although Axel claimed he was bringing us there for me so that I could “meet someone else besides our little sister’s best friend to fuck,” it was obvious he was there for selfish reasons since he ran off to the back rooms seconds after we got there. Declan and I were left at the bar, neither of us having any desire to go any farther into the club.
“You know, Axel’s really just trying to look out for you,” Declan remarks as we both nurse our drinks. “He thinks you’re just using Madison to get over Jasmine, and that you’re going to end up getting hurt, and hurting her too, which will end up affecting her friendship with Clara. You’ve got to admit, it’s a pretty messy situation.”
“I know,” I sigh. “And I’ve handled it all wrong, I get it. But this thing with Madison has nothing to do with Jasmine, I swear. I’m really, really into her, Declan.”
“And does she feel the same way about you?”
I think about how Madison has been blowing me off and I couldn’t find her anywhere earlier. How we’ve barely spoken or seen each other since we told each other I love you. I feel a pang of hurt and say softly, “I thought she did. Now I’m not so sure.”