Eve brought the bottle to her lips and tilted her head back. Hazel could see the outline of her throat, swelling and then relaxing, effortlessly allowing the cascade of beer down it.
“Ah,” she said as she tilted her neck back up and slammed the beer onto the table. Hazel could make out the fill line from behind the label. Eve had swallowed nearly half the bottle in one sip.
“Well, okay, then,” Silas said, seeming impressed at the feat. “And how about you, Hazel?”
Hazel felt her tummy do a flip again as she made eye contact with Silas. She could feel a tingle in her cheeks and her palms start to sweat. She hadn’t even held a bottle before. She felt scared, but even more, she felt excited.
“Uh, yeah. Of course,” she mumbled. She looked over at Eve, who had her eyes locked on Hazel, urging her to drink it, too.
“You sure now? You know you don’t have to...” Silas started to say, but then Hazel tore the bottle from his hand with a furious rush of something inside her she had never felt before.
She exhaled fully and then poured the liquid into her mouth. The bubbles were angry and sharp going down. The beer was bitter and nasty on her tongue. Hazel felt her face begin to contort—her lips pursing, her nose scrunching up, her eyebrows pressing together. But she stopped herself from wincing and continued to gulp it all down. She gulped and gulped until the entire bottle was finished and then she slammed it down on the table next to Eve’s.
Eve looked impressed. And Hazel felt cool and sexy and interesting and mature and alive. She had discovered what it felt like to do something dangerous at the same time as she had rediscovered what it felt like to be part of something. The combination of feelings strengthened the validity of both. It made her want to do more, feel more. To sink deeper. To be part of this new family.
For so long she had been thirsting for someone that understood her, and in this moment she had felt fulfilled at a mere admiring gaze from Eve and Silas. This place, these people in it, would be more than enough. Her mother would have never let an adventure like this happen anymore. Not since the twins were born. Hazel was ready for newness in her life. Ready for connection.
“Looks like you two have got some Box genes in ya, after all!” Silas said, swelling with pride.
He slapped Hazel on the back firmly, which caused her to belch.
All three of them laughed and laughed and laughed, and then belched some more.
“Well, I’ll get us some more, then. It’s going to be a fun night, you guys.” Silas got up to get another set of beers from the refrigerator and Hazel was already spinning.
“Dig in,” Silas instructed as he set the new cold beers down onto the table. Hazel reached for the bread and butter. Her hands felt foreign and wobbly as she placed a slice on her plate and took a buttered knife across the surface. She took another sip of her beer. This one felt smoother, less shocking. And then she piled more food onto her plate.
All three of them ate and drank and told stories and laughed and ate and drank and told stories and laughed some more. They all inhaled the conversation as much as they inhaled their dinners. And as much as Hazel inhaled her beer. None of them even bothered to pause in moments between words leaving their lips and their meal entering it. Soon, the outlines of Eve’s and Silas’s bodies began to get fuzzy and then the food at the table began to blur. But Hazel ate and drank and drank and ate even more. And then everything blurred some more.
* * *
When Hazel came to, her bare bottom felt cold against the tile beneath her and her head and body felt as if they were filled with lead. The room was dark and quiet and water poured down on her from the showerhead above in a constant stream, splattering around her. Hazel’s knees were tucked into her chest and her arms wrapped around them. Everything was still blurry and she could taste the acidity of vomit lingering inside her cheeks. Her eyes were closed but all she could see was green. That same putrid, nauseating green of her bedroom wall. The image enlarged and contracted with the throbbing of her head as if it were a breathing lung.
Hazel stood up slowly, continuing to let the water pour over her. Her legs wobbled as she did it but it felt good to stand. She opened her mouth to the stream and let the water overflow in her open mouth and roll down her chin. She motioned to turn the water off, but her stomach contracted violently. She pressed her palm into the wall of the shower and tilted her head down. Chunks of food and slimy chyme from her stomach spewed from her mouth and fell into a warm and viscous mound on her feet. She moved her head away to let the water wash her toes. Through watery eyes, Hazel observed muculent globs of food stuck to the drain, resisting the force of the water trying to wash it down.
Her throat felt sore from the stomach acid, the stench of which filled her nostrils. She turned her mouth up toward the water to cleanse it again. Her stomach contracted again, but this time Hazel only dry-heaved. She dropped back down to the floor of the shower and pulled her knees into her chest, trying to stay clear of the lingering vomit. As she returned to this position with the water running over her, Hazel wondered how many times she had already repeated this pattern—stand up, vomit, sink down, let the water cleanse her, stand up, vomit, sink down, let the water cleanse her.
Hazel could feel her pulse in her temples. The world around her was glitchy and dark. Her mouth tasted sticky and stale. Her insides felt empty and aching. Hazel pressed her forehead into her knees and squeezed her shins. Her wet hair stuck to the outsides of her calves and she let out a groan, perhaps as a way to transfer all the horrible, disgusting, vile things from her insides out into the world, hoping something else would absorb them. Take away her agony, her embarrassment.
She pressed her forehead further into her knees, resigning herself to sit under that showerhead next to her own vomit for eternity when the door to the bathroom creaked open. Hazel rolled her head over, leaving one ear on her knee, and looked toward the door. Eve appeared in the doorway, rubbing her eye with the heel of her palm.
“What are you doing in here?” she mumbled through sleepy lips.
Hazel turned her forehead back into the tops of her knees and groaned again.
Eve opened the door to the shower and reached to turn the water off and then crouched down next to Hazel. Eve shimmied her legs around Hazel’s curled body and then tucked Hazel’s wet hair behind her ear.
“Ew!” she shrieked, presumably having just identified the vomit at the center of the drain. She chuckled a bit as she tickled Hazel’s back up and down with her fingertips.
“Oh yeah, been here before.” She tickled Hazel’s back again. It felt good to have another body next to hers. It felt good to have help. It felt good to know that Eve had gone through this before. That Hazel had a partner.
“Hold on, gotta piss,” Eve interrupted and then popped up.
Hazel moaned again and followed Eve with her gaze.
Eve pulled her pants down and sat down onto the toilet.