The next morning, I woke up to 30 texts in my friends' group chat and an Instagram message from Josh.
Being the thirsty bitch I was, I opened Josh's message first. It said, Can we talk?
About last night? I sent back.
While waiting for him to reply, I looked through the group chat messages. Nothing remarkable, mostly your average drunk texts and memes.
As I was reading through them, my bedroom door suddenly swung open and my mom walked in.
"Get ready for church," she told me.
"Jesus, you really need to knock," I replied irritably.
Using the Lord's name in vain was definitely a mistake; my mom's face turned red and angry. "Watch your mouth!"
"Sorry," I mumbled.
"Don't apologize to me," my mom snapped. "Apologize to Him."
With that, she left my room, leaving the door wide open. I rolled my eyes to no one, but just to be safe, I quietly muttered, "Sorry, Jesus."
The power of Catholic guilt was strong in our household.
After church, at about 11:30 AM, I got a message back from Josh that said, Yeah. Can we meet up before school tomorrow?
I told him sure, my heart fluttering in my chest. He definitely wanted to talk about the kiss. I was both nervous that he was going to say something I didn't want to hear and hopeful that maybe he'd admit he had feelings for me. Why did he have to torture me by forcing me to wait until the next day?
I received a text from Liv a little while later, asking me to bring her a hangover kit. I replied and told her that the true cure for a hangover was to face the consequences of her actions and learn to not drink so much next time.
Fine, then I guess I won't help you write your Pride and Prejudice essay, she responded.
Are you blackmailing me?
It's extortion, actually, she texted back.
So, about an hour later, I arrived at Liv's house with Gatorade, Mcdonald's fries, aspirin, tums, and an energy drink.
When she met me at the front door, I burst out laughing at her appearance. Her hair was a tangled mess, she had dark circles under her bloodshot eyes, and she was hunched over as though in pain.
"Oh, shut up," she grumbled as I went inside.
"That's no way to speak to a first responder," I said while we walked into the kitchen. I set the hangover kit onto the counter.
"I asked Lydia first," Liv replied. "She's doing family stuff today, so you were actually my last resort."
"Rude."
Liv shoved a handful of fries into her mouth. Through a mouthful of food, she said, "My mom grounded me."
"Oh, shit. She caught you?"
"Wasn't hard. I came home drunk off my ass and she was sitting on the couch watching TV."
"How long are you grounded for?" I asked.
"Two weeks."
"So should I not be here right now?"
"It's fine," she told me. "My mom's out with her church friends. I'm not gonna be able to go to Jake's birthday party next weekend though."
I frowned. "Well, I'm definitely not going if you're not there."
Liv shot me a dirty look. "Connor, you have to go."
"Why? He won't even notice if I'm not there. I already have to endure him in Spanish and at lunch everyday."
"He wants you there, though. You're, like, his best friend."
I laughed incredulously. "No I'm not! Ben's his best friend. Or maybe one of the guys on the hockey team. I don't know. He's definitely not my best friend." In what universe were Jake and I any more than acquaintances?
Liv chugged some Gatorade. "He thinks you guys are better friends than you do. So go play hockey for his birthday, even if it's out of pity."
"His party's at the ice rink?" I glared at Liv. "Hell no. That sounds awful. You won't even be there to make me look like a better skater."
"I'm not that bad!" Liv protested. "Also, Jake might be annoying sometimes, but he's really not that bad."
"I never said he was."
Liv rolled her eyes at me. "Yes, you did. You do. All the time."
I kept my mouth shut because I knew she was right.
"That's why I didn't even want to tell you about last night," Liv added quietly.
"What happened last night?"
From the way she had a nervous, guilty look on her face and refused to make eye contact suddenly, I knew it had to be something bad. "What'd you do?"
Liv groaned and, while looking down at the floor, said, "We might've...kissed."
"You and Jake?" I didn't even bother hiding the look of disgust on my face.
"See, this is why I was afraid to tell you! You're so judgemental."
I took a moment for her comment to sink in. I was being judgemental. At the same time, I kissed someone at the party, too, but was afraid to tell her because I didn't want to be judged. Basically, I was being a huge hypocrite.
"Okay, I'm sorry," I said. "You're right. Jake's not that bad."
"Thank you."
"So, are you guys...like, together?" I asked.
Liv's face wrinkled up like she bit into something sour. "Ew, never."
I threw my hands up in exasperation. "What the fuck?"
"I can say it, you can't. But anyway, no, it was just during a game. After you left we switched to actually playing Truth or Dare and Lydia dared me to kiss Jake." Liv shrugged like it was no big deal.
"Um, okay."
"But back to what we were talking about. I know you'll end up going to his birthday party."
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"Because it's really easy to guilt you into doing things you don't want to." Liv gave me a knowing look, then grabbed the rest of the hangover kit and walked towards the living room. "C'mon. Let's watch some New Girl before my mom gets home."
***
The next morning before school, I changed my outfit four times before settling on my usual jeans and hoodie. I did, however, spray cologne and used maybe a little bit of hair gel to try to fix the front of my hair.
I had dark brown hair that grew in every direction because of my abundance of cowlicks. I didn't usually even attempt to style my hair, since I was always fine with "good enough." But now that I was meeting up with Josh, I suddenly decided good enough wasn't good enough.
However, I scowled at myself in the mirror and gave up before I was late.
School started at 8:00, so Josh and I decided to meet up at 7:30. I looked at the dark circles under my eyes; I'd slept awfully because of the anticipation in seeing him again.
Finally, at 7:20, I was out the door and on my way to the school.
When I arrived, there were only a couple other cars in the parking lot. It was weird being there so early, like when you ran into a teacher in publicâit was bound to happen, but no one was ever happy about it.
Josh was just pulling into the parking lot as I got out of my car.
He walked over to me, looking at the ground. When he finally met my eyes, I noticed he had dark circles underneath his, too.
"Hey," Josh said uncomfortably.
"Hey."
"Uh...in your car, maybe?" He looked around the parking lot as a couple of other cars began trickling in.
"Okay."
Once we both sat inside, I waited for him to say something. "I just..." he started, then stopped. "Honestly, I'm just sorry. Like, I just wanted to apologize for...that night."
"You don't have to apologize," I told him.
"No, I do." Josh let out a sigh. "Listen, whatever happened was just a drunken mistake. And I'd really appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone about it."
"Obviously I won't tell anyone," I said. "I'm just...I'm a little confused."
"It was a mistake," he repeated sternly. "Let's just forget it happened."
"How am I supposed to forget that?" I shot back, growing frustrated. "How am I supposed to just forget my first kiss?"
As soon as I said it, I regretted it. Not only would Josh think I was some sort of loser, he probably also thought I had some sort of desperate obsession with him.
I mean, I did, but he didn't need to know that.
Josh's tired eyes searched my face for a moment. Finally, after what felt like an hour, he said, "It was my first kiss, too."
"What are you talking about? You had a girlfriend for, like, years."
His eyes welled up with tears, and he quickly blinked them away. He looked down at his lap as he said, "Charlotte and I never kissed."
Any anger I had towards him a moment ago melted away. I didn't even know what to say to that, but I knew there was a lot he wasn't telling me. Instead of expanding on it, though, he said, "Whatever. Can we...please just move on and act like this never happened? Because, to be honest, Connor, I can't deal with this right now."
"Great, yeah," I replied, my voice clearly giving away my annoyance. "Let's just forget about it. Fine by me."
Josh turned towards me, a look on his face I couldn't quite decipher. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm..." He stopped and sighed. Then, he opened the car door, muttering, "Fuck" before climbing out and slamming the door shut.
I realized, then, that a couple of tears had slipped down my face. I angrily wiped them away. I was angry at myself for getting my hopes up, angry at Josh for being so damn cryptic and for kissing me and then for wanting to pretend it didn't happen, angry at the world for giving me confirmation that I was destined to be alone.
If misery loves company, I was about to make a whole lot of people miserable.