If I ever wanna make it into med school someday, clearly I’ve gotta brush up on my understanding of blood chemistry.

Because holy shit. Saying we ‘overdid it’ last night would be the understatement of the century. My head STILL feels like somebody’s been pounding it with a fucking hammer, but I wanted to kinda go over everything that happened at the dance before I forget.

Writing out all that stuff I was thinking the other day was actually weirdly helpful. ‘Therapeutic’, my Opa Phoenix would probably call it (he’s retired now, but he used to be a shrink). So I decided to try it again… but on the computer this time. Way easier.

So yeah, anyway… Ollie swiped a bottle of his mom’s fancy whiskey and brought it over yesterday while we were getting ready for Homecoming.

And, like idiots, we decided that downing about half the bottle between the three of us would be a brilliant idea.

Thank God Lily was wrong and they weren’t testing our BAC at the door. I’m not even sure how the hell we managed to get in without any of the chaperones being suspicious. It wasn’t so bad when we were at my parents’ house, but during the limo ride, it REALLY started hitting all of us pretty bad. I don’t think any of us could even walk straight by the time we got there, except Penny (and she knew better than to rat us out, luckily. Ollie totally saved our asses there!)

We started sobering up a little by the second half of the dance, so things kinda calmed down, eventually. But let’s just say the first half of the night was… interesting.

Where do I even start?

So, by the time we showed up, “Operation: Get Asher Laid” was pretty much thrown out the window in favor of “Operation: Make Steven Jealous”. I got stuck on scout duty — stumbled my drunk ass all around the gym looking for that douchebag (not an easy feat when the entire room is spinning) until I finally found him.

Then Ollie and Lily did their thing.

Very, very enthusiastically.

It was… very weird. And kinda hot but kinda gross at the same time? I don’t even know.

Anyway, I guess it did the trick because Steven was PISSED. We were all laughing our asses off when we saw him storm away to go cry to his friends. Mission accomplished.

We were all cheering and high-fiving each other and basically being obnoxious as hell. We almost didn’t notice Penny running away toward the girls’ bathroom. It looked like she was crying. And none of us had a clue WHY.

Lily went after her to see if she was okay… I tried to, but I could barely walk straight at that point.

That was when Ollie decided to start teasing me again. He walked up to me with that sexy little smirk on his face, totally reeking of booze.

“Ready for your turn? I think Landon’s over there,” I remember him saying.

Unfortunately, I never got to find out if he was serious.

The smell of the alcohol on his breath was enough to do it.

I’ve never been interested in sports, but I’m starting to wonder whether I missed out by not trying out for the track team.

I fucking FLEW to the bathroom, and made it just in time to start puking my guts out in the last stall. It was awful (but not as awful as puking all over Ollie would have been, so I guess it’s a good thing that ‘make out with Ollie’ is another fantasy that gets shelved for now).

So yeah, it was pretty disgusting. The smell of my own puke was almost bad enough to get me going again, so I knew I had to get out of there. I literally crawled out of the stall once I was done. I could barely stand and I kinda wanted to die.

Fun times, right? Not exactly the way I’d pictured my night going.

Anyway, this next part is where things get better… or worse, depending on how you wanna look at it. Double-edged sword.

I had my eyes closed, but I remember hearing somebody calling my name. I thought it was Ollie, at first. But the voice wasn’t deep enough, and the footsteps were heavier.

It felt like a fucking smack in the face when I realized it was Landon.

I wish I could say I magically sobered up right then and there, wiped the stray flecks of puke off my collar, brushed the grime from the bathroom floor off my pants, and made some kind of epic recovery that smoothed the whole thing over and made me look good.

But I didn’t.

I sat there like a total idiot while he brought me a bottle of water and started telling me about this time he got really sick at a party… I don’t really remember the details very well, to be honest.

Can you believe it? That had to be the longest conversation Landon and I ever had, and not only did he do like 90% of the talking, but I can barely even remember what he said!

I’m not sure how long he stayed with me, but he left when his friends showed up looking for him. Some of those arrogant assholes he hangs out with all the time (for some reason).

I remember feeling his hand on my shoulder for a second before he left. It was nice. Like he was trying to be comforting or whatever. Then I got a pretty spectacular view of his ass as he walked away from me.

By that time, I was still pretty damn drunk, but I was at least halfway-functioning (Let the record show that Landon Littlehale’s ass has magical sobering qualities). I managed to make it back into the gym to look for my friends, and they caught me up to speed on what I missed while I was busy being a horrible puking mess in front of the hottest guy at school.

Lily finally caught up with Penny in the girls’ room. And it turns out her random meltdown was because she saw Ollie and Lily making out. Guess it was no coincidence that it was so easy for him to charm her earlier… I’d always kinda wondered whether Penny had the hots for him or something, and I guess I was right (who knew she had such good taste?).

They said she managed to calm down once Lily explained it was all just a stupid trick to get back at her ex, but Penny ran off with her friends after that, and had been avoiding Ollie like the plague ever since. Which I guess is better than crying like a baby in the bathroom, at least? (Plus, I was relieved that I didn’t have to go find some poor Freshman loser and give him hell for hurting my little sister. Not sure how well that’d go down if I was SOBER, let alone drunk off my ass).

Once they got that whole explanation out of the way, I filled them in on what happened with Landon in the bathroom (wow, when I say it like that, it sounds like it’s gonna be a hell of a lot more exciting than it really is, huh?). Ollie sympathized with how humiliating the whole thing was for me, but Lily seems convinced it’s a good thing… I dunno. Maybe they’re both right? I was too drunk last night to really think about it too much.

The three of us spent the rest of the night laughing and joking and dancing horribly (which would’ve happened whether we were drunk or not, honestly).

When we finally got to the last slow song of the night, part of me kinda-sorta hoped Ollie would wanna give the whole ‘make Landon jealous’ thing another chance… But instead, he decided to go find Penny to try and make up for making her jealous earlier.

I told him I didn’t think it would be such a good idea — why keep getting the poor kid’s hopes up? But he wouldn’t listen. His funeral, I guess.

That left me and Lil to dance with each other. Neither of us had anybody else, so why not, right?

I spent most of the time scanning the crowd for Landon to see what lucky girl he was dancing with, but I couldn’t find him. And it was maybe for the best anyway…

Can’t lie, I’m sorta dreading Trig tomorrow morning.

How the hell am I supposed to face him now after what happened at the dance?

I’m still not even 100% sure how I feel about the whole thing yet. Some bizarre mix of utter mortification and cautious optimism, I guess?

God, what a weird fucking night.