“Like when later?”

“I don’t know.” He growled and yelled at something happening around him. “No! Knock it off! You can wait one second for-” He exhaled angrily, and then spoke to me again. “Alice, I’m sorry. I gotta go. I’ll call you later, though.”

“Alright, fine.” I’d barely gotten the word “fine” out of my mouth before he hung up. He didn’t even say goodbye.

I collapsed back on the bed, knowing it’d mess up my hair. My nails were freshly painted a dark violet, and I had pulled out a fancy new top that did amazing things for my cleavage.

Not to mention that I had put on my one pair of black heels that looked fantastic, even though they killed to walk in. My eyes were in dramatic smoky makeup that would wash off when I started bawling in approximately five seconds.

After a whirlwind romance with a pair of vampires, somehow my life had amounted to waiting by the phone in hopes someone would call. Getting all dressed up with no place to go.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and out of the blue, my supposed best friend Jane texted me. Immediately after being blown off by Jack for the hundredth time this week, Jane sent me good news.

There’s a big party at Andrew Sullivan’s house. I’ll drive. You in?

My first instinct was to decline, but I decided that it was a sign. I had asked Ezra if it would ever make sense for me to turn, or if I was better off moving on with my life.

Jack practically hung up on me, and Jane invited me out into the real world. My path looked clearer.

Yeah. I’m actually already to go out. When can you get here? I responded.

Twenty minutes? Jane texted back.

Great. See you then.

I rolled out of bed and hurried to the bathroom to make sure I looked okay. With one last quick look over, I realized that something was missing. That something that screamed, “Let's go crazy.”

I dashed back into my room and changed into the final touch: a bright purple thong that Jane had insisted getting for me from Victoria’s Secret, “just in case” Jack ever decided… well, he was never going to decide that, so it seemed like a moot point.

Jane pulled up in her father’s car with Moby playing so loud, I’m surprised it didn’t blow the speakers. The whole car smelled of the strawberry lip gloss she layered on. With an overly happy “Hey girl,” she offered me some, and I took it.

She looked amazing. She’d always reminded me of some tragic socialite, like Edie Sedgwick, the way everything about her was perfect and completely poised to end up exploited.

While she drove, she laughed too much at things that weren’t funny and danced to the music so that the car weaved all over the highway.

“Jane!” I grabbed the wheel to keep the car from slamming into a divider. She giggled and put both her hands on the wheel, but it took an effort to keep her eyes focused on something as mundane as the road. “Jane, what’s going?”

“I’m rolling.” Jane leaned towards me, as if confessing a secret, and held her fingers out to me about an inch apart. “Just a little.”

“Of course you are,” I sighed, and she took this as my displeasure in not being high myself. She squealed and let go of the wheel so she could search through her glittery purse. “Jane!”

“Just hold on! I know have some more X in here!” Lip gloss, condoms, and cash flew out of her purse as she dug through it, and I groaned.

“I don’t want any! Just take the wheel back!” I’d never done ecstasy, and I didn’t want to try right now, while steering the car from the passenger seat.

“Oh whatever.” She turned her attention back to the road. Then her eyes widened. “Oh! Quick! That’s Andy’s exit!” She snatched the wheel from me and skidded across three lanes of traffic without looking before flying up the freeway exit and lurching to a stop.

“This is still better than sitting at home,” I muttered to myself.

Magically, we got to Andrew Sullivan’s house without dying. We got out of the car, and Jane stumbled in her heels as we walked up to the house. It was pretty amazing that she even remembered where Andy lived, let alone how to get there.

From outside, I could hear the music, and the entryway was clogged with teenagers. Jane separated from me as soon as we went in, but I’m not sure if it was by choice, or if she was just sucked up by male hormones.

I’d been there for all of five minutes before someone spilled beer on me, and I knew that I was in dire need of a drink myself.

In the kitchen, an attractive guy poured shots for all the girls in the room, and he insisted I take one. He made some swarthy comment I could barely understand over the blaring bass, but I let myself take it as a compliment. Bright blue vodka burned when it went down, but it burned good.

“Your eyes are the same color as the drink,” he told me after I had downed the shot, and I laughed as if I actually thought it was funny. My eyes were more gray than blue, and nothing in nature was the same shade as that vodka. “You want another drink?”

“Yeah!” I shouted.

It felt warm in my belly and left a fake blue taste in my mouth. I think it was supposed to be blue raspberry, but artificially flavoring never, ever tasted like raspberries. It all just tasted like blue, the same way that grape Kool-Aid tasted like purple.

“My name’s Jordan,” he said.

He leaned in closer as he poured me another shot, and he smelled really good. He probably did a lot of drugs. Boys that smoked a lot of pot always put on too much cologne to mask the smell. But so what? At least they smelled good when they leaned in close.

He poured himself a shot, then clinked his glass with mine.

“Cheers!” Jordan laughed. I laughed too, because he did and the alcohol was starting to spread warm through me.

When the hair fell in his eyes, I realized that he was probably very attractive, but it was hard for me to gauge anymore. Peter had been so incredibly gorgeous that everything else paled in comparison, and Jack looked pretty foxy himself.

But I didn’t want to think of Peter or Jack so I took another shot, and I tried to focus on Jordan and his eyes and his wonderful cologne.

“You should probably slow down,” Jordan suggested as I downed my fourth shot, but he never stopped pouring them for me.

I felt myself moving closer to him, touching his chest and leaning in on him like I wanted him, and some stupid desperate part of me did want him. He’d been pouring shots for several girls, but now we were alone in the corner. He singled me out, and he was foxy, so I was flattered.