The Best Friend's Guide to Surviving Matrimony (and All That Other Happy Shit)

Though the night had gotten off to a rocky start, I could barely even remember Stix's unspoken malice an hour and a half, a dozen shots of Jägermeister and five beers later. In fact, I could barely remember much at all.

The bitchy brunette remained silent for a small portion of the festivities. At first, it seemed that all he had interest in doing was leering menacingly at the wall behind Lexxi's head and bitterly shoving cheese fries into his mouth, all the while still leaning away from me as if I had some horrifying case of the clap. Slowly but surely, though, the Jäger worked its way into his system. Little by little, his lips began to loosen and he began peeling away from the wall, and our elbows were touching on the tabletop and his mouth was running a mile a minute by the time we'd downed the twelfth shot.

To Evie and Lexxi's relief, the alcohol seemed to douse our mutual disdain. Instead of sending ugly sneers the other's way whenever they so much as blinked, we took to simply ignoring each other altogether – and by “ignore,” I mean “disregard the existence of.” This made the course of conversation a bit difficult to follow – if one was talking and the other had any sort of input, they would simply shoot off as if nothing was happening, and we'd both be babbling away simultaneously like fools. It seemed to be a competition: who could ignore the other the best? I could even recall a moment when I’d accidentally spilled beer over onto the drummer's hand, and he didn't even flinch – just kept staring forward like it hadn't occurred.

Some time after our chili cheese fry supply had run out and we found ourselves with no more alcohol to consume, we replenished our pints and migrated over to the pool table. There, we attempted a boys versus girls snooker tournament. The losers would have to buy a round to compensate for their loss. We were in the middle of our third game when Lexxi found it funny to start harassing Evie with the end of his stick whenever she bent over to take a shot. She started chasing him around the table with the stick, threatening to bring severe cosmetic damage to his rectum; what resulted of the pursuit was a passionate make-out session with Evie pressed against the wall. Now, Lexxi had taken to dry-humping her into the corner, leaving Stix and I to our own devices.

I managed to entertain myself for a great deal of time by watching the bassist hump his girlfriend through the drywall. When the humor drained from that situation, I made a trip to the jukebox. It took me an awfully long time to peruse the selections, despite the fact that I knew the catalogue like the back of my hand, but I finally managed to settle on a crowd favorite: “The Joker.” Jamming like I was born to do so, I stopped to steal some peanuts from the bar before boogieing back over to the Panther camp.

Still humming along, I leaned back against the wall, clutching my pool cue between my legs and taking a swig of Lexxi's abandoned Budweiser. Stix was splayed face-up on the felt tabletop, his limbs hanging over the sides like some kind of neanderthal trying to squeeze their gargantuan body onto a toddler's mattress. His foggy cerulean eyes gazed absently at the mottled tin ceiling.

“I wanna get laid,” he said in a drunken monotone I was much too familiar with.

I knew the remark wasn't aimed at me, but my brain found it suitable to shoot back a sardonic reply anyhow: “Kinda hard to get laid when you're fat.”

He crooked his neck to point me a look of hostility. “If it weren't for you, my fat self would have a sexy wife that would be happy to bang me right now!”

I looked at him like he couldn't have possibly said anything dumber. “You would've been divorced now even if I didn't represent her, you idiot!”

He was fumbling to push himself upright now, looking supremely ticked off. “That doesn't change the fact that you betrayed me!”

“I was verging on bankruptcy, Stix; what the hell was I supposed to do?”

“I would've rather you fucking asked me for money rather than reap it out of me in court!”

I bit hard on my tongue in attempt to put a lid on my anger, flicking my gaze away and shaking my head. “You're a fucking child, you know that? You've held a grudge for three whole years just because of some fucking money. You're unbelievable.”

I could feel a look of pure hatred burning into my face, hot enough to scald. “It's not about the money,” he snarled lowly. “It's about the fact that for six straight months, you could stand on her side of the court room and help her pluck away every last bit of dignity I had without even once bothering to look over and see how I was doing.”

His words struck me like a stack of bricks. The blunt truth of it stung like hell. Although I was pleading with myself not to look, knowing that what I would see would hurt more than the words, I turned my head to meet his gaze. Pooling there in his eyes was every emotion he'd always been too dignified and too proud to show: the loneliness, the confusion, the hurt. Emotions I'd caused.

“I understand that you needed the money. I'm not mad at you for that.” He swallowed, facial expression warring to remain composed. I could see the pain bubbling beneath the surface, threatening to fester to the top. “What pisses me off, what makes me fucking hate you is that the time I needed you most, the hardest time of my life, was the time you decided to turn your back on me.”

My lungs wouldn't work. I stared at him, eyes glossed with tears, heart aching. Everything he said was true, and I couldn't deny it. I realized now what I had done. I had caused so much more pain than I’d ever imagined, but now that I realized my mistake, I had no idea how I could fix it.

Stix looked at me for a moment, the rage and misery still swimming in his eyes. Eventually he looked away, swallowing hard again.

“I'm getting the fuck out of here.”

He slid to his feet and threw his jacket over his shoulder, slipping into the flow of the crowd. I tried to follow him with my eyes, but couldn't quite spot him in the fray. The last thing I saw was a glimpse of brown hair slipping out the door, and he was gone.