Fireworks

“But Audrey, you promised,” Anika says, pouting just a bit. Audrey sighs. She’s not really in the mood to go out and dance and deal with people. She just wants to stay in a drink by herself. She’s got a bottle of wine in the kitchen that’s just screaming her name.

“I don’t feel well,” Audrey says. Anika pouts even more. Anika knows it’s a lie. She also knows why Audrey doesn’t want to go out. But, being Anika, she’s not going to let that stop her. “Seriously, ‘Nika, go have fun with Ashwin.”

Anika groans and throws herself back on Audrey’s bed. “Fine. But if something happens between me and him, it’s all on you,” she says, shoving a finger in Audrey’s face.

Audrey laughs and swats at Anika’s finger. “Hey, you said you’d be careful.”

“Yeah,” Anika says softly. “I just want you there, that’s all.”

“Stop, you’re making me feel so guilty,” Audrey says and she throws herself back on the bed, next to Anika. She pulls a pillow over her face. She wants to be there for Anika, just as a support for her, but at the same time, she really doesn’t want to go out. She wants to stay in so, so badly. She just wishes Anika would understand and respect that.

“Is this about Pete?” Anika says all of a sudden.

Audrey keeps the pillow over her head. She doesn’t want to get into this right now.

Anika pats Audrey’s stomach. “C’mon, Auds.”

Audrey groans and peeks her head out from under the pillow. “Maybe,” she mumbles before placing the pillow back over her head.

“You’re so dramatic,” Anika says with a laugh.

“Whatever. Go have a fun night out with Ashwin,” Audrey mutters. She wonders how long she would have to stay under here before she suffocates. It surely can’t be soon enough.

Anika is eerily quiet, and it bothers Audrey. Enough that she sticks her head out from under the pillow to peek at her. Anika is staring down at her. Audrey feels incredibly self-conscious. Even though she knows she shouldn’t. Anika is her best friend. She should be used to be judged by her by now.

“Can you, you know, not?” Audrey mutters before shoving the pillow back on her face.

“It’s not like you’re gonna see Pete there, Audrey,” Anika says, poking her stomach. Audrey squirms, trying to get away before she pokes her again. Anika, as predicted, pokes again, this time with a little more force. “C’mon, you little stick in the mud.”

“Stop it!” Audrey says as Anika continues to poke her. “Anika, seriously, stop!”

Audrey is still squirming and Anika is still poking, and they’re both laughing, loud and hard. The pillow that Audrey had been hiding under has now been abandoned, half-way across the bed. Anika’s stretched across the bed, long limbs stretching to keep up her tickle assault on Audrey.

Audrey laughs, squirming and swatting at Anika’s hands. Suddenly, there’s no more bed to squirm across. It’s gone, and Audrey hits the floor with a loud thud. Anika gasps and scrambles to peer over the side of the bed.

Audrey’s lying on the floor, the blankets tangled all over her. She’s laughing so hard it’s silent. She thinks she’s going to pee herself if she laughs any harder.

“Oh, my god! I’m sorry!” Anika says, trying to stifle her laughter. It’s pointless – she can’t hold it back. She gives up trying to hold it and buries her head in the bed, laughing so hard, she too, thinks she’s gonna pee if she laughs any harder.

“I hate you!” Audrey finally gets out. She’s still on the floor, tears running down the side of her face from laughing so damn hard. Her face is a pale red, too. She looks awful. But she feels great. “I cannot believe.”

Anika peeks over the side of the bed again, giggling softly to herself. “I didn’t mean to make you fall.” Anika buries her face into the bed once again, still giggling.

“Yeah, okay.” Audrey tries to calm herself down. She takes a couple deep breaths, and, right as she feels she’s okay, Anika peeks over. The two look at each other, then burst into laughter again.

It takes ten minutes for them to regain themselves.

Audrey gets up from the floor and climbs back onto the bed. “That wasn’t that funny.”

“It really wasn’t,” Anika says. She and Audrey exchange glances and start giggling again. They feel like they’re teenagers still in high school, not almost-thirty lawyers. It’s really, really nice. Anika grabs Audrey’s arm when they stop laughing. “Come to the club. Please. I need you.”

Audrey groans. How in the world can she say no, now? She can’t. “Fine.”

Anika grins and lunges forward, tackling Audrey to the bed in a bone-crushing hug.



The club is noisy and packed and Audrey really wishes she had said no. She’s stuck at the bar while Anika and Ashwin are out on the floor dancing. Well, she could be out there, too, as Anika keeps pointing out. She just chooses to stay at the bar. But she’s saying she’s stuck.

She’s stubborn, is what she is.

She sips on her vodka and cranberry as she watches people dance out on the floor. She’s lost count on how many drinks she’s had, honestly. She started with a rum and coke, and she’s just making her way through her favorite drink concoctions. It’s disgusting, really. The taste one leaves in her mouth doesn’t mix well with the next and she’s just so done.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a guy take a seat next to her. She glances over at him. He’s smiling at her, nice and bright, and so hopeful. She doesn’t want to deal with it.

“No,” she says before he can even open his mouth.

“No?” The guy echoes, and she takes a deep breath before slamming back her drink.

“No,” she repeats, this time turning to face him. The bar starts spinning as her drinks all finally catch up to her. She blinks a couple times and turns to the bar, steadying herself. “Shit.”

The guy scoffs and gets up, muttering something about a “drunk ass bitch”. Audrey rubs her temples. Slamming back that drink was not a good idea in the slightest. She wants to puke. The flashing lights and pounding music do not help.

She’s up and off the stool in a matter of seconds. She stumbles her way through sweaty bodies, desperately in search of the bathroom. She has no fucking clue where it is – she’s never been to this club. She’s flying blind, and if she doesn’t find the bathroom in a total of six seconds, she’s gonna puke all over some LA girls six inch heels.

Thankfully, she does find the bathroom. Unfortunately, it’s not really in enough time. She can only make it to the sink before everything comes back up.

“God dammit.” She heaves up everything. Girls that were here before her are gagging as they scramble out. She feels so bad.

Someone comes bursting through the door. Anika. She grabs all of Audrey’s hair, pulling it back. With her free hand, she rubs Audrey’s back.

“How did – ”Everything comes up again. She takes a deep breath. “ – you know I was – ” Again. “—in here?”

“I saw you dart from the bar,” Anika says, and her voice is so soft, so soothing. Audrey almost wants to lean against her. But she knows that’d be gross and slightly odd. “Do you need a paper towel?”

Yes.

“I can’t feel my face,” Audrey says instead. She has no idea how that translates into Yes, I need a paper towel, thank you. but Anika grabs a handful of paper towels and hands them to her.

Audrey wipes at her face. And, she really can’t feel her face. It’s totally numb. When the hell did that happen?

“I’m so drunk,” Audrey says as she swipes the paper towels across her face. That’s really not what she wanted to come out. She wanted to thank Anika. For being a good friend. And for getting her paper towels.

Anika pats her back. “You’re welcome.”

Audrey looks up and catches Anika’s eye in the mirror. She smiles as best she can in her drunken state. She just ends up looking dopey.

“Come on, let’s get you home,” Anika says.

Audrey nods and lets Anika lead her out of the bathroom.



The alarm on Audrey’s phone blares next to her. She startles awake, almost falling backwards off her bed. It feels like there’s a jackhammer currently going to town in her brain. She frantically searches for the phone that’s now tangled in the covers.

She shakes out the covers and the phone goes flying off the bed, landing on the hardwood floor. The alarm is still going, and she wants to cry. It’s so loud. And she’s so tired. And sore.

“Please, stop,” she whines as she gets out of bed. She grabs the phone off the floor and quickly turns off the alarm. She glances at the time. 6:03. “Oh, my god.”

Now, she really wants to cry. It’s fucking six in the morning and her head hurts and her mouth feels like its got cotton balls all stuffed in it. And she feels so dirty.

“I don’t wanna go to work,” she mutters, tossing her phone back on her bed. She looks at her nightstand. There’s a glass of water with a little pill sitting next to it.

Anika.

Her savior.

She rushes over to it, ignoring the horrible pounding in her head and her bones, and takes the pill with a big gulp of water.

The alarm on her nightstand goes off, now, and, startled, she drops the glass of water. The glass shatters and the water spills everywhere.

“No!” she yells.

Now, her head hurts, her body aches, she feels disgusting, and now she’s got water and glass all over her floor. She really, really, really wants to cry.

“Today’s gonna suck,” she mutters, fighting back tears.



She’s running late to the office. And, quite frankly, she doesn’t give a damn. She knows Ashwin will – mostly likely – forgive her. After all, he was there last night. He saw how awful she was.

Anika left without her this morning. She got tired of waiting for Audrey to get ready. So, she just left. Took the car and everything, leaving Audrey to take a cab.

Figuring she was already late, and not wanting to pay a ton for a cab to get her to the office, she had the cab drop her off at a Starbucks, four blocks from the office. If she was gonna be late, she was gonna do it white girl style. Fifteen minutes with Starbucks.

She hates herself for it.

As she waits for her coffee, she looks around the small café. She likes to people watch. Especially here in LA. The people were, uh, interesting, to put it nicely.

A lot of workout clothes, yet it looked like no one really worked out. Funny. She smiles softly to herself.

She watches people come and go.

“Aubrey?” The barista calls. She sighs and goes to grab her drink. Of course they got her name wrong. He hands it over with a smile and she gives him a fake one back.

She’s almost out the door when, of course, she slams into someone. Coffee covers the both of them. And she just gives up, right there. She starts to tear up, her lip quivering so softly. “I can’t win,” she says, and it’s so soft and shaky. She feels so, so pathetic.

Then she notices the person she bumped into. Her day gets even worse, right there. Pete is standing there, staring down at the coffee covering the front of his hole-filled shirt. Well, it’s not like she ruined that. He did that himself.

Pete looks up at her, and his face falls. It’s just like yesterday. Audrey wants to run out in traffic.

Then he starts to laugh. Audrey’s so confused. Why the hell is he laughing? “Of course,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters. She’s about to brush past him when he grabs her arm. She feels little sparks from the contact. Oh. She hasn’t felt that in a while. She stares down at his hand, then looks up at him. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you another coffee,” he mutters, pulling her softly to come stand in line with him. Audrey wants to protest. But, free coffee.

But, Pete.

“Why?” she asks slowly. She slips her arm out of Pete’s grasp and folds her arms across her chest so he can’t touch her again. “Look, okay, you don’t have to. I’m good.”

He turns to look at her, and she melts under his gaze. His eyes look so much older. Wiser. She wonders if he’s still that super reckless kid from Chicago she fell for. Or if he’s grown up. A part of her wishes he hasn’t.

“Seriously. It’s okay.”

He steps up to the counter and orders his, then turns to her, waiting for her to order. The barista gives her an odd look. Yes, yes, she knows she was just here, and yes, there’s coffee all over her and the man standing to the left of her. She orders another drink and Pete pays.

This is so weird.

She steps to the side, waiting for her drink, arms still crossed over her chest. “Okay, what the hell happened?”

“What do you mean?” Pete asks, not even bothering to look at her as he stuffs his change back into his wallet. He folds it up and shoves it into his back pocket, Audrey observes. He’s still wearing those tight pants. She’s always wondered how he squeezed himself into those, let alone a big wallet.

When she looks up, he’s staring at her chest. Oh. She looks down and remembers, oh, yes, there’s coffee all over her shirt and half her skirt.

Pete takes off his hoodie, which has no coffee on it, and hands it to her. She stares at it. “Seriously, why are you being so nice?” she asks. And, yeah, that’s a bitchy thing to say, but she can’t help it. She has to know what the hell caused a switch to flip in his head.

He shrugs, still holding the hoodie out to her. Audrey stares at him, now. It looks like he hasn’t slept in a while. The circles under his eyes are darker than she remembers. How had she not noticed those before.

He hasn’t shaved, either. He’s got a slight stubble going on, and she finds it really attractive. He looks so much older.

She slowly takes the hoodie from him and steps back towards the bathroom. “I’m gonna go. Yeah.”

She rushes to the bathroom and slams the door, locking it. She quickly changes and wipes herself down. She smells like coffee. And now Pete as she slips the hoodie on and zips it up. He still smells the same. After all these years. It's comforting, almost. Then she remembers what's happening.

She's in a Starbucks with her ex-boyfriend and he's buying her coffee and she's wearing his hoodie. It's like yesterday didn't happen. It's like their break up didn't happen. It's like back when everything was perfect, in their sense of the word.

This is too weird. It's freaking her out.

"This can't be happening," she breathes out.

When she comes back out of the bathroom, Pete is standing by the door, both coffees in his hands. He hands one to her. “Be careful,” he says with a laugh.

She smiles softly as she takes it. They walk out of the Starbucks in silence. It’s awkward and Audrey wants to do nothing but run back home and crawl in bed. This whole morning has been horrible and weird. Almost like it’s a dream.

She pinches herself just to make sure it’s not.

It’s not. She sighs, causing Pete to look over at her.

“Hey, so,” he starts. He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know where to go from here. Neither does she. “I've been thinking.”

Audrey takes a sip of her coffee and hums, signaling him to go on.

"And, I wanna talk."

Ah. There it is. The day just keeps getting better.

Audrey sighs.