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Veronica stood without much movement, back against the wall. LED lights were in each corner causing the room to slowly change colors. She glanced down the half-empty solo cup of booze in her hand as the room glowed a soft yellow.
This always happened. Looking around the room, there are tons of people, all crowded against each other and talking almost louder than the shitty pop music playing from the TV stereo. The two varying noises had merged themselves together as Veronica zoned out.
And she was alone, almost cornered, watching the mass of people dance and stumble awkwardly amongst themselves. It's her fault, she could be with any of the Heathers, she just wasn’t at all interested in what they were doing.
Heather Chandler was off flirting with some guy she'd stop talking to within a week, if not before the end of this party. Duke was seated on a couch across from Chandler, bitterly watching the two flirt. And Mac was-
Immediately, an alarm went off in Veronica’s brain. Scanning every bit of the room, looking carefully for her friend, she began to panic. McNamara was rarely alone, especially at big social events like these.
Peeling herself from the wall and shoving through a handful of drunk teenagers, she reached the other two Heathers.
“Uh, guys-- has anyone seen Mac?”
Neither of the girls replied, though Chandler gave her a look of confusion. Veronica grew increasingly more annoyed and repeated her previous question, much louder and much harsher.
Immediately, Chandler snorted. She pulled her arm away from the boy next to her, who watched her and smiled as she did so.
“Since when do you call her Mac?” She said mockingly, earning an eye roll from the much more serious girl.
“I'm not joking, I can't find her anywhere--”
“Wow, that really sucks,” Chandler replied almost too soon, crossing her right leg over her left. “I'm kind of busy right now though, I'm really sorry.” She sucked her teeth in giving an extremely fake look of sorrow that she knew all too well. Christ .
“Duke?” Veronica ignored the bitchy-ness of the preoccupied Heather and turned around to face the other one.
Of course, she only replied with a shrug and mouthed a small “sorry” back.
God damn. They can be so fucking selfish sometimes. For a few seconds, she stood awkwardly in the same place, swinging her arms slightly. She considered trying to make them take this more seriously, but what was the use? She reached the decision that she'd search through the rooms of the house alone. She quickly made her way out of the tightly packed group of drunken teenage hormones.
The other side of the house was quieter, though the chatter and loud music could be heard from the other side of the walls. There was a long thin hallway with two doors on each side. She watched as a couple walked out of one of the rooms, seemingly arguing. She squeezed past them and stared at one of the doors which was closed, though light was seeping out through a sliver under the door.
She slowly opened the door, hoping to see the warm familiar smile of-
Ram and Kurt?
“What the hell are you guys doing in here?” She said, holding in laughter. They both sat on the edge of a small bed, glancing at each other and then at the figure in the doorway.
“Waiting for a girl,” Kurt answered, scooting away from the other boy.
“Haha yeah, she's supposed to be here soon. Got black hair and a sexy blue little blazer-”
Veronica closed the door and continued down the hall, ignoring the childish behavior of the two boys.
She wondered why she still went to these. She rarely had fun until afterward, when her and the girls would talk loudly in some parking lot while they waited for a taxi. What a sad thing to find joy in.
It didn't seem like the other girls liked these either. Chandler always ended up angry at least one person. Duke always ended up somehow angrier, though only ever at Chandler. And Mcnamara always ended up crying about a range of different things, from small dogs to sad movies about small dogs. Usually unrelated to anything that happened at the party.
Veronica smiled to herself at the thought before opening the door across the one she had just checked.
The sight tore the smile suddenly from her face and replaced it with a look of concern and confusion. The bright blonde haired girl laid on the bathroom floor, legs draped over the bathtub. She immediately adjusted her skirt, which had been slightly folded downwards due to the position she rested in.
She watched as Veronica stepped into the room, her face turning a surprisingly bright shade of pink. Veronica’s face had also grown warm, but she was much too concerned to pay any attention to that.
“Oh! Hi Ronnie,” She smiled softly and sweetly, though not nearly as intense and beaming as usual. Taking a closer look, Veronica saw distinct tear lines coming from both shimmery green eyes of her friend.
“Uh- Were you crying?” She tried to be relieved to have found her, but somehow her heart was beating harder than when she initially figured the girl to be missing. She gently closed the bathroom door and locked it behind her.
“Um. A little bit.” Veronica quietly took a seat, cross-legged, on the bathroom floor next to her as she spoke. “Or um. A lot.”
Veronica stayed quiet, feeling awkward and unsure of what to do. It was extremely frustrating to witness this and not be able to easily make things better.
“Ah, I’m sorry…” Mac said, almost too quietly for Veronica to hear the small break in her voice. But she did, and she felt her heart shatter into a million pieces all over the cold granite bathroom floor.
“NO! No, no, I’m sorry,” Veronica stumbled over her words, trying to choose what to say as carefully as possible without being too anxious to even say anything at all. “I was just taken aback, seeing you like this, that's all… What happened?”
“Well um- I was with these guys.” Only now had Veronica noticed how slurred her words are. “And I was already really drunk, and they convinced me to smoke with them, and, and, and…”
Veronica felt herself grow more and more full of care for Heather at each stutter or break in her voice. If her heart had shattered before, now it had been violently smashed to bits.
“Go on,” she barely said these words aloud, only quietly mouthing them which earned an understanding nod from Heather.
“They kept hitting on me, and saying all these gross things, so I lied and I said I had to vomit… Then I hid in here but then I actually felt like I actually had to vomit and then, and then, I never did… It went away eventually… I don't even know how long I've been in here though, Ronnie.” Before the black fluffy-haired listener had a chance to respond, she continued.
“I've never been high before. I mean I've smoked, but never gotten high, you know? It's weird… It was so scary in here alone, but you're here now so I think I'm okay.” She finished talking with a sniffle and wiped the tears from her face.
“Mac- Wow I-,” Veronica wanted so deeply to hold her so tight and make everything okay. It was so painful seeing someone so pure of heart so… hurt. But of course, she didn't want to overwhelm her, so she settled for gently toying with her light curls.
Every barrier, every stop sign, every wall inside her that prevented her from being vulnerable felt like it had been crushed.
“I'm so sorry, you don't deserve any of that. I swear if I see those boys I'm going to fucking…” She trailed off. Maybe not every barrier.
“So, that's why you were crying?” She questioned, gently pulling Heather’s head onto her lap. She looked down at the now softly smiling girl as she continued to play with her hair, ready to listen to anything she was going to say and do her best to make it better.
“Well… Not really. I was crying about like… everything. Like that... Like how mean Chandler and Duke are to me sometimes, how nice you are to me all the time, how sad I get when I'm not with you guys, mainly when I'm not with you, about how much I wished you were in this bathroom with me playing with my hair…”
Half of those things were about her. Veronica's chest felt warm and her stomach felt light. But somehow in a nice way. She figured that to just be the booze she drank earlier. At the same time, she felt awful to be responsible for Mac’s tears.
She began thinking of something witty and smooth yet comforting and loving to say, but her mind went blank. Only Mac could do that to her. Halfway through flipping the pages to her internal notebook of “snarky yet loving remarks” she noticed Heather had started crying again.
“I'm s-so sorry, I cry so much, all the time,” Her voice was so shaky, breaking every few words.
“Shhh...Shhh….. It's okay, I promise Mac.” The nearly sobbing girl reached out for Veronica's hand and immediately interlocked their fingers, squeezing harder than intended.
“I just feel like you're my best friend, but I don't even know if you consider me a friend? But I like you so much, you make me so happy…” She carried on, burying Veronica in nice phrases, though most of it was too slurred and muttered to make out between sobs.
She tried to remind herself that Heather was both drunk and high. She most certainly didn't mean these things to the extent she was currently expressing. She was so impulsively emotion-driven when sober, it'd be dumb to even consider any of this had truth to it.
Right? The idea that Mac thought this highly of her made Veronica's face heat up. Maybe she shouldn't entertain this… will she even remember this tomorrow? Will Veronica just let this memory sit inside her head, never returning to it and never getting anything similar?
“Of course I consider you a friend… I think you're my best friend too, you know uh- if that's okay?”
Heather Mcnamara nodded frantically before burying her head into the girl’s leg. She had finally calmed down and appeared to be almost ready to fall asleep.
This was shortly interrupted by a loud knock on the door, which scared Heather into finally sitting up, across from Veronica. She waited for Veronica to say something as she used her sweater sleeve to wipe the tears from her face.
“OH UH- ONE SECOND!” Veronica yelled back at the knock nervously.
“Veronica? Open the fuck up, what’s fucking taking so long?”
Oh yeah. She had been so concerned for Mac that the entire rest of the world had disappeared during that entire… thing.
“ONE SEC CHANDLER--” Veronica yelled back before turning her attention back to the now smiling girl.
A real, actual, smile. She didn't know why, but she couldn't help but smile back. Eventually, Mac giggled and Veronica couldn't help but laugh back. The two were laughing loudly to themselves, sitting across from each other on someone's bathroom floor at a highschool party.
“You're okay?” She asked as the laughter died down.
“A lot.” Mac said, before diving towards her for a hug. Veronica let out a small gasp before hugging her back, finding an incredible amount of comfort in the girl's arms.
“VERONICA, OUR RIDE IS HERE CAN YOU-”
She sighed and gently shoved Mac off of her and helped her up.
“HURRY UP OR I SWEAR TO FUCK I’LL-”
Veronica opened the door and forced a smile at Chandler, who had a troubled look on her face when she saw the two of them had been together in there.
“Oh, you found Heather.”