Chapter Text
The first thing that Amber notices when she wakes up is the smell of pancakes. The smell of pancakes and sugar were so thick in the air, that it was almost suffocating her lungs. But Amber doesn’t even like pancakes like that…
That was enough for Amber to know that she was NOT in her house.
Her eyes snapped open at that sudden realization, but it didn't help her. Her eyes were too puffy and blurry for Amber to comprehend her surroundings. Her nose was even worse; one nostril was clogged, and the other was so dry that it hurt to breathe. What the hell? Was she crying last night or something? She rubbed her eyes and nose as if it would help her figure out what the hell happened.
Whose room did she just wake up in?
The bed she lay in was somewhat familiar…?. Amber felt a sense of dread arising in her. And when she slowly pushed herself up using her elbows, it quickly turned out to be a bad idea. A sharp, pounding pain hits her right behind her eyes, and something bitter arises at the back of her mouth. Alcohol from her mother’s stash.
Great. She drank herself shitfaced and ended up in someone’s bed.
Fantastic.
Amber flopped on the bed in realization, groaning loudly and facepalming herself. Of course this shit happens to me, she muttered to herself. She didn’t even know she had it in herself to fuck herself up like this, but the more you know.
Did she fuck someone yesterday?
The thought is intrusive and sudden, but it still sends her into a panic. She hopes that she didn’t.
Not because she’d regret it, but because Amber doesn’t like to not be in control of herself. She hates the thought of having no memory of something that happened. She tries to take a few deep breaths, hoping it’ll calm her down.
It doesn’t help at all.
The headache was starting to kill her, but the curiosity of her situation killed her even more. With heavy limbs and a groan, she rolled over and slowly crawled out of the bed. She lay herself out on the floor once she left the bed, sprawling out like a cat. With her slightly better vision, she made sure to look around the room to identify anything that might have given her an idea about the room’s owner.
There was nothing in the room that helped Amber identify the owner. In fact, the room was minimalistic to the MAX. No posters, no personality, just purple and white... It was almost impressive how empty this room looked. Sad ass room for a sad ass person, she thinks to herself.
She made sure to stabilize and steady herself before standing up and stumbling to the door, slowly twisting the knob and leaving the room so as not to make a sound. She didn't bother to look back at the room, as Amber thought there was no way she was going to say goodbye to a room that wasn’t worth a goodbye.
Going down the stairs for Amber was even worse, as the pounding headache slowly morphed to a splitting headache. Each step sends a dull pain through her body that drives Amber crazy. She felt as though she should’ve stayed in the room to sleep the headache off, but Amber thinks that’d be weak and easy for her to do.
She swears to herself she’s never drinking herself to death ever again.
She was able to handle going down the stairs, although it took her 20 seconds for her to find her footing for each step. She slowly found a rhythm, pushing through the pain with each step.
She was near the end before she slipped on one step.
CLANG. THUD. SLAM.
“FUCK!” Amber screams out loud in frustration after crumpling at the end of the stairs. Her splitting headache became a fuckton migraine, and the fall somehow made it so that the headache in her head became a whole bodyache. She doesn't care about how her body is in pain, though, but more about the fact that she just tripped on the fucking stairs.
Absofuckinglutely embarrassing.
“Amber!” she hears someone call out.
Amber barely inputs their voice into her mind since she's too focused on how much her head hurts, but she finally notices the person once they were hovering above her.
“What happened? I thought you were still sleeping!” Tara scolds. Her voice is sharp and filled with concern as she kneels to check Amber out. Amber feels Tara’s warm hands reach out to her ankle, dragging it and examining it, before she feels Tara’s hand drag across Amber’s forehead, but Amber doesn’t protest it. “Oh my god, there’s a bump on your forehead?!”
Amber blinks at Tara, her vision now doubling before looking straight at Tara. Instead of concern for Amber or anything like that, a smile flashes across Tara’s face.
So Tara’s laughing at me now, Amber internally groans, closing her eyes and letting out a small whine.
“...what the fuck are you doing here...?" Amber tries to explain, trying to be as comprehensible as possible. She raised her hand to rub her head, to help soothe her headache, or in embarrassment, who knows. “I haven’t been in your house before…”
Tara tilts her head. “So that’s why you tripped down the stairs? Because you don’t know my house? Okay.. sure...”
Amber silently cussed, feeling her face go hot.
“No! No, it’s not that. It's because...” Her sentence trails as a wave of nausea goes through Amber. “Holy shit, I’m still drunk.”
“You’re not drunk. You're hungover,” Tara explains. “Here, let me help you up.”
—-
MONDAY, NOVERMBER 1st, 2021 @ 1:07 AM
1 missed video call from we da real ghostfaces
mindeeznuts: where’s amber
mindeeznuts: @af1997_ join the call
wes_hicks: She’s drunk
5starchad: She’s at a college party? Damn how she get into one of those??
cowboyliketara: join the call @5starchad
wes_hicks: No chad she’s drinking at home
mindeeznutz: where’s my invite?
5starchad: Up ur butt
Amber’s eyes twitched viewing the group chat on her phone, which, by the way, hurts to look at because of the brightness. The chat might’ve revealed a piece of what happened last night, but it doesn’t bring her any comfort. It doesn’t explain how she got to Tara’s house in the middle of the night, or what she did once she got to Tara’s house. In fact, Amber doesn’t even know how to ask Tara what happened without cringing at her response.
Amber, slouched over on the corner of the kitchen island, tilts her head up and stares at the water that is waiting to boil right across from her on the other side of the island. Alka Seltzer, Tylenol, and water were sitting at Amber's right, a gesture from Tara to help Amber recover from her hangover and pain. Although Amber hasn’t touched it because she didn’t know how to take the Alka-Seltzer. It’s a big ass tablet… I can’t swallow that..
Amber was planning to get out of Tara’s house asap to save her the embarrassment, and to check if her own house is even in good shape, but Tara insisted on staying for the day. “You’re so hungover! I can’t let you go home on that thing you used to get here…” The frozen peas that Tara gave her to ice her head were the cherry on top.
It’s fine, Amber thinks, but doesn't really believe. Amber knows Tara is nice and caring and stuff, but she didn’t even know Tara like that. Yes, they hang out in the same friend group, but Tara is the one person that Amber isn’t the closest with and the one that always makes Amber second-guess herself. If anything, Mindy and Chad would crash at Tara’s house after a night of drinking. Not herself. She felt like she was intruding more than doing whatever was the opposite of intruding.
“Let me check you out,” Tara says on Amber’s right, approaching her. Amber’s attention quickly shot from her phone to the girl to her right, who was expecting Amber. She thought it was funny that Tara was her height while sitting, but that’s beside the point.
Amber reluctantly took the frozen peas off her head and Tara brushed her bed hair out of the way to view the bump, which was slowly starting to throb and become annoying. Amber hoped that this could end soon, and she could go home... She couldn’t wait until she got home to be in her own space.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tara crack a smile.
“I actually can’t believe you got a bump. I thought that only happened in cartoons or something,” Tara admitted cheekily, analyzing the swelling bump on Amber’s forehead.
“Yeah... well...” she stutters out her words, still unsure what to say or think. On one hand, she wants to change the subject and ask Tara what happened and discuss that night with her. On the other hand, she’s too embarrassed to hear about all the cringey things she did last night. Need to shut up… better safe than sorry...
“It’s okay. It happens to the best of us,” Tara sighed, probably picking up on Amber’s uneasiness and awkwardness. Amber saw Tara’s smile slowly fade, focusing on the bump before grabbing and hovering the frozen pea’s back on the bump. Amber took it for Tara and started icing her head again, while Tara left to tend to the pot of water, which was now boiling.
“What, getting so drunk and then eating shit on stairs the next morning?” Amber suggested. "Sure. Happens to me all the time."
Though Tara’s back was towards Amber, Amber saw how Tara twitched at that statement, followed by her laugh. Her laugh sounds like honey, Amber wanderingly thinks.
“Yeah, exactly,” Tara says. Amber sees Tara grab a pack of instant something from a cabinet before dumping it into the pot. The smell instantly filled with a umami, savory type thing. Amber’s eyes wandered across the kitchen, which was somehow as minimalistic and empty as the bedroom above, except for a few Halloween decorations still up.
She can’t believe Tara lives in an environment like this. But maybe Tara likes living like that.
Tara turns around with a fully dressed bowl of soup and slides it, plus a few utensils, towards Amber. The steam hits Amber’s face immediately, and she instinctively lurches back from the soup at the sudden heat. She was able to take a look at the meal after getting smoke bombed and immediately identified it as one of the instant udon packs you get from your local warehouse. Tara brings her own plate of food, which is the godforsaken pancakes Amber probably smelled this morning, and sits next to Amber on the corner of the kitchen island.
This is so weird… she thought, her eyebrows furrowed. Tara had always been background noise to Amber, so this whole idea of waking up in her bed, and then eating it on her stairs, then eating breakfast with her, plus whatever the fuck happened last night, was making Amber feel a little annoyed and uncomfortable? Either way, it wasn't like it was going to kill her.
If we fucked last night and are doing this the morning of… She felt a sense of dread wash over her.
“Why haven’t you taken the seltzer and pills yet?” Tara asks once she notices the untouched medicines on Amber’s right. Amber glanced at it, remembering that she had completely forgotten and discarded them. Amber held up the seltzer.
“I can’t take this. It’s too big, and I don’t think I’m supposed to eat like it’s candy,” Amber said.
“What do you mean?”
“Like, I can’t swallow this,” Amber says, picking up the tablet and showing it to Tara, as if Tara didn’t literally provide her the tablet. “It’s too big. Nobody can swallow it.”
Tara stared at Amber, an unintelligible expression on her face. “Amber.”
“What?”
“You’re not supposed to swallow it. Let me… pass me the water.”
Amber obliged, sliding the water over as though to challenge Tara. Tara took the seltzer, and instead of trying to swallow it as Amber expected, she broke the tablet into pieces and threw it into the glass, the water immediately bubbling and dissolving itself into the water.
“That’s how you take it,” Tara explains, her face still unintelligible. Amber couldn’t find words and just stared at Tara helplessly. This whole day was already embarrassing enough, and she has to get through this? “You’re supposed to let it dissolve first, and the seltzer helps clear your gut, helps you hydrate, things like that.”
“Okay, well,” Amber tries to defend herself. “I have never had seltzer before.”
Tara’s face morphed from a look of uncertainty to one of concern. “You never had a seltzer before? After drinking?”
“Yeah. Like, I don't know what this shit is, no offense, but it’s like… I don’t really care.”
“What?! Amber!” Tara slaps Amber’s shoulder, and Amber flinches at the contact. Ow? “You’re supposed to know these things! You drink more than anybody I know!”
Amber’s face retorts in awe, her mouth widening in shock and offense. “I don’t?!”
“You drink almost every weekend! Mindy’s always like, ‘Oh! I’m Amber Freeman, and I’m an alcoholic!’ “ Tara says with a smile, mocking Mindy’s voice towards the end of her statement.
“I only do like, a shot, but that’s because I’m bored!”
“That’s a shot extra than anybody I know! Well, maybe my mom,” Tara randomly adds towards the sentence. Amber is taken aback by this statement. Her face melted at that discovery, and she was getting ready to say something about it, but Tara immediately cut her off.
“But you didn’t take a shot last night, did you?” Tara cheekily accuses, pointing and pushing Amber lightly with her index finger. Amber’s jaw dropped wide open, although no words came out, and she distanced herself from Tara. Wow. Took the words right out of my mouth. Shut me the fuck up.
“Okay, first, that was the first AND last time I’m ever drinking like that ever again,” Amber quickly clarified. “Dude, what happened last night? I don’t remember anything at all. Like, nothing at all.”
Tara’s face dropped. “You actually don’t remember anything?” She said, a hint of doubt in her voice.
Amber shrugged, turning her eyes away from Tara and looking around the house as if the decor would spike her memory. She starts explaining, “No. I don’t know how I got here… I don’t know what happened while I was here… Fuck, I don’t even know why my eyes are so puffy and red.”
Amber rubbed her eyes as if it could immediately make her feel better. What if I just… she shifts the frozen peas from the bump on her forehead to the right side of her face to ice her puffy face. Tara’s face glitches to a slight smile back to her expressionless face, probably because she’s unsure what to say, Amber thinks.
“You came at like, 2 AM drenched from the rain, and you were sobbing. And I tried to help you and take care of you, but you just wouldn’t stop crying,” Tara recalls, rubbing her chin while she is deep in thought. “And you were crying about your parents, and how you hated Halloween, so you broke into your mom’s liquor stash…”
Amber’s invested in what Tara was saying, as if she wasn’t describing Amber’s situation. Though Amber DID see why she might’ve crashed yesterday because of what Tara was describing, it was weird to see someone else explain it. Amber never liked people knowing about her problems, and even though Amber did this herself, she was uncomfortable that someone knew something.
A smile forms on Tara’s face. “Oh, and you kept screaming and complaining about how your mom threw away your My Little Pony collection you had as a kid a few weeks ago.”
“Oh my fucking god,” Amber switched the frozen peas from her right hand to he left hand to cover her face from Tara, simultaneously using her right hand to palm her face. “No more. That's not relevant. Please stop talking.”
Tara laughs. “You said you were obsessed with the ‘gay’ pony.”
Amber cowered, burying her hands deeper into her face as if it’d hide her from Tara. “Jesus, I’m just gonna pretend like that didn’t happen. I’m eating my soup.”
She picked up the utensils for the soup, but realized that Tara had given her both a fork and chopsticks. As if Amber’s brain wasn’t jumbled enough... “Which one do I use?”
Tara paused. “Um, any? Are you okay?”
Amber absolutely and purposefully ignored that last question and half-mindedly grabbed the chopsticks despite not being too good at them. She started wolfing down the noodles as if she hadn’t eaten in years.
“Make sure you drink your seltzer too, or not because you can’t swallow it,” Tara jokes, pushing the glass of water towards Amber’s face that’s now stuffed with noodles.
“Stop talking!” Amber whines with noodles in her mouth. Though she tried to hide it, she felt her lips tug upwards. She glances at Tara, who’s still smiling at her but expecting her to drink the damn seltzer.
Amber grabbed the water and immediately dumped it all into her mouth, trying her best to chug and ignore the taste of whatever it was. Surprisingly, it actually tasted nice and had some sort of flavor to it, but Amber hides her delight from Tara.
“I’m now un-hungover,” Amber states, putting her glass down half-proud and half-relieved, finally over seltzergate. "Can I go home now?"
Tara smirks while she takes the glass from Amber. “No and no. But I appreciate the effort.”
Amber rolls her eyes, annoyed at Tara’s unfulfilling response. “Go eat your pancakes.”
Tara gets up and puts Amber’s glass into the sink. “Go cry about your gay ponies.”
“What the fuck, Tara!”
—
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND, 2021 @ 8:07 AM
You are currently privately chatting with @wes_hicks
af1997_: bro i didn’t knwo tara was mean as fuck
wes_hicks: Wdym?
af1997_: yesterday morning she told me to go cry ab something i told her while drunk
af1997_: i mean it was funny but damn i didn’t know u were like that
wes_hicks: She can get like that sometimes lol
wes_hicks: One time she called me blondie and it stuck
af1997_: is that where that nickname came from??
wes_hicks: She’s not who you think she is
af1997_: after yesterday morning hell fuckin no
wes_hicks: It just means she’s comfortable with you
af1997_: i’m not close with tara tho?
wes_hicks: Does it matter?
wes_hicks: Aren’t you supposed to be driving? Why are you still texting me?
Oh yeah. Amber looked up from her phone at the road. Amber didn’t know if she was fine to go to school the day after yesterday, but she felt good enough that morning to do so. Hell, she even mixed the seltzer Tara packed for her into her water bottle. I’m too good at this hangover thing, she thinks.
Amber quickly thumbed back a response to Wes.
af1997_: uhhhhhhhhhh
She threw her phone into her passenger seat dramatically, obeying Wes’ wishes and no longer texting while driving. It’s not like she was going to kill somebody…
Her phone rang, Siri’s voice following. “New message from Wes, underscore, Hicks: You’re going to kill yourself. Would you like to respond?”
Amber scoffed. “Yeah, send him a thumbs down emoji.”
Siri did as she was told, and Amber resumed driving. She recognized Tara’s house as she passed by, reminding her of the night that she still doesn’t remember. Seeing Tara’s house made Amber compute the distance she must have travelled to even get there.
The weirdest part was that Tara’s house was the farthest from the rest of her friends. Why did she go to Tara’s specifically, especially if she wasn’t close to Tara in every way? The question still makes her think and wonder. Maybe she should get drunk again so she could understand what was going through her head.
Pulling into school, parking at a fantastic angle, and walking to class felt different today. She normally went to school sick, buzzed, or even drunk, so the fact that Amber was somewhat sober made her feel weird. The fact that she was alert today made her feel even more uneasy. Is that a good thing? She’s unsure. Thanks, Tara, I guess…
The first period was Government, funnily enough, with Wes and Tara. Tara, Tara, Tara, Amber mockingly repeats in her head. She barely just made it in time, as she walked through the door seconds before the bell rang. She makes her way to her designated seat right next to Wes at the back of the classroom. As morning announcements start to roll around, Wes presents her with breakfast from his bag.
“What's that bump on your head?” Wes asks, his face in confusion and surprise. Amber was confused too, reaching her hand to feel around her forehead before remembering the bump she got from falling off the stairs yesterday.
“Don’t worry about it,” Amber quickly says. Guess that satisfied Wes, since he dropped it right after.
“Mom made too much toast. We thought you’d want some,” Wes tells Amber, not making any eye contact with her but still acknowledging her presence.
“Oh my god, I love toast,” Amber said, taking a bite of the food and pursing her lips to hide her smile from being seen.
“Yeah, I know you do,” Wes mumbled under his breath, obvious that he doesn’t want to talk over the announcements. “Did you do the homework?”
Amber took another bite of the toast, savoring the flavor. “No? We had homework?"
“Yeah...” Wes mumbled, disappointed. “I was making sure that you did it.”
“I’ll do it soon,” Amber states, half-listening to Wes as she focuses all of her attention on the two pieces of toast that were in front of her.
Mid bite, she looked up and immediately locked eyes with Tara. Even though she hung out with the same group as Tara since freshman year, which includes Wes, Tara decided to sit across the room from the two of them. All of this distance from Tara, and Amber didn’t even notice it until now.
Tara smiled at the sight of Amber and waved giddily. Amber, instead of seeing this friendly gesture for what it is, was weirded out. Tara has never smiled at Amber like that, so why was it now different? Did it take Amber to show up to Tara’s house drunk to make a friend in her? Either way, she wasn’t complaining. She waved back to Tara, trying to also smile, but probably looked like a desperate expression instead.
Tara mouthed something to Amber, which Amber couldn’t decipher. God forbid her for not knowing how to lip-read. She mouthed back, what? to Tara, who slumped her shoulders and gave Amber a deadpan look, probably to show her disappointment.
Tara points at Amber, and then makes a motion with her hands and mouth pretending that she was biting into a sandwich. She immediately got the hint as to what Tara was saying and pointed at the other avocado toast on Amber’s desk.
Tara nodded her head, then mouthed something again, to Amber’s confusion.
Oh my fucking god, she mumbled. She was slowly getting frustrated from not knowing what Tara was saying. Giving up, she waved up her phone like it was a white flag and pointed at it, trying to tell Tara to text her instead. She nodded, pulling out her phone and thumbing something.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND, 2021 @ 8:34 AM
You are privately chatting with @cowboyliketara
cowboyliketara: that toast looks gooood
af1997_: do u want some? its frm judy
cowboyliketara: yas can i get it after the period
cowboyliketara: please and thank you
af1997_: did u eat breakfst
cowboyliketara: no not yet...
“I’m going to give the toast to Tara,” Amber tells Wes, putting her phone down and prepping the toast for transport. Amber silently cursed Tara for deciding to sit in front of the class, making Amber have to deliver the food from the back of the classroom more dramatically than it should be, but whatever. It was Amber’s choice.
“Mid lesson? Really?” Wes asks, confused at this sudden, kind but disruptive gesture from Amber. She shrugged.
“I owe her one from yesterday,” Amber explains with no hesitation. Amber doesn’t really care about following the rules or standards anymore, especially because it’s senior year. Oh, and the teacher was writing the notes for the lesson on the board. She really couldn’t care less.
She suddenly made her way up from her desk, unsure why she was so determined to get Tara this piece of toast, and strutted her way all to Tara, Tara barely noticing Amber at the last second. Amber placed the toast down, making sure to give Tara a smile that Amber herself wouldn’t cringe about before going back to her own desk.
“So you’re making amends with Tara using my mom’s cooking?” Wes asked, cracking a smile at the absurdity of the situation. Amber shrugged again.
“Yeah,” Amber simply responds, not allowing herself to overthink the situation
—-
Lunch time was more like detach-from-whatever-the-fuck-today-was time. Usually, Amber would meet up with Wes, Chad, Mindy, sometimes Liz, and Tara under the tree and Amber would nap or analyze movies the entire time, needing a desperate break from school. However, she was feeling up and alert this time.
“Fuuuuck English,” Mindy curses, throwing her backpack at the bench and collapsing right next to her. Wes and Amber watch her slump on the bench in defeat, curious.
“What happened?” Wes asked Mindy, who was slouching and spacing out at this time. Mindy sighed, rubbed her face, and looked like Amber the morning before.
“Bro, the teacher gave us a surprise test. Nobody told me anything, we didn’t get a study guide,” Mindy started listing off, her posture immediately improving when she was complaining about the teacher. “Oh, and the test was about material that we learned AFTER the test.”
Amber raised her eyebrows in surprise: thank god that she doesn’t have the same teacher as Mindy. Mindy slouched back on the bench, utterly defeated and drained.
“Damn. That’s tough…” Wes comments, cringing at the lack of professionalism with Mindy’s teacher. “You have to file a complaint or something. You can’t let that slide. I wouldn’t.”
“Yeah, only you would do that, Wes,” Mindy mumbled under her breath. “Personally, I'm going to make sure he doesn't come back next year.”
“Who are we driving out of Woodsboro?” Chad suddenly says, his heavy hands wrapped around Tara’s shoulder. Right… they’re dating.
“What the hell happened to your arm?” Amber suddenly notices, seeing the bruises littered across his hand. Chad checked it out, rotating his left hand to see the damage while ensuring his right hand stayed secure around Tara.
“Bro,” Chad started, reminiscing on football practices. “Yesterday, during practice, Coach was like, ‘Don’t hold back during practice! You practice how you play!” and we all just started bulldozing each other. You should’ve been Jason, bro. He became defensive player of the year right there.”
Amber's eyebrows twisted. She never understood the appeal of sports, especially football. In all honesty, she thought the sport was kinda gay. Boys tackling each other? Yeah, right. Guess Tara finds something hot in that, though. “Sure. How dare you not dead yet?”
Chad shrugged, turning his attention to Tara. “I can’t die while dating the prettiest girl in the world,” he flirted, cooing Tara while she blushed and snuggled into Chad’s huge frame.
“Eww, gross. Straight people are the worst,” Mindy says, fake gagging at the sight of the couple. Amber and Wes laughed at her reaction, not necessarily agreeing with Mindy but humored by her reaction.
“You’re just jealous because you’re single,” Chad shot back, holding Tara close to him. Mindy rolls her eyes, tired of her brother’s banter, and completely ignores his statement.
“Oh my gosh, Amber, I forgot to tell you, but the toast was so good. Wes, your mom is actually amazing,” Tara says to Amber and Wes, who were still sitting together. Wes brightened up at the mention of his mom, while Amber was still surprised that she was talking to Tara at all.
“We all gotta go cook with my mom one day. It’ll be fun,” Wes plans, beaming at the idea. “Oh, we could make lemon squares. But I’m kind of tired of them…”
“The lemon squares are good though,” Amber adds, reminiscing on the dessert. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t a fiend for everything Ms. Hicks.
“Well, that’s because I’ve been eating them every single day. I don't remember a time when I didn't eat lemon squares.” Wes explains, trying to justify himself.
“Oh my god, Amber, you look like shit,” Mindy suddenly says, laughing towards the end of her sentence. Amber visibly flinched, taken aback at the sudden statement. “What in the fuck is that bump on your head?”
“What the fuck?” Amber says, appalled. She’s not hungover or still fucked from the weekend, and she personally made sure she looked the best that morning. “Okay, and?”
“You just look tired,” Wes adds, suddenly analyzing and staring at Amber. “It’s probably from whatever the heck you were doing on Saturday night.”
“Yeah, going to a college party and getting shit faced. Damn, and you didn’t invite me,” Chad suddenly says, pondering about Amber’s drinking sesh. Amber made a face, probably confused about where this sudden onslaught came from.
“The fuck are you guys talking about? I only drank at home,” Amber quickly defended herself, feeling her exterior unravel. “I didn’t mean to black out or whatever. Gosh, I’m never drinking like that ever again.”
“Can you invite me next time?” Mindy whines, scrolling through her phone and asking for an invitation as if it were the normal thing ever. No, Mindy, I drink alone, Amber thinks to herself.
“Amber’s fine. She was with me,” Tara adds, quickly coming to Amber's defense. Everybody murmured at the new information, understanding, and now comfortable that Amber was safe and sound. Amber herself, however, was confused by Tara's sudden defense of Amber. But again, Tara’s just friendly.
“Did she do anything funny?” Mindy asks, curious and perking up from her phone. Everybody listened in, wondering what drunk Amber could’ve possibly been like. Amber pinched the bridge of her nose, unwilling to deal a second more with the conversation. She already had to get babied by Tara and eat shit off of her stairs. She didn’t need what was going on right now.
“More like, you made sure she didn’t do anything stupid, right?” Wes adds up, probably the only person taking this conversation seriously. Tara shrugged.
“No, I didn’t let her do anything that she’d regret. She did the other stupid things herself, though,” Tara adds. Mindy cheered, while Amber revolted.
“Oh hell no,” Amber snorted, appalled at how her lunch time came to this. Tara saw her reaction and immediately raised an eyebrow, curious about Amber.
“I’m not telling you guys what happened! I'm respecting Amber,” Tara quickly added, protecting Amber’s wishes. “I'm just saying that she turns into something different.”
Mindy exploded, screaming and laughing at this newfound information. Chad and Wes were surprised with this new information, eyebrows raised and jaws dropping. Amber sighed. “You guys make me want to become sober.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Wes adds, trying to soothe the situation. Amber shrugs, unsure.
“Sure. Whatever,” Right when she said that, the bell rang. The people around them started dispersing to get to class on time. Amber was defeated by whatever lunch was. The time that was supposed to help Amber relax did the opposite of what it needed. Whatever. A few more hours, and she’d be home.
As Amber was packing her bags, she heard someone's ragged and rough voice behind her. “HEY! MARTIN! Get your ass over here, boy!”
She swings her attention around and sees that it’s a burly old man with a coach's uniform calling for Chad’s attention. Amber saw Chad struggling between him and Tara, looking back and forth between the two. She hears Chad start, “Hey, babe, my coach is right there, and I think he needs me for something. Probably football captain stuff. Um…”
Chad looks around at the group of friends, and narrows to Amber. “Hey! Amber.”
Amber makes eye contact with Chad, who, funnily enough, looks desperate. His face doesn’t look good on a well-built man. Football got him twisted. “Yeah?”
“Can you walk Tara to her class?” I know y’all go the same direction,” he says. Amber turned her attention to Tara, who scrunched her eyebrows in confusion.
“Babe, I don’t need people to walk me… I’m fine by myself…” she says, confused at Chad’s actions. He looked at her, immediately apologetic.
“No, nonono… that’s not what I meant. I’m just more comfortable if someone is there in case of anything, you know?” He faces his whole body towards Tara, his arms holding her by her shoulders, and his voice is disgustingly low and sweet. Amber gets the ick from how much Chad melts away at Tara’s presence, never understanding how love can destroy someone like that.
Tara nodded, and they parted ways first without a kiss. Wow, amazing, Amber thinks to herself, looking away. Amber always thought PDA was a little weird, but to be fair, she has never dated anybody to form her own opinion. But it was still uncomfortable to just be there while couples were doing their thing right in front of her.
Tara faced Amber, and Amber jerked her head to tell Tara to start walking with her. They started making their way through the flurry of students, staying close so they wouldn't get lost.
“You look great, by the way. Don’t listen to what Mindy says,” Tara tells Amber. Amber could only offer a small smile to Tara, unsure how to take a compliment. “How are you feeling?”
Amber had to pause for a minute to think, answering with a shrug. “Actually, yeah. I didn’t need to take a nap today during lunch. Oh, and this helped too.”
Amber pulled out the plastic water bottle containing white liquid, and Tara immediately recognized it as the seltzer concoction Amber had been having so much trouble with yesterday. “You’re actually using it!”
Amber felt a stupid amount of pride from her own achievement and Tara’s excitement. She quickly shoved the bottle back in her bag, however. “It actually works.”
Tara beamed. “Maybe it’s helping you sober up. You always slept during lunch to do that. I was surprised you stayed up this time.”
Amber hummed in response.
They walked in a comfortable silence the rest of the way. They had separate classes, but they were conveniently right next door to each other. Amber walked Tara to her classroom door, fulfilling Chad’s wishes as he asked.
“Text me if you need anything, mkay?” Tara suddenly says before walking into her classroom. “I want to make sure you have someone to turn to if you need to be sober and safe incase you drink yourself to blackout again.”
Amber scrunched her eyebrows in confusion at this sudden statement. The word safe was not familiar to her. “I don’t need to be saved. Not in a mean way, or anything like that.”
Tara didn’t look offended, but instead tilted her head. She gave Amber a measured smile. “I know you don’t. I just want you to know I’m here for you, Amber. I’ll see you in a bit?”
After Amber had to pause for a bit, then nod, Tara disappeared into her classroom. She couldn’t help but be confused at that weird and cryptic proposal. She was sure her being blackout drunk was a one-time thing, so why is Tara being so… different?
A weird feeling creeps up on her stomach.