WHITNEY'S HOUSE
"It's not a tough question," Nate
says, reaching out a hand to cup the back of Lauren's head. "You wanna
go upstairs or not?"
"I, uh ..." She feels his fingers
toying with her hair. He tips her head back slowly and brings his lips
back to hers. Steam fills Lauren's brain and her decision is made.
Then they part and reality sets in
again. Suddenly, the decision really is made.
"I can't," she gulps, mortified to
hear herself speaking the words. "I mean, it's not a good idea, not right
now."
His hands leave her immediately.
"Fine, whatever," he shrugs. "Lemme know if you change your mind, k?" Before
she has time to begin trying to salvage the situation, he is gone.
"You are such an idiot," she mutters
to herself. She keeps her head down, unable to watch him snaking his way
through the crowd and away from her. Of course he wasn't gonna stay
and hang out. If you just would've said yes ...
"Hey." The voice from behind startles
Lauren, but her instinctive turn reveals that it belongs to Courtney and
her nerves settle down.
"Hey," Lauren offers weakly.
"What's wrong? I saw you talking
to Nate for, like, forever ..."
"Yeah, and then I blew it."
"What? How?"
"Cuz I'm an idiot," Lauren says.
She lifts the empty cup to her mouth and gets what she can out of it.
"How are you an idiot?"
"He asked me to go upstairs with
him. I ... didn't want to. Or didn't think I should."
Courtney doesn't waste an instant
in responding. "Good!"
"No, not good. I just totally blew
any chance I had with him."
"It wasn't worth having the
chance if that's all it was!" Courtney says forcefully. Lauren looks away
from her.
"I should've just said yes ... that's
the only way I'm gonna get a guy anyway. Face it, if I don't put out, I'm
not gonna get anything else." She turns her back to Courtney and begins
to move away, reaching out to take a fresh drink from the guy behind the
bar.
Courtney fights her way through the
thicket of people to keep up with her friend. "Stop it, Lauren. Don't start
yourself on this again."
"It's true," Lauren says, turning
around. She sips at the drink as she continues, "That's how I got such
a good prom date senior year. Jeff knew I was gonna put out at the end
of the night, that's the only reason he went with me."
"That is not true! Why do you get
so down on yourself?" Courtney waits for some kind of response and then,
abruptly, grabs the drink away from Lauren. "You are better than that,
you know that."
One corner of Lauren's mouth curls
in a sarcastic snarl. "Am I? I thought it was gonna be different with Alex
-- I thought we totally connected. If I couldn't make that work, then I
can't make anything work. Face it, I'm a loser."
She snatches the drink back and begins
downing it. Courtney watches her, wanting to say something but suddenly
unable to come up with any words that she thinks would work. So she just
keeps watching her, hoping that maybe this way, she'll be able to protect
her from doing anything stupid.
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