"I thought you were talking about me and-"
"Look!" she said, lifting her phone up. There was a picture on her screen, but it was pretty blurry. I could make out two people lying on a bed, barely clothed and wrapped around each other.
"You watch porn now?" I muttered. "Since when?"
"It's not porn, Ben," she sighed. "It's you."
I jumped a little and reached to snatch the phone out of her hand. Sure enough, that man was me, and next to me was some girl, her only distinguishable feature being huge curly pink hair. Pinky from the bar. Of course.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief and handed her the phone back. "Sarah, thank god, I thought you were... never mind. I don't know anything about that. I was really drunk last night. I don't think we had sex, though."
"You don't even know?" she said incredulously. "You're unbelievable. And gross. I know who she is, by the way. She's one of Amy's bitches. You know, the ones that have to go out and fuck people for her little test. That's why I stopped hanging out with them. It broke my heart. Of course, you wouldn't know because you wouldn't pick up your phone all night." She gestured to her screen. "Great to know this is why."
"Sarah, slow down," I pleaded. "What are you talking about? What's this have to do with Amy?"
She made a tight smile. "Did you think this girl here slept with you because she liked you? She didn't. She was just trying to fit in with the rest of- oh, god. Not him again."
I followed her gaze past my shoulder and saw Michael holding two sandwiches, a plastic fork, and a mini salad.
"I got you this for you, Smurfy," he said, setting the salad down in front of her. "You said you didn't want anything, but no one should starve themselves."
"I'm not starving myself," she snarled. "And this... this is your doing, isn't it? You must be the... the bad influence pressuring him to do all these things. Trying to turn my best friend into some man-whore alcoholic!"
He snorted and looked at me, though I kept my eyes down. "Am I now? That's news to me."
"I'm so done with everyone here," Sarah ranted. "Amy. Maria. Brad. The two of you. I just want to meet someone normal."
For the first time, I considered the possibility that she was doing even worse than me. I'd assumed she had moved on from me and was living it up with her cool new friends. Maybe I was wrong. "There's always Lydia," I said.
"Who?"
"Lydia. She helped me drag your ass to the car during Amy's party. She's nice."
Sarah shook her head and stood, avoiding my eyes while she adjusted her shirt and stuffed her phone into her jeans pocket. "I'm done with this conversation," she said. "Talk to me when you're not just killing time till your next party. Or don't. At this point I don't really care."
I watched her walk away, raising her head up in the way she only ever did when she was trying to save her pride, then turned my eyes tiredly to Michael. "So that went great," I muttered.
He nudged me over so he could sit down and picked up one of the sandwiches. "I'm sure."
I didn't reply and folded my arm on the table to lay my cheek on.
"I didn't know you were an alcoholic or a whore," he teased. "You've been holding out on me."
I blushed and bit my lip. "I'm not, I don't know why-"
"She likes you," he said plainly.
"What?" I scoffed. "No she doesn't. We're just friends."
He raised his eyebrows and bit into the sandwich. "You are so oblivious to the effect you have on women."