"Fill me up," she says, and all I can do is nod at her and pour her a small shot. She just stares at me. "I will stab your toe with my heels." She glares at me, and I try not to laugh as I pour more in her glass and then pour the same amount in mine.
"What are we toasting to?" I ask, knowing she always loves to toast when she pours her first drink. It all started after we took our midterm and went to grab a beer. I made the mistake of taking a sip, and she glared at me. I never made that mistake again.
"I'm not sure there is actually something to toast." I laugh, looking down at my shot. My stomach sinks as my head remembers what just happened.
"We can toast to love." She throws her head back and laughs at her own joke. "The irony."
"You mean, to being morons." I hold the glass up, and she nods.
"I will definitely drink to that." Her hand goes around her glass as she picks it up and clicks it with mine. The sound of the two glasses clanking together fills the silent room as she brings the glass to her mouth and swallows it down.
"Gross," she says, putting her glass down and grabbing the bottle to pour another shot. She pours me one also and then looks at me to see if I'm going to take it with her. I grab my glass, and we take another shot. "Somehow, the burning just got worse." She puts her hand to her stomach. "Which is weird."
"After the fifth one." I pour her more. "You think it's water."
She spins the glass in front of her, and I can see that she's thinking. She looks over at me, and I can see her fighting away the tears. "Did you know?"
I shake my head and look back at the glass in front of me. "Not even for a second." I swallow down the shot. "Did you?"
She laughs as she takes herself another shot. "Not until I got his email." She laughs and looks at me. "Nothing says you are marrying the wrong person like a declaration of love to someone else." She tries to make a joke, but her voice cracks, and I can tell that she is hurt.
"Got to say." I put my arm around her, pulling her to me. "You handled it with all the class in the world." I kiss her temple.
"I'm sure my mother is going to kill me." She looks up at me and shrugs. I know that this is the least of her worries. I also know that her mother will never be mad at her for long anyway.
"Who knew?" I spin the empty glass in front of me, wanting to know every detail to her finding out.
"I wasn't going to tell anyone." Her voice goes soft as she puts her head on my shoulder. "I was blissfully aware of nothing and getting ready when I got the email, and honestly, for one second, I thought he was sending it to me." She laughs, and I see her lift her hand to rub the tear away from the side of her eye. "The first clue was the way he started it. He's never called me love." She pushes away from me, grabbing the whiskey bottle, and I know she has to let it out. She takes it down in two gulps, and she coughs a bit, putting her hand to her mouth. "The most romantic he called me was honey." She rolls her eyes. "I kept reading with a smile on my face, even though there were things in the letter that didn't make sense." She looks over at me.
"I picked up on that, but then thought it was just me," I admit softly.
"When I got to the end of the email . . ." Her eyes go to her hands, looking at the engagement ring that is still on her finger. A ring that he brought me with him to pick out. A ring that personally I would never have chosen for her, but it wasn't my choice. It was his. "The phone fell from my hands." She rubs her cheek, and I see that it's wet from a tear. "I tried to cover it up, tried to pretend it didn't happen." She shakes her head as if she is trying to block the memory out of her brain. "Picked the phone up and read it again just to make sure that I did, in fact, read what I read, and I wasn't having a stroke."
"Jesus." I pour myself another shot and then fill her glass with another shot. Hopefully, by the end of this bottle, neither of us will remember being fucked over by the people who said they loved us.