Avoiding Responsibility (Avoiding 2)

She had danced her heart out on that stage more nights than she could count. She could remember the adrenaline of hanging out with your closest friends and the thrill of dancing with total strangers that you thought you would never see again. The town was too small for that though and she always ended up seeing the people she had drunkenly danced upon in her class or out for coffee later in the week.

New York was nothing like that. If she never wanted to see someone again, then she never had to see them again. Sure some of the guys circulated the same bars more than others. She could pick out the regulars, but the clubs were so large that they were easy to avoid if need be.

She remembered getting free drinks because she knew the bartenders. She made friends with a lot of them. Some were in her classes and others she just knew because she frequented the establishment a bit too regularly as an undergrad. The free drinks were given to her also because of the people she hung around with. Her friends from the gymnastics team could drink surprisingly more liquor than most of the people she had met in her life. Even though she had only set foot on the mat at one meet and it was only for exhibition, everyone still considered her part of the team. She had a stack full of team paraphernalia in her closet to prove it. She had been nineteen when she joined the team. Jack had gotten her that spot. She hadn't thought about that fact in a long time. Suddenly nineteen felt too young.

When she had been nineteen she had fallen into his trap. She had fallen in love with him. She hadn't been disillusioned by his inability to commit to her or his philandering behavior. But she couldn't think about going back in time like that. She wouldn't be the person she was today if she hadn't experienced what she had gone through with Jack. And though the things they had done together were wrong…terribly wrong, she knew that if she relived them that she wouldn't have been able to change a thing. And so she lived with her decisions and moved on.

She sighed realizing that whole train of thought had made her feel very far from nineteen.

With that she followed the rest of the drunken entourage to the bar. Lexi was feeling the booze in her system, but she wasn't gone just yet. She knew that it was important to try to maintain some semblance of sobriety tonight. Otherwise she couldn't guarantee that she would be able to hold back any snide comments. Bekah put her on edge and when she had her three stooges with her it was just a recipe for disaster. Lexi had survived this far with only one misstep with the phone call and she wanted to keep it that way. After this night she would just have the wedding to get through and then she could put this all behind her.

The rest of the group had no reason to want to remain sober for the night. They had all delved in as quickly as possible, and were having more trouble functioning as the night progressed. By the time they had hit Rage Bar, Kersey was having trouble with coherent sentences. Though somehow, she had found a way to flirt with every guy who walked past her. She was already clinging to a fraternity type standing against the bar. He looked like he had just won the lottery with the way she was fawning over him. Apparently her prudish composure washed away as the alcohol she consumed increased. Her br**sts were spilling out of the low cut shirt Bekah had insisted they wear and her skirt had bunched up to the point where her ass was nearly hanging out. The guys arm had circled around her waist and was resting lower and lower on her pleated mini skirt. She hadn't even seemed to notice.

Maddie and Amber had fallen into fits of giggles over absolutely nothing. Or at least if they were actually laughing at something Lexi had been unable to discern where the conversation started and the laughter began. They had been holding onto each other for life support for quite some time. It seemed that they didn't even care that they were striking out with the guys who were attempting to hit on them. Every time someone ventured closer to them, one of the girls would say something nonsensical to the other, and the giggles would start up all over again. The guys would quickly back away, and the two girls were left with each other.

Bekah was wobbling dangerously on her outrageously high heels. Lexi honestly couldn't even believe she was standing at all. She had restored to telling every person should could speak to in every bar that she was getting married. She wasn't always discreet about it either. The past couple bars she had just barged in and flat out yelled her upcoming marriage to the nearest group of people. This always resulted in a round of shots from whoever chose to listen to her.

Listening to Bekah declare over and over her impending nuptials was grating to say the least. So on one hand she had wanted to get drunk to avoid having to care about Bekah's blatant enthusiasm. Yet, she had held onto composure and had ducked out of a handful of drinks that the crowd had attempted to force on her. She hadn't been able to avoid a few though due to the sheer fact that she couldn't hide from them. She was wearing the exact same outfit as three other people. She was too noticeable when she just wanted to disappear. And the very last thing she wanted to do was to get out of control tonight even if she had to listen to Bekah's cheers.

Just as Lexi expected as soon as they approached the bar, Bekah began announcing to the closest groups of people that this was one of her last nights as a single woman. Several of the guys in the area cheered and told her they were buying her a round of shots. Lexi noticed a few sexual gestures that were made in Bekah's direction. One fratty type explained rather graphically what exactly he would do to her before her wedding night. Lexi gagged at the profanity and tried to block the images from her mind. She couldn't believe how grotesque some people could be. It probably didn't help that Bekah was one of the last people she wanted to think about anyone having sex with. So when a shot was pushed into her hand, she didn't think twice before downing it as fast as she could. And as soon as it hit the pit of her stomach, she regretted it.

Tequila. That one drink was too much. It pushed her over the edge from tipsy to full out drunk. She could feel it from head to toe. Her head was suddenly heavy and she felt as if she were swimming. Her throat was on fire. How many drinks had she had? Three? Or had it been four? No, this might have been five. Shit. She honestly couldn't remember which was even worse for the feeling creeping over her body. Her stomach was doing cartwheels, and she suddenly wasn't sure if she was going to be able to keep that shot down. She scrambled for a lime to chase the drink down. That taste of the lime alleviated the burn down her throat and in turn the nausea that had come over her. However, it did nothing to keep her from feeling like she had lost all control.