Rachel's party is where things really started going wrong.
As soon as I saw her, I knew Penny was drunk.
Penny went through stages of drunkenness. She had a strong stomach, and if you didn't know her, you wouldn't notice her gradual descent towards totally-hammered. Once she was there, however, everyone could see it.
"It's our dear Very!" Penny exclaimed as I walked closer to her, and I smiled unsuredly and took hold of her arm, slightly afraid she would fall over. "Penny," I began, "Do you think maybe it's time for you to leave?" Penny would never want to leave a party before eleven o'clock, but she was in the stage of drunkenness when all that could result from this night was self-humiliation on her part. "What very are you, Very?" I frowned at her and she smiled widely at me, breathing a huge whiff of her alcohol-scented breath, and I gagged slightly at the disgusting smell. "Oh, Penny–"
"Very uncommitted?" she rose an eyebrow at me, and I bit my lip. Fantastic. She was still mad at me for dropping out of prom committee, and now she was drunk and mad at me, which was not a promising equation for me. "Penny, really, we should–"
"Very boring?" she cooed, and I rolled my eyes and continued to try and murmur words to her about leaving, but as much as I tried to pull her towards the door, her feet would not budge. It was as if they were nailed to the floorboards.
"Very bossy," she said now, after my tone dropped and I attempted to be more stern in my coaxing. People all over the room were staring by now, some smirking, some with raised eyebrows, and a couple looking astonished. "Now, Penny, darling," I started in, and her feet finally slipped about centimeter off their post.
"Very big nose," Penny said, and I froze. I forced myself to focus on Penny's face, though my thoughts were already darting around the room to the people who had already been staring, and imagining who must have turned at this remark. She stared up at me with the tired, mischievous eyes of a criminal who's been very recently shot, and grinned at me a sloppy grin that looked as if it had been glued on her face with a glue stick by a second grader whose artskills were questionable. Her hair was a tangled mess and her alcohol breath, even then, was overwhelming my senses. Despite all of this, she still, somehow, looked beautiful. Not just beautiful, but breathtaking; she stared up at me with the face of one you never want to look away from. The kind of face that makes men claim they believe in love at first sight.
This beautiful face was staring up at me with mockery, and it was telling me that I did not measure up.
This was something I had already known. But never had something so beautiful told me so.
I felt a tear slide down my cheek as my lips parted and a small sound like a wincing animal escaped my throat. I dropped Penny's arm, and as I took a step back, away from her, my body suddenly shaking slightly, she said, "Get out of here, Pinnochio. No one tells me when to leave a party."
© 2012
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