Courtney was in the bathroom, sitting on the closed toilet kiti, kiti cha lid. Piles of soiled tissues laid in her lap, stained with black puddles of running mascara. Her high heels were laying on the floor. There was no point in wearing them anymore. Courtney sniffs and looks in the mirror.

So much for looking gorgeous, she thinks. Running mascara left black trails down her flushed cheeks. Her eyes were red and puffy. Her nose was running, and her hairline was wet with tears she had tried to wipe away but had only soaked into her hair. Courtney lets out a shaky breath as she re-lives what happened once she ran up the stairs.

Duncan had chased her up the stairs and had easily caught up to her. Courtney had spun on him and kicked him right in the balls, with her heels, no less, and that had bought her enough time to make it to the bathroom. Once she was alone, Courtney immediately burst out sobbing. Duncan had pounded on the locked door and even began picking the lock. Out of sheer adrenaline, Courtney had shoved the porcelain, tiled bathtub in front of the door so Duncan couldn’t shove open the door, even though it was unlocked now.

Courtney looked up from her place on the toilet. She could still see Duncan’s shadow underneath the crack of the door. Good, she thinks, Let him hear me cry. It’ll teach him a lesson. He’s been waiting there the whole saa Courtney’s been trapped in the bathroom.

And after an saa of crying, Courtney had a pounding headache. Even though it wasn’t a hangover, she wished she had a couple of those pills. Maybe they worked on headaches as well as hangovers. She stumbles over to the sink, dizzy spots floating across her line of vision as her head turns light-headed. She stares herself down in the mirror as she remembers the whole scene.

She had just made it off the dance floor when she saw them. Duncan was holding a bottle of vodka in his hand, and the busty flapper who was pressed up against him was holding a glass of wine. Duncan was leaning back against the refreshments meza, jedwali as her hip was pressed against his crotch. Her arms were twisted around his neck (balancing the wind glass in her hands), her boobs were practically flattened against his chest, and his hand was intertwined in her curly blonde bob. Their lips were pressed together as if they couldn’t get enough of each other.

Courtney would probably remember that scene for as long as she lives.

She turns on the faucet as another sob wracks her body, and Courtney splashes some water on her blotchy pale cheeks. The drying mascara regains liquid form, and runs off her face. She wipes her face on a plush blue towel, accidentally staining it with black smears.

Courtney grabs the edge of the porcelain, tiled tub. She tugs on it, but the bathtub hardly moves. Her strength seemed to have depleted one hundred percent. If she had to wait any longer, Courtney would have probably fell asleep in the bathtub. But she kept tugging the bathtub, slowly dragging it away from the door. The scratching was so obvious that Duncan probably knew Courtney was coming out of the bathroom soon.

Her assumption was proved correct and the shadow under the crack of the door shifted, revealing that Duncan had stepped away from the door.

But he was still waiting for her.

Once there was a foot of clearance, Courtney slipped through the bathroom door, leaving her high heels on the floor. She stalks past Duncan straight into the kitchen. She could hear his footsteps behind her. Courtney reaches into the refrigerator and grabs a big bottle of whiskey. Something to make her forget all what happened.

Turning around, she breezes pat Duncan, managing not to make any eye contact. But she could tell that a five o’clock shadow had already grown on his smooth jaw. One glance at the clock on the ukuta told her that is was three in the morning. Courtney grabs the doorknob of a bunk room that isn’t labeled with a name.

“Princess, I can explain,” Duncan finally murmurs from behind her.

Courtney wheels around and glares daggers into his eyes. No, not daggers, fire. No, not fire, poison. Anything that is deadly. Because her look was a look of icy death that startled Duncan. Surely she was mad, but he didn’t know she was this upset.

She turns back around once she knows that she had silenced Duncan in the middle of his apology. She opens the door, walks into the cold and empty room, and slams the thick door right in his face. Courtney collapses on the bare mattress, that didn’t even have sheets on it, much less a pillow, and opens the whiskey bottle.

She pauses for a sekunde and hears Duncan’s footsteps retreat down the hallway.

Then Courtney drains half of the whiskey bottle in one long sip.

She wakes up shivering. The empty whiskey bottle is hugged to her chest, nestled between her breasts. She’s curled up in a ball, and only her thighs are warm. Courtney opens her eyes, which is a challenge, since the mascara and tears mixture had dried her eyelashes together. Once her eyes are open, though, Courtney’s body turns to stone and her lips form a tight line.

“What do wewe want?” she asks, her voice dripping with poison.

Duncan holds his hands out innocently. “Don’t freak out. I’m just here to explain,” he tells her. Courtney looks at him.

“Well? I’m waiting.”

He takes a deep breath before beginning. “So. I went to get us a drink, and I had grabbed the bottle of vodka for me. But I got wewe a glass of wine since I knew wewe didn’t like strong alcohol. Which wewe kind of proved me wrong last night…,” he says, motioning at the empty bottle of whiskey.

Courtney hugs the bottle closer to her. Liquor seemed to be the only thing that she could rely on these days… except for the pounding hangovers. But, now that she thought about it, she could always count on the hangovers to be there in the morning, even though she didn’t appreciate them much. “Last night was a special circumstance,” Courtney croaks. Her throat was raw from sniffling all last night.

“Right. Well, uh, I had the alcohol, so I was just turning around to head back to find wewe when somebody took your wine. I look and see Mary, who is --.”

“Mary?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“You know her name?”

“Well, she worked at a speakeasy I’d rum-run to sometimes…”

“You. Know. Her. Name.”

“Yeah,” says Duncan, not seeing what was so wrong. Courtney looked at him in disbelief, and her eyebrows were furrowed. Except her eyebrows were probably just furrowed against her bad hangover. She blinked at him, and he took that as a signal to continue, “She was drunk. I mean, I could smell it on her breath. And… her pupils were dilated. I could just tell. So, uh, she kisses me.”

Courtney finally notices the koti, jacket draped across her curled-up legs. She stares at the zipper as she feels Duncan’s gaze on her. Staring at the warm jacket, she finally couldn’t take it anymore. Courtney slid the koti, jacket around herself and zipped it up. “Continue,” she tells Duncan, still not looking at him.

“She kissed me, I swear. I tried to pull away, but I hit the refreshments meza, jedwali to I was… pinned,” he explains, looking down at his hands.

“You could have shoved her away.” Duncan looks up to see Courtney staring straight at him. He keeps her gaze, not breaking away.

“I couldn’t. She’s a girl.”

Again, Courtney just blinks at him.

“So… She kissed me. She was out of control. There’s no denying that. Her arms were around my neck, and at first I put my hands on her waist to try to push her away. She thought I liked it, so she kept kissing me. Then I just had to grab a fistful of her hair to pull her off me. That’s the part wewe saw,” Duncan explains.

That explains his hand in her hair, Courtney thinks. But she just fumbles with the zipper of the koti, jacket she was wearing. “Did… you… like it?” she asks shyly, but her cheeks didn’t even blush. She was way too worn out from everything.

For some reason, this makes Duncan grin. If that was all Courtney cared about…

“Of course I didn’t like it. She was… drunk. She was way too crazy, and she looked like nothing compared to you,” Duncan tells her.

“…Really?” she asks.

Duncan smirks and nods.

Courtney smiles.

“Well… I guess I forgive you… for now,” Courtney warns him. Duncan scoots closer to Courtney and she sits up, letting go of the whiskey bottle. She climbs into Duncan’s lap and he wraps his arms around her.

I forgive Duncan, Courtney thinks, but Mary is going down.