him. He mutters something about having to go to the bathroom.
You can barely understand him. It’s only been a few minutes since you last spoke to him, but he seems drunker.
You reach for the knob. It’s a little tight, but you can turn it.
As you open the door, you explain that after he’s done, you are driving him home.
He says nothing, goes inside, and slams the door behind him.
You listen for retching noises, but all you hear is running water. You sink to the carpet outside the door. No one else is upstairs. Now that you’re alone, now that you can THINK and not feel like people are STARING at you and wondering how you could have been invited, you realize how tightly you are wound up. You want to cry, but you CANNOT give Jay the satisfaction of finding you in tears. You SHOULDN’T be here anyway, and you WOULDN’T be here if it
weren’t for Alex, if he weren’t in such bad shape.
And you start to beat yourself up, because you know that YOU’RE the reason Alex is so drunk.
If YOU hadn’t insisted on taking him to the party, if YOU hadn’t left him right at the beginning, if YOU hadn’t gone off and watched a stupid grade-Z movie — if you hadn’t NEGLECTED
your friend WHO WAS DEPRESSED TO BEGIN WITH — none of this would have happened.
So you sit there, grinding your teeth, waiting and waiting as the water runs inside.
And then you notice something.
The running water is not the sound of a SINK.
It’s louder. It’s a SHOWER.
You knock. Everything okay? you ask.
Alex says yeah, fine.
So you sit back and wait.
The shower lasts a long time. Too long. In Alex’s state, you realize he’s liable to fall asleep standing up. And if he falls on the tiles, he could break a bone, hit his head …
You knock again.
No answer.
You call his name.
You yell his name.
Nothing.
You turn the doorknob.
It’s locked.
Now you’re panicked. You bang on the door with your fist. You push with your shoulder, but the door won’t budge.
You need help. You need a key.
The last person IN THE WORLD you want to talk to is Jay, but you have to. You have no choice.
You race downstairs. Jay is in the kitchen, raiding his own refrigerator.
You grab him by the arm and tell him what happened.
For a moment a strange expression plays across his face, like he doesn’t know what to do, yell at you, apologize, what?
But he catches on. He runs upstairs, and you follow close behind, asking WHERE HE KEEPS
THE KEY.
WHAT KEY? he asks. WHO EVER KNOWS WHERE THE BATHROOM KEY IS?
You get to the bathroom, and now you see a stain seeping under the door and onto the hallway carpet, growing in a dark semicircle.
Jay yells — OPEN THE DOOR, YOU’RE FLOODING THE BATHROOM — and bangs hard,
but still all you can hear is the running water, splashing onto the floor tiles inside.
Together the two of you charge the door. Your shoulders hit with a loud thud.
You step back and try again.
The third time, the door cracks. The wood splits down the middle.
You kneel to charge again, but Jay stops you. He says if we break the door, we’ll hurt ourselves.
Instead, he steps back and gives the door a karate kick.
His shoe goes right through. So does half his leg. He yells in pain, and you kick like crazy, and soon a big chunk of the door gives way, and Jay pulls his leg out and you’re able to reach in and turn the knob from the inside.
You push the door open and run in.
The air is thick with steam. The room smells faintly of alcohol. Alex’s bottle is on the floor, floating in the bathwater that has spilled over the side of the tub.
The shower curtain is drawn shut.
You splash through the water and pull the curtain aside. Alex is sprawled out in the tub, the water almost covering his face. He is fully clothed.
And unconscious.
You turn off the water. Jay is reaching into the water, hooking his arms under Alex’s shoulders.
You grab Alex’s feet, and the two of you pull him out.
Alex is groaning now, moving his head
You can barely understand him. It’s only been a few minutes since you last spoke to him, but he seems drunker.
You reach for the knob. It’s a little tight, but you can turn it.
As you open the door, you explain that after he’s done, you are driving him home.
He says nothing, goes inside, and slams the door behind him.
You listen for retching noises, but all you hear is running water. You sink to the carpet outside the door. No one else is upstairs. Now that you’re alone, now that you can THINK and not feel like people are STARING at you and wondering how you could have been invited, you realize how tightly you are wound up. You want to cry, but you CANNOT give Jay the satisfaction of finding you in tears. You SHOULDN’T be here anyway, and you WOULDN’T be here if it
weren’t for Alex, if he weren’t in such bad shape.
And you start to beat yourself up, because you know that YOU’RE the reason Alex is so drunk.
If YOU hadn’t insisted on taking him to the party, if YOU hadn’t left him right at the beginning, if YOU hadn’t gone off and watched a stupid grade-Z movie — if you hadn’t NEGLECTED
your friend WHO WAS DEPRESSED TO BEGIN WITH — none of this would have happened.
So you sit there, grinding your teeth, waiting and waiting as the water runs inside.
And then you notice something.
The running water is not the sound of a SINK.
It’s louder. It’s a SHOWER.
You knock. Everything okay? you ask.
Alex says yeah, fine.
So you sit back and wait.
The shower lasts a long time. Too long. In Alex’s state, you realize he’s liable to fall asleep standing up. And if he falls on the tiles, he could break a bone, hit his head …
You knock again.
No answer.
You call his name.
You yell his name.
Nothing.
You turn the doorknob.
It’s locked.
Now you’re panicked. You bang on the door with your fist. You push with your shoulder, but the door won’t budge.
You need help. You need a key.
The last person IN THE WORLD you want to talk to is Jay, but you have to. You have no choice.
You race downstairs. Jay is in the kitchen, raiding his own refrigerator.
You grab him by the arm and tell him what happened.
For a moment a strange expression plays across his face, like he doesn’t know what to do, yell at you, apologize, what?
But he catches on. He runs upstairs, and you follow close behind, asking WHERE HE KEEPS
THE KEY.
WHAT KEY? he asks. WHO EVER KNOWS WHERE THE BATHROOM KEY IS?
You get to the bathroom, and now you see a stain seeping under the door and onto the hallway carpet, growing in a dark semicircle.
Jay yells — OPEN THE DOOR, YOU’RE FLOODING THE BATHROOM — and bangs hard,
but still all you can hear is the running water, splashing onto the floor tiles inside.
Together the two of you charge the door. Your shoulders hit with a loud thud.
You step back and try again.
The third time, the door cracks. The wood splits down the middle.
You kneel to charge again, but Jay stops you. He says if we break the door, we’ll hurt ourselves.
Instead, he steps back and gives the door a karate kick.
His shoe goes right through. So does half his leg. He yells in pain, and you kick like crazy, and soon a big chunk of the door gives way, and Jay pulls his leg out and you’re able to reach in and turn the knob from the inside.
You push the door open and run in.
The air is thick with steam. The room smells faintly of alcohol. Alex’s bottle is on the floor, floating in the bathwater that has spilled over the side of the tub.
The shower curtain is drawn shut.
You splash through the water and pull the curtain aside. Alex is sprawled out in the tub, the water almost covering his face. He is fully clothed.
And unconscious.
You turn off the water. Jay is reaching into the water, hooking his arms under Alex’s shoulders.
You grab Alex’s feet, and the two of you pull him out.
Alex is groaning now, moving his head
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