I get my pink drink and I knock it back so fast that I think I might be sick, but the microphone is free and the stage is mine. I’m a star in the making. Someone is going to film me and I’ll be viral in two hours.

Asher will be watching me on Good Morning America tomorrow.

“I’m Olivia,” I scream into the microphone. “I can’t feel my toes. Jellybeans are disgusting. I don’t understand statistics. And I’m gonna sing you a song!”

When the first line of Santa Baby leaves my lips, I lose all inhibitions. I’m on a high. I’m electric and alive, and everyone is watching me shimmy and shake through each note of the song. I’m amazing. I was made for this. Deacon is a lucky man. He gets to take home the hottest girl in the room. I bet there’s going to be a fight. Over me. I’m such a commodity. Sports Illustrated is going to put me on their swimsuit issue. Ashley Graham who?

I almost tumble off the stage.

The mic cord is tangled around my legs and Asher is pinching the bridge of his nose and I’m definitely going to be sick.

The mic drops with a loud screech and I somehow manage to get off the stage without falling on my face. I stumble over my feet and I’m hanging onto the wall, but I get to the bathroom.

The women’s room.

I make sure this time.

I puke in the sink and on my shoes and then I fall against the wall and then onto the floor.

I don’t cry.

I don’t feel anything.

It’s what I like most about drinking. It’s all giggles and confidence and fun. Until it’s not. Until you’re sitting on the bathroom floor and you can’t feel anything and you haven’t felt anything in years. And you’re just existing. And you want to cry, but you can’t.

So I sit and wonder what life would have been like if I hadn’t been dealt such a shitty hand.

“Olivia?” There’s a knock on the door and then it opens. “O?”

I look up at Asher, whose face sinks when he sees the pathetic mess that’s me crumpled on the floor covered in vomit.

“Jesus,” he says and he bends down to my level and brushes a piece of hair out of my face. “I’m taking you home.”

“Can you take my shoes off first?” I ask. “Looking at them makes me sad.”

“We don’t want that,” he says and takes each boot off. “Am I trashing them?”

“I think I already did that.”

He helps me onto my feet and wraps an arm securely around my waist. He reminds me that I smell like puke and rancid pizza as we walk through the bar.