[PART NINE] & Some News

[oresteia]

Okay, I'm a little new at this so sorry if I mess this up first go. Because it's been 5 months since the last round even though we haven't been busy. I figured I might as well earn my keep and try to get this place alive again...

THE SOCIAL NETWORK KINK MEME

ASK THE MODS * FAQ * DISCUSSION * RESEARCH * FILL LIST * PART ONE * PART ONE (OVERFLOW) *

Comments

FILL: you see straight through me, don't you, 4a/?

[anonymous]

4.

All Edi wants to do is get really fucking drunk.

It’s been a week since Erica broke up with Mark over her, and Mark hasn’t spoken to Edi since. According to Dustin and Chris, he’s been holed up in his room, coding and drinking every Red Bull in sight and hardly sleeping. She doesn’t allow herself to wonder if it’s because of Erica or because of herself. She doesn’t know if she can handle the answer.

That’s what makes it so shitty when she looks across the bar and sees Mark at a table in the corner, not even pretending to be listening to Chris’s friend Billy rambling in his ear. The thought crosses Edi’s mind to find Christy and Alice and head back up to their dorm, but she doesn’t have time to further reflect upon it because Dustin’s heading her way.

“You’re dressed like the old Edi again!” he announces a little drunkenly as he plops down on the barstool next to her, gesturing at her ruffled blouse and navy skirt, the peacoat that she’s using as a seat cover. “Cool. But I kinda miss the boobie dresses.”

“It helps me pass for the twenty-three year old that my fake ID says I am.” Edi rolls her eyes and ignores her own drink to grab Dustin’s beer in a way that makes her heart pang, remembering how Mark had done the same to her before the stupid Halloween party. She takes a long swig and grimaces at the taste. (Seriously, Dustin, who the hell drinks Miller Lite?)

“Has Mark, um… How’s Mark?”

Dustin sighs. “Are you still not speaking? Can you two just kiss and make up already? I will temporarily suspend any and all urges to hit on you if the two of you just talk it out and admit to each other that this ‘will they or won’t they?’ stuff is way too Ross and Rachel and, I don’t know, realize you’re meant to be or something.”

Edi chokes on her gin and tonic because it’s the last thing she expects to hear out of Dustin’s mouth (well, maybe not the Friends reference). She was honestly waiting (and hoping) for him to answer with a quick, “oh, you know, just coding and hating you and shit” , not “get your head out of your ass and be with him” . Edi’s heart thrums inside of her ribcage, but when she steals a glance at Mark’s table this time, he’s not there. Billy is sitting at the edge of his seat, flirting with Christy, and Chris is a couple of tables down, leaning against a booth and grinning at a dark-haired boy beneath his own soft mop of blonde tresses.

If anything, Edi supposes, this is her chance to freshen up before Mark reappears. She passes the rest of her drink to Dustin and tells him she’ll be back.

The bar’s bathroom lighting is that terrible half-dark fluorescent that’s supposed to be chic, but it’s really just unflattering and makes her tan skin look green and veined. The air’s thick with the stale scent of vomit from a girl who’d probably overestimated her liver’s strength, and Edi’s pretty sure she can hear someone in the last stall, the large handicapped-reserved stall, getting what she can only imagine is a blowjob. Fantastic.

Edi’s halfway through pulling her hair out of its loose ponytail when the lucky guy in the back stall starts grunting and moaning unintelligible things and-

Wait. That voice. Edi knows that voice. Her skin prickles with the familiarity of the short, clipped, monotone rumbling of the guy’s voice. Her stomach churns with an uncomfortable feeling that she refuses to call jealousy.

Maybe it’s not Mark. Maybe it’s someone else with a low, drowsy voice. There’s bound to be tons of those at Harvard, right?

Edi glances over to look at the stall, and she doesn’t know if she’s relieved or horrified to see Mark’s ghastly socks-and-sandals combination peeking out from underneath the door. She examines the shoes of the girl in the stall with him and-oh.

Alice’s favorite pair of black Louboutins. That Edi has borrowed many a time. Facing Mark. Black leggings crinkled to show that she’s crouching down to crotch-level. So much for her thinking that Mark was a hermit.

FILL: you see straight through me, don't you, 4b/5c

[anonymous]

Edi swallows the sob that builds up in her throat and tears herself away from the bathroom sink, stomping out of the room and back into the bar. She bounds toward Dustin and grabs him by the arm, spinning him around and slamming her lips against his. Dustin kisses back, reluctantly, for a few seconds before nudging her shoulder away.

“Edi. What the fuck. Why. Why are you. Why am I not happy about making out with you?” Dustin stammers, hazel eyes flickering with confusion. Edi doesn’t say anything, just eyes the bathroom door until she sees an Adidas flip-flop poke out and she grabs Dustin by the collar of his crinkled button-up and kisses him again, making sure Mark sees.

He barely acknowledges them, though, just glances in their general direction. Edi pulls back from Dustin and grabs her coat from the barstool, shrugging it on with her hands balled into such tight fists in the pockets that Mark’s Kirkland keycard snaps in half.