"So, did you tell him?"
I shoot a look at my friend Chloe from across the table, rolling the straw in my martini glass around between my fingers as my lips twitch into a grin. "He grounded me for a month just for smoking a little dope," I remind her. "That shit's legal in, like, three states now. And I'm twenty-three!"
"Paige, move out," Chloe suggests.
I glare. "I might have to sneak out to enjoy a drink, but I have no intention of moving out of that mansion. Having an uncle as a politician kind of trumps living with the rules."
Chloe rolls her eyes. "You're one spoiled bitch. Yet, somehow I still love you."
I stick out my lips and flick my straw until it's free from the glass, splashing her carefully made up face with my apple martini. "It's the shopping sprees, whore. Don't get all sentimental."
Just then, I feel a dead weight beside me. Jake. I sneak a look at Chloe from the corner of my eye, and she's doing her best not to laugh. "How's the internship?" he asks, leaning a little too closely and reeking of beer. People say you're supposed to grow out of acne at a certain age, but he's almost twenty-five and no dice. He'd ask me out every week in high school. Not that he's not nice or whatever, but you'd think he'd learn to take a hint.
"Internship's great," I manage, cringing when he puts an arm around me.
"Enough with the standing around in fashion, babe," he drawls, nuzzling his nose into my hair. "You should be the one on that catwalk. God, the fantasies I had about you in high school. Middle school..."
I spring from my seat, causing Jake to topple over and do a face-plant on the floor. Chloe's beyond any control now. She's laughing her ass off. I grimace, scoop up my martini glass and take a sip as Jake writhes at my feet. "Jake? You're disgusting. You're not telling me anything I don't already know, though, so you and your slimy, overly hairy hand can just finish the night off yourselves."
Behind me, everyone roars into laughter. It's as if they hang around just to be seen with the rich girl. I don't know. I'm not exactly nice to them, but no one seems to care. And there are very few people in the world that I care about, one of them being Hannah, so having a few wannabes laugh at my jokes doesn't do much but bloat my ego. I sigh and pick up my purse.
"Let's go, skank," I grin at Chloe, and then we're off.
-----
It's so nice outside at this time of night, I decide to neglect taking a cab on my way home. I'll walk. I'm also in no mood for facing my overbearing uncle, either. I didn't do my workout this morning, so it's perfect. My heels are becoming unbearably painful, so much so that I want to take them off, but then I decide against it. If I want to look good, I have to embrace the pain. The shit we do for men, I think to myself, and I'm still single.
Chloe's a traitor whore. She went home with Mark, some hottie doctor-in-training from the bar. I find myself laughing at the thought. I've taught my girl well.
When my heels just aren't cutting it and I've crossed the line between pain and agony, I lean against the nearest brick building in upstate New York and start to kick them off. The first heel doesn't hit the concrete before I'm peering down the alley at my left. Three men stand in a small circle, wearing all black, arms folded at their chests, and one man stands alone against the wall. He's sputtering something, but I can't make it out.
Shit, am I witnessing a robbery? Gang stuff? I should probably run. Goddamn heels.
I hear something click. The man actually cries out. Spooked, I peek around the corner again. The man at the front of the circle is holding a gun. Before I have the time to even process what's happening, a bang sounds out.
I scream. Loud.
The men turn to find me standing, having witnessed the murder of their guy, eyes wide, and all it takes is for one of them to step towards me, for one dead, blank look to wash over me and suddenly I'm filled with memories. I hope they won't kill me, I wish people would stop dying in front of me, God I can't just die, then my heel catches on the concrete and I stumble and everything turns black.