Sage already has an outfit picked out for me when I get to her house. She knows that my legs are what I hate most about my body and yet, she hands me a dress that I can tell is too short for my comfort level. It maybe goes halfway down my chunky thighs.

I know that if I tell Sage that I don't want to wear it, she won't force me to wear it and she'll understand, but I think that it'd make her so happy if I were to wear this black and red floral dress. It's casual and flowy, not too tight, and it has long sleeves. She told me before how she just wants me to feel okay with my body and although I don't, I can wear this dress to make her think otherwise.

With her breakup still fresh and stinging, I think that this might help her mood a bit. And besides, we're going to the bar that doesn't check IDs, so once we get there, I'm going to get too drunk to care about anything anyway. We're the same shoe size, so she also gives me a tan pair of wedge booties to wear with the dress. I just go along with it.

Amber starts doing my makeup before I put the dress on, so I'm not sure how terrible it'll look on me yet, but I'm nervous. I have on that concealer for my black eye but Amber wants to add some eyeshadow and winged eyeliner to the look.

"This is going to be so much fun," Sage exhales from her closet as she's probably trying to find her skimpiest dress—which is hard, because she has a lot of them. "We are going to look so hot, and we're going to get so laid."

"I'm not," Amber mutters from in front of me. "Dex is out of town for the night."

"And I'm not either, Sage," I tell her. I will wear the dress for her satisfaction, but I'm not going to have sex with somebody to make her feel better. I am a good friend, but I do have my limits.

"Alright, well I'm getting laid. I don't know by who, but it's happening. I need a rebound," Sage decides. When she comes out of her closet, she's wearing a skin tight mini dress that barely covers her butt and squeezes to her thin frame like it has been painted onto her body. The heels that she's wearing with it make her legs look a mile long and the smile on her face makes it clear that she is totally feeling her outfit.

"Wow," Amber says when she sees the dress. "You're not messing around."

"No, I am not," Sage agrees with her. "I'm ready to get drunk and crazy, and to forget all about Tyson. You know what? I don't think that I'm even going to say his name anymore. He's absolutely dead to me."

"That's a good attitude to have. Are you sure those shoes are the best choice? We're going to be out all night," I remind her, keeping my face still so that Amber doesn't mess up the eye shadow.

"I'll be fine," Sage confirms, looking into the full body mirror behind her closet door to see how she looks. "I look hot. This is going to be a great night. How'd the trial go today, Yaz?"

"It wasn't really the trial, just a hearing to go through the evidence that they have against Robby. It was nice to see him, but pretty boring. His lawyer seems to know what he's doing though, so that's good."

"That's really good news," Amber smiles at me after finishing my makeup. She chooses my lipstick color but I apply it myself. It isn't too bold—it's a dull pink color that looks nice with the dress that I'm about to put on.

"Okay, let's see how the dress looks," Sage insists after my lipstick is applied and Amber starts making up her own face. "I'm dying to see you in it."

I want to object and just wear jeans and maybe that nice blouse that I wore to the carnival. Because it has some cleavage, maybe Sage would be okay with that instead. I know that she doesn't have to be okay with what I wear, but like I just want to keep her as happy as possible tonight.

Instead of saying anything, I just take the dress and go into her walk-in closet to get out of the business outfit that I'd worn to the courthouse earlier today. The dress feels loose, which is good, but it does have more cleavage than I was expecting. I'm wearing a good bra today, so I guess that it looks okay, but my legs are more exposed than they have been in a while in public.

When I got drunk wearing shorts, I stayed on my property. Although there were a lot of people there, it wasn't a ton of people. So, I'll just have to get drunk quickly at the bar tonight so that I'm not worrying too much about my legs.

I come out of the closet and then look in the mirror to see just how bad it looks.

"You look so adorable," Amber compliments me.

"Yaz, you really are totally killing that dress. In a good way," Sage agrees with Amber. "Are you really going to wear it? You totally should, you look amazing. You've got cleavage that I could only dream about and legs for fuckin' days."

"I don't know..." I trail off, still unsure about the length of the dress. I can see the cut from jumping onto the train a while back still visible on the side of my thigh. Although that's not my biggest insecurity, it sure doesn't help. "What if my legs start to jiggle when I'm dancing?"

"So what?" She counters with a terrible argument.

"So what?" I repeat her words. "That's the best answer that you have?"

"Just because your legs might jiggle doesn't mean that they're bad legs," She assures me and then she pokes her own thigh. "Look, my legs jiggle too, but I'm still going to dance my ass off like all of the boys are watching."

"Thighs are just inherently a bit jiggly," Amber sides with Sage. "They all do it, you shouldn't worry about it."

"Okay," I sigh. For all of the self-esteem issues I have, I am capable of acknowledging the fact that my boobs look pretty great in this dress right now.

Once we're all ready to leave, we get out of Sage's house and Amber drives us down to the center of town where the bar is that we're going to. Because they don't ID, it's usually where the younger crowd hangs out and because it's summer, it's usually always busy this time at night.

Just as expected, the bar is full and there's a large group of people over by the juke box dealing with a friendly argument over which song to play next. Sage hooks her arm around my elbow and grabs Amber too so that we don't get separated from each other in the crowded bar. We have to wait a while at the bar but eventually get our drinks and find a small high top table near the pool tables to sit.

Still feeling pretty self conscious about the length of the dress, I try to hide my legs under the table as I drink my lemon drop martini.

"Do you have anybody specific in mind that you want to rebound with?" Amber asks Sage.

They both start looking around the bar for viable candidates for Sage's rebound. All of the slightly attractive people in this town, Sage has already slept with, so it might be tricky to find anybody that's up to Sage's standards.

"What about Wade Thompson?" Amber motions over toward the juke box where Wade, who was a grade ahead of us in high school, is winning the battle for the juke box with whatever song he wants to play. He's very tall, with a very loud voice, so it's hard not to let him win stupid arguments like what music to play. He's got a goatee, which isn't great, and his hair is always kind of greasy. I guess in this town though, he's not that bad looking.

When you've got a small town with not that many people, you've got to really lower your standards. Especially when you're as beautiful as Sage.

"I'll think about it," Sage confirms with a slow nod. "I could do worse."

"But you could also do better," I assure her. "You don't have to sleep with anybody, you know."

"I know that," She nods. "But I want to. Do you see anybody cute in the bar?"

"No, but I need another drink," I realize that my martini is already gone.

"We just got here," Sage notices with a short laugh. "Are you really drinking tonight?"

"I got to say fourteen words to my brother today. That's how we communicate now, just fourteen words snuck in after his court hearings. So yeah, I'm really drinking tonight," I answer her before I return to the bar with my empty glass and I ask for another. I go for a stronger drink this time.

"Yasmin Clarke," I hear somebody say my name and look to my left to see a guy that I knew from high school. I'm not sure what grade he's in, but I'm sure that he's younger than me. "You here to rob the place?"

The bartender gets me my drink and I start walking away, "That's the plan," I say sarcastically before I'm out of earshot.

"What do you think about Jason Boudreaux?" Sage asks me when I return with my new, very strong, drink. "He's kind of cute, right?"

"Better than Wade," I confirm. "Doesn't he have a girlfriend?"

"Shit, you're right," She mutters. "Well, something is bound to happen. Once we start dancing, things will start getting interesting."

I drink two more drinks as Sage finishes her first. Because Amber is driving tonight, she has one beer but then switches to Pepsi so that she's sober enough to drive but loose enough to have a good time. I, on the other hand, am already getting dizzy and I don't care nearly as much about the length of my dress.

Looking around again for guys that are cute enough to be with Sage, I notice somebody coming in the front door of the bar that is definitely not a candidate for her rebound, because he's the guy she's rebounding from.

"Tyson just walked in," I announce Sage and Amber, who aren't facing the door and couldn't see him coming in. Behind him, Javier and Jake walk in as well.

"What the fuck is he doing here?" Sage groans.

"Well, I told Dex that we were coming out. I didn't think that he'd tell Tyson, but I guess he could have," Amber says with a small, apologetic shrug.

"He's probably not here because of you, Sage," I try to tell her. "And if he is, I'll just shoot him in the foot."

"No, he's coming over here. He looks pissed. What does he have to be pissed about?" She sounds incredibly annoyed, and for good reason too. But I do have a good idea as to why he's pissed.

I am totally prepared to punch Tyson in the face. Mostly because I'm drunk, so I stand up but I stay leaning against the table. Mostly because it's hard to stand up on my own now that I'm halfway through my fourth drink.

"What the fuck do you want, Ty?" Sage demands when he gets close enough to the table with his posse.

"You know exactly what I want. Are you kidding me?" He looks incredulous that she's playing dumb. But she's not playing, she really doesn't know that I egged his car. He's clearly assuming that it was her though, and he's not very happy about that. "I thought that you were going to be a grown up about this. But you're acting like a child and now you're out here and what? You're trying to get fucked?"

"I can get fucked if I want to get fucked," She scoffs at him. "Get outta my face, I can do whatever I want, asshole."

"You dented my car, you bitch," He seethes at her.

"I what?" She blinks at him a few times. "You're crazy, I didn't do anything to your car."

"I did it," I announce because if he wants to fight anybody, or call somebody a bitch, I will gladly fight him right now. "I egged his car today."

"Yaz, you did what?" Sage looks at me like I've grown a third head but she says it with a small laugh.

"Because you're an asshole," I inform Tyson. "And you deserved it because you're mean, and you're selfish, and disgusting. You piece of shit, you never deserved Sage. And you don't deserve a nice car that's not covered in eggs. So fuck off. Unless you want to fight me because I'm fired up, man."

"How much have you had to drink?" Javier steps closer to me.

"You're paying for this," Tyson says, but I'm not sure if he's talking to me or Sage.

Sage then comes to my defense. "You're paying for it, Ty. She was right, you did deserve it."

I turn my attention to Javier to answer his question. "On a scale of one to ten, I'd say maybe a four. But I've had a rough day, so it's not taking much to piss me off."

"That's my car," Tyson snaps at Sage.

"So what? You egged my heart," She refutes.

"That's stupid."

"You're stupid," Sage argues.

"Whatever," He seems to give up. "You're all crazy. I'm out of here."

Jake follows him out of the bar but Javier stays back.

"Who's side are you on, Javi?" Sage asks him when she realizes that he isn't leaving.

"I don't know, it's complicated. Can I be neutral?" He glances over at Sage, and then he makes eye contact with me, and looks back to Sage.

"No," She decides. "It's Tyson or it's Yaz. You can't have both."

"What?" I look over at her because I'm not following the conversation anymore. What do I have to do with this?

"Okay. Well, he's one of my best friends so if he asks, I'm going to tell him that I'm on his side. But I do think that what he did was fucked up, and I think that he totally deserved his car getting egged. But like I said, I will lie if Tyson asks me," Javier explains to Sage and then he looks at me again. I'm still confused.

"I'll allow that," She decides as Amber starts grinning beside me; I'm apparently the only person who still doesn't understand what's happening. "You may buy her a drink."

"What?" I say again, hoping that maybe somebody will explain why Javier is still here, and why Sage is telling him to buy me a drink.

Javier leaves the table to go to the bar and I turn to Sage for an explanation.

"He's totally into you," Amber explains to me once he's gone. "He's been checking you out this entire time."

"Really?"

"Yes, really, Yaz," Sage confirms with a high pitched laugh. "I know that you said that you don't like him like that, but if that's true then you've got to tell him so he stops pining."

"He's pining?"

Both Amber and Sage laugh a little bit, which just goes to show how truly clueless I really am.

"Maybe that's dramatic, but he does like you," Sage adds as Javier returns to the table with two drinks—a beer and what looks to be Sprite. He puts the Sprite in front of me and takes a sip of the beer.

"Is this just Sprite?" I ask him, surprised and disappointed that I don't have any more alcohol.

"Yeah, is that okay?" He asks me.

I'm about to protest because I'm not as drunk as I want to be, but Amber stops me from saying anything and leans closer to me as she whispers, "He wants to hit on you, but he doesn't want you to be too drunk. Just go with it."

"That's okay," I do as she says and I just go with it. I know that I told Sage that I don't like Javier but I'm not so sure about that. I think that he's really nice, and he's cute, so why not? Because he's not Dex? Dex is drop dead gorgeous and he makes me feel like I'm melting, but he habitually cheats on his girlfriend and he doesn't even seem to feel guilty about it. I think that Javier not being Dex could actually be a good thing. "I like Sprite. Thanks."

"I'm going to go hit on Wade," Sage decides as I sit back down on my stool as I start sipping my Sprite. I don't want to be completely sober because if I was sober, I wouldn't even be able to be near Javier, or any guy that I know, in this dress without dissolving into a pile of my own anxiety. But I guess that I could stand to sober up just a little bit.

"Good luck," Amber calls to her as Sage stands up from her stool and heads toward the juke box. Wade is banging his head to the song that he'd decided to play and seems to be pretty drunk himself.

"Isn't Tyson going to be mad that you stayed here?" I ask Javier curiously.

"Maybe, but he'll get over it," He shrugs at me. "He doesn't control what I do. So, where's Dex? Or is this a girls' night and I'm totally overstepping?"

"No, not really a girls' night, Dex is just out of town for the night," She explains to him.

"Sage is in her last stage of healing after a breakup—which is rebounding," I add. "So we're out tonight more as a 'get Sage laid' kind of mission."

"And I think that it's working," Amber motions over to where Sage is hitting on Wade and it does seem to be going well. They're both laughing at something and she's standing pretty close to him. "Do you mind if I head out front to call Dex?"

"No, go ahead," I say, but then after I say it, I realize that she's only leaving so that Javier and I will be alone. Oh my god. I thought that I was ready for this, but I don't think so. Being alone with him? I don't know what to say. Or how to act. As a group, I'm fine, but one-on-one? I'm going to mess this up. "Wait, um-"

"Great, thanks," She doesn't let me take it back as she hops off of her bar stool and heads outside to call her boyfriend, who is probably sleeping with Gabby right now.

"Why didn't you leave with Tyson?" I ask him, which is not a good question to ask. I need to drink more of this Sprite so that I'm sober enough not to say stupid things but where I remain drunk enough to not feel too nervous.

"He's just going to go back to his house and get high," He answers me. "Staying here sounds like a better way to spend my night. And you look great, by the way."

"You know what's really funny?" I ask rhetorically. "When I'm drunk, I want to say what I'm feeling but I'm too drunk to know what it is that I feel. But when I'm sober, I know what I feel, I just don't know how to say it. It's so funny."

"Well, you know what they say. A drunk person's words are a sober person's thoughts. So just say what you're thinking right now, and that's probably how you feel when you're sober," He suggests, which is a very dangerous suggestion. Even though I'm a bit drunk, I know that it's a terrible idea.

But I go for it anyway, and I say, "I think that you've been looking at my boobs a lot."

"Sorry," He mutters, looking embarrassed. "But like I said, you know, you look great tonight."

"So, did you just stay here tonight because you want to look at my boobs? Because Sage thinks that you like all of me. OH SHIT."

"What?" He looks terrified at my last outburst.

I let out a long sigh and then I say, "Now, I have John Legend stuck in my head."

Javier laughs for a moment but then reaches over the table and puts his hand over mine, his eyes looking into mine as he says, "I like you, Yasmin. All of you."

"Since when?"

"Since you punched Jake in the face," He admits.

I kiss him.

Nobody sees it coming. I don't. Javier sure as hell doesn't. I'm sure that even Jesus himself did not see it coming. I'd never kissed anybody before, I never expected that there was enough alcohol in the world to give me enough confidence to make that move.

It's a very short kiss but it's on the lips and it makes me dizzy.

"I..." I try to say something but it takes me a minute to get my words back. I clear my throat and then try again. "I don't know. How I feel, I mean. I'm too drunk to know the difference between feelings and horniness."

"That's okay. Just let me know when you figure it out," He tells me.

I take another sip of my Sprite and in the corner of my eye, I see Sage making out against the wall with Wade. Amber is walking back into the bar from the front. My heart is beating faster than I've ever felt it beat before. I feel like the world is slowing down to a stop, like everything is happening around me but not with me.

I feel like I'm floating. I can't tell if it's the alcohol or if it was Javier's lips but one thing is for sure: I am dreading tomorrow.