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He must have sensed my reluctance because he continued, adding, “Hey, I totally won’t be offended if you say no. I do sort of have two infamously left-leaning feet.”
That was a lie, but a kind one.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
Now Robert did look a bit miffed. “You think I’d, what, force you to dance with me? I’m not an asshole.”
“No, no, of course not, it’s not you it’s — well, you know. It’s me,” I explained.
He seemed confused, but determined to take the higher road. “Don’t worry, Catya, I’m not taking it personally.” With a wink, he tacked on, “Every guy here knows you’re a hard partner to get on a dance card.”
Robert bid me a quick goodbye, and wandered back into the pulsing heart of the party, in search of another DOU girl to dance with. I sighed, hoping that I hadn’t hurt his feelings. He didn’t appear too upset, but all the same, most of these guys pissed me off, so I wanted to keep the good ones in my corner.
“What the hell?”
I turned, and saw that Grace was staring at me, eyebrows raised almost past her hairline, mouth open in shock.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“That was Robert!”
My eyes slid sideways as I replied, “Uh, yeah. I know.”
Her chin shifted forward so that it was jutting far away from her neck, the classic Grace expression of bafflement.
“That was the Robert,” she explained, as if I was a slow learner.
Once again, I said, “Yeah, I know.”
“Why aren’t you dancing with him?!” Grace cried.
Ah, so that was the problem. She wanted me to dance with him, to grind with him, maybe to hook up with him.
“I just didn’t want to,” I said by way of explanation. Hopefully, my answer didn’t suggest the underlying issue. That hooking up with Robert would be massively cheating on the man who already had my heart.
Grace looked skyward, as if begging for divine intervention, then responded, “Catya, he’s one of the hottest guys in OG, and he’s nice to boot. Why wouldn’t you even dance with him? I’m not saying you needed to get married, buy a two-bedroom and have a litter, but would a dance kill you?”
My face reddened, and this time, I couldn’t blame the Jell-O shots.
She pressed, “What’s going on with you? This doesn’t feel… it seems like there’s something off. Like there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Shit. She’d cornered me. I cast around desperately for an answer, and came up with:
“There is.”
Beat.
I continued, “And it’s that… it’s that… it’s that Robert has halitosis.”
Grace’s face morphed from shock and horror to confusion. “Uh, what?” she replied.
Poor Robert. He smelled great, but I had to double down on the story. “Yeah,” I affirmed. “He just smells terribly, like, he should get a doctor to look at it. You wouldn’t know until you’re in close quarters with him, but once you are — woof, it’s a strong odor.”
The corner of Grace’s lips turned down with surprise, and she said, “Wow. Ew. That’s so weird, I guess you never can tell.”
Crisis averted. “Yup.”
She shrugged, seeming to forget the entire encounter which was a relief as I didn’t want her gossiping this story, and passed me another shot, which I took gratefully. I hated lying to Grace. She was my closest friend, the person who knew me best. But it was in all our interests that I kept my secret to myself.
Just then, from atop the stairs, a frat boy cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Truth or Dare, in the living room, right now!”
Predictably, the DOU girls squealed, and began piling into the room. I sighed. Truth or Dare was a boring drinking game, but a good excuse to get plastered, which is what I wanted to be right about then. Grace grabbed my hand to pull me into the room, and I obliged readily. This would be uneventful, but fine.
The evening started to get blurry right about there. The shots kicked in, the beer kicked in. It all kicked in, and kicked me in the head. I felt my head getting loose, lolling from side to side.
Hard to say how long the game was going on for before my turn came around. Were there ten people that came before me, or only five? Was I sitting or standing? There was no way to know.
But I’m certain it came to me, because someone said “Catya” and then I — or rather, a person with my voice and body but who wasn’t fully me — said “Dare” and suddenly I was being told to kiss some guy, and I was violently whipping my head back and forth, saying ‘no no no no no’ and then I guess I must have been sitting down, because I stood up and ran out of the room. If people nearby were shocked, I don’t remember. Presumably, they were.
