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My regret doesn’t have time to build before Regan texts me that she’s on her way back, and I barely have time to shower before she’s knocking my door off its hinges.
“Jesus, it’s been like thirty minutes,” I mutter to myself as I step back out into the hallway. “I know she has keys.”
Upon unlocking the door, Regan bursts through with her slutty birthday dress in hand coupled with a pair of six-inch heels. “So sorry, babe, but I couldn’t get the door with my hands full,” she exclaims. “Here, take these.”
“Regan, you know I can’t walk in heels,” I protest, taking the impossibly tall high heels from her like they’re a wad of snakes.
“Yes, you can! It’s not that hard if you don’t psych yourself out,” she replies, following me down the hall as we walk back to my bedroom.
I look over my shoulder at her. “Looks like you already started doing your makeup,” I say, observing the subtle glow of highlighter and dewy nude lipstick that she hadn’t been wearing before.
“Of course, I have to look good too. I can’t let you be the only one getting hit on. That woulddevastatemy ego,” she replies sarcastically.
We arrive in the bedroom, where I shy away from the mirror on the closet door. Even holding these clothes makes me feel dirty.
“Let me start with your face. Do you ever wear lashes?” Regan asks, taking my face in her hands and studying my features without warning.
“I’ve never put them on myself, no,” I reply. I’ve only ever worn lashes for a wedding I attended, and I felt like a haunted doll. They don’t fit me at all.
Regan smiles. “Okay, that’s fine. I can put them on you,” she says, and she drags me over to the mirror I was trying to avoid.
I try to remain still as she slathers me with enough makeup to drown a fish. By the end of her process, I feel like I’m wearing someone else’s face.
But that’s the point, right? I’m not going as the wimpy bitch who got cheated on and can’t even confront her boyfriend about it. I’m going as the strong, confident woman who doesn’t give a fuck about her slimy ex.
I peer around Regan to see myself in the mirror, like a cat afraid of its own reflection, and my jaw drops. Iamwearing someone else’s face, but it’s not the cheap, dollar-store version of a pretty woman I thought it would be. The woman I am tonight is confident, sexy, anddangerous. She’s the woman I always wanted to be, and even if it’s an illusion, a façade painted over my coy personality, it’ll do what it needs to for tonight.
I feel better slipping into the clingy dress that Regan is lending me for the night. The sides are cut out, and I can feel the cool air from the air vents blowing over my exposed skin. I twirl around, examining every inch of my exposed body as Regan quickly finishes her makeup.
“Are you sure I can pull this off? This doesn’t really feel like me,” I ask, crossing my arms over my barely-concealed chest.
She scoffs. “Yes, of course, you can. Now, let’s go before you start to freak out and change your mind.”
She grabs her purse from the bed, and I reluctantly follow her out of the room, my steps so deliberate and careful that I feel like a newborn baby deer walking for the first time. Six inches are a lot bigger when you’re walking in high heels.
Regan ushers me out the front door and into her pale-blue coupe. She looks like she’s going out for the first time after she won a fortune in a messy divorce. Her hair is swept up in an intentionally messy bun, and she’s wearing a short, red velvet dress with dangling gold earrings. Even though she says she wants to do this for me and my ego, I’m pretty sure that she’s been looking forward to going to this way longer than she’d admit.
The drive there has me second-guessing every decision that led up to this nightmare, fumbling through my brain for some reason why it’smyfault that Elliot cheated.
Was I boring? Did I not try hard enough?
Did I smell weird?
Insecurities tighten around my throat, but Regan notices my pale expression and shakes my leg. “Hey, girl, don’t get sick on me now. We haven’t even started drinking yet.”
I let out a weak chuckle. “I’ll be fine.”
When we pull up to the nightclub, I feel my stomach twist in knots again as I witness the line that has formed outside the building. It nearly wraps around to the parking lot, and everybody there looks like they go clubbing professionally. I suddenly feel extremely self-aware in the worst ways, trying to pull the cut-out portions of my dress into more flattering positions.
“What’s going on here?” I ask, gazing up at the multi-story building that’s pulsating with a different color on every floor.
“It’s the grand opening of this new club called Agave. I’ve been waiting months for this. You haveno idea,” Regna gushes.
I think I do have an idea; this was a setup, but I guess I already knew that. My main concern now is how the hell I’m going to survive the night here. It’s huge. I figure I’ll probably get lost within five minutes.
I look back toward the growing line outside. It seems like everybody here has been preparing their whole lives for an event like this, even though it’s just the opening of a new nightclub in a city that already has fourteen other identical nightclubs. I’m sure all the giddy partygoers have spent hours doing their makeup and hair and taking perfectly posed photos in their penthouse bathroom mirror.
Looking from the outside in, I never would expect any of the women here to be self-conscious for so much as a day in their lives, and here I am, awkwardly pulling at my sleeves to make them longer. I don’t even like my wrists. They’re boney.
