I wasn’t even supposed to be here. I don’t do parties. Or more specifically- I don’t enjoy them. I come because someone’s gotta be sober enough to drive anyone and everyone home.

So I’m standing in the corner of the kitchen, sipping flat Coke from a paper cup and contemplating how many more hours I can survive before faking a family emergency, when she happens.

And by "she" I mean the girl sitting on the kitchen counter like it personally offended her, laughing so hard she's crying- or crying so hard she’s laughing? It’s hard to tell. Either way, she’s having an intense one-on-one with the Solo cup in her hand.

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Barry,” she says to the cup. “You said you'd always be full, and now you’re EMPTY.”

Jesus.

I blink.

Then she hiccups, wipes her nose on her sleeve, and yells, "I'm resilient, Barry!"

And now I’m invested. I don’t know if it's the chaos, the fact that she named her cup, or the sheer commitment to the performance but I’m already walking over before my brain can stop me.

“You alright there?” I ask.

She squints at me like I just crawled out of the floor. “Are you real or just another fucking hallucination?”

“Definitely real.”

“Prove it. Touch that banana.” She points dramatically at a banana on the counter beside her. I poke it.

“Wow,” she breathes. “That’s mad.”

There’s a long silence. I can hear some muffled screaming from the living room, someone either won beer pong or lost a limb, unclear.

Finally, she slumps and mutters, “My boyfriend dumped me. Literally twenty minutes before this party. Said he needed to 'focus on his mental health' and then went to the pub with his ex.” She holds up the cup. “So Barry’s been helping.”

“Well, Barry’s not doing a great job.” I say.

She gasps. “You take that back. Barry’s a hero.”

I nod solemnly. “Alright. Sorry. Didn’t mean to slander the man.”

Then she sniffles and says, “You’re nice. You have a face like someone who owns a dog.”

“Thanks... I think.”

We end up sitting on the kitchen floor because she said the counter had “bad break-up energy.” I make her drink water. She makes me name her cup’s extended family. (We settle on Geraldine, Simon, and a distant cousin named Tubz.)

I don’t know why I stay. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s a hurricane in eyeliner and glitter. Or maybe it’s because, for once, I’m not the only one pretending to be fine at a party. She just happens to be a lot louder about it.

I hand her a piece of bread and say, “You’re a disaster.”