Cassidy awakened in the cramped coat closet at the end of the hall. The loud noises had finally diminished, but bold hickeys could still be seen on her chest and neck. The party had been a complete catastrophe, almost traumatizing to her, and as  the memories flooded back from that same night she began to cry into her knees. Outside the hall in the bedroom two doors down, a friend of hers heard the sobs and groaned, shaking himself awake.

He sat up too quickly causing him to fall off the bed, still buzzed enough to not be able to stand on his own two feet. He groaned in pain, eyes half open. He found himself lying on the pial of the clothes that had been left behind hours ago, and he began to slowly sift through them to find his black boxers and denim jeans. As he tried to buckle his belt without dropping his pants completely, he heard something that rustled under the silk bed sheets. He looked back and became relieved to still find her asleep. It wasn’t the prettiest sight, even in the dimmest lighting. To find her oddly colored bright pink lipstick covering more of the left side of her cheek than her drooled-on lips. Her hair was dyed so much you couldn’t even tell which color was real.  He shook his head and stumbled towards the door, and blinded by the bright hallway lights as he opened it.

“S***…” he mumbled and put his palms to his eyes, trying to block out the white painful light.

He stood there quietly, and listened for the small cries. It was quiet for a few moments, before they started up again. He slowly trudged towards the vague sounds until he stubbed his foot and the sobs abruptly stopped. He groaned taking his hands away from his face to hole his bare foot. Taking a deep breath and calmly exhaling, he let go of his foot and opened his eyes. Even though he was half sober, his beer goggles were in full fuction, so he could barely make out the small wooden door he was led to. He takes another breath and knocks on the door. There were a few jolted hiccups on the other side.

“Cassy…are you in there?” He quietly asked. There was no answer.

Slowly turning the knob, he opens the door to find the petite girl with auburn hair and mascara running down her delicate cheeks. She puts a hand up to try and block out the light. Cassidy looks at him and pushes back crouching further into the corner of the closet sniffling and hiccuping harder.

“Hey hey….it’s only me. It’s only Will.”, he reassured her, “Why don’t you come out of that closet yeah? Come on I’ll take you home” He reaches out a hand.

“No. No no no no…” She rejected quickly and quietly shaking her head. “You can’t take me home. Not like this.” She coward in a whisper.

He sighs, “How about I… I take you back to my place? Do-do you wanna sleep at my place for the night?” He slowly slurs.
She sniffles again and hesitant to take his hand, but eventually does. Even figuring he was drunk, she knew it was a sincere offer and accepted it. She couldn’t stand to sit another minute in this travesty.

He pulls her onto her feet and exhales sharply, “There ya go.” Almost falling himself. She pulls on him to keep him as straight as possible and swings his arm over her shoulder as if she was his crutch. Not taking even three steps does he stumble causing her to tip over and roll her ankle in her black strappy heels. Will, still standing, kneeled down to her level as she howls in agony.

Cassidy grabs her ankle while she rocked back and forth, “Ow ow ow!”

“Oh God Cass are you okay?” Will asked as he examined her ankle.

She hissed in pain as she pulls off the heels, tears burned in her eyes, “I swear on the Lord’s good name I’m never letting April dress me up like this again.”

“Can you walk?” Will questioned. She nodded with another hiccup as he pulled her up again. Cassidy puts an arm around Will and he does the same. Together they helped each other walked through the brightly lit hallway and through the living room.

It didn’t seem as lively as it did hours ago. Everyone was gone except for a half dressed girl passed out under a table, and another shirtless drunk sprawled out on the couch with an empty vodka bottle. Cassidy cringed at the sight of a broken vase on the wooden coffee table and about three dozen various bottles or red solo cups of beer, whiskey, vodka, and any other alcoholic drinks on the carpet trailing from the kitchen. She couldn’t even imagine what happened on the second floor. All she could remember was watching the junior boys all with half a brain jump out a second story window into the backyard pool. Toilet paper rolled out all over the stairs carpeted with stains of drinks and possible vomit. The room was still visible with smoke and smelled of weed. Even though Cassidy never tried drugs, she could identify it easily thanks to Will and his friends when they crash at his apartment before she comes to visit. The house was completely trashed. She mentally felt sorry for the host’s dismembered and stained frat house for having to clean it all up before his classes tomorrow, if he even takes any. As they made it outside, they found three more college seniors passed out on the front lawn. Cassidy was disgusted even more to see what some things were drawn on one of the boy’s face with permanent marker. She looked up into the the oak trees to find them covered in more toilet paper and a pink lawn flamingo wedged in its branches.

The two made it across the street to Will’s old beat up blue Honda. Cassidy let go of Will and he leaned on the passenger side of the car.
“Alright Will, give me the keys.” She asked holding out her hand.

“Huh...Wha…” His eyes were glossed over and half opened, minutes away from falling asleep again. She leaned over to him and shook his shoulders.

His head jolted up, “I’m awake what what!”

“I asked for your keys Will. You’re drunk.”

“What are you talking about. I’m…I’m fiiineeee.” His scoff was slurred.

“William Anderson. I am not dealing with you right now. My ankle is swollen like a balloon, my makeup probably looks wretched, I am completely traumatized, and this dress, or what should be sold as a shirt, ugh, makes me look like I should be working an effing street corner!” Will looks down at the black c***tail dress with a rip at the hem and chest, and a stain on her side. Probably spilled on her from a drunky. He was silent, and slowly fished for his keys. When he found them he dropped them into her hand.

Walking into the apartment building, Cassidy thanked God that Will lived on the first floor instead of the fourth or the fifth because the manager refused to have an elevator for some odd reason. Still holding onto each other, they made it all the way to the end of the long hall to apartment A37.  Will took the keys from her hand to unlock his door, even though it took him a few tries to even find the keyhole. The familiar god-awful creak from the door rang through the hall, but they were so used to it they didn’t care. Cassidy thought of this place as her second home. Two steps in, Will lets go of her shoulder and immediately stumbles towards the pitch black apartment. It seemed he was lost in the darkness until there was thud sound. Cassidy felt around the wall for the light switch, and when turned on to find Will slumped over the black leather couch. She smirked in amusement before limping over to him, her ankle now a purplish-red and painful looking.

“Move over drunky, you’re drooling on my bed for tonight.” She sighed, referring to his bedroom, which she practically claimed as her own too whenever she stayed.

“No, I’m taking the couch. You’re sleeping in my bed.” He stated, face buried into the couch.

“I’m not going to impose like that Will, now get up and go to bed.”  She retorted.

“How many times have you slept over ever since I got this apartment last month Cassy?”

“Eight.”

“Yeah uh huh, and how many times in those eight sleepovers have you taken the bed even though you “refused”?”

“......Eight.”

“Case closed.” He chuckled as he flopped over and onto the couch. He seemed much sober now.

“Fine.” She exasperated and trudged over into the bathroom.

Flipping the light switch she gasped at her appearance in the mirror. The extravagant yet elegant bun in her hair was torn apart into matted knots and large pieces of hair dangled from her face. Her once beautiful eye makeup was smudged all across her face from black tear streaks of mascara to patches left of her eye shadow and the rest rubbed off onto her hands. She was glad she refused to wear any other makeup, she didn’t want to look like a cake face. Heck, she thought, this was the first time she ever wore makeup, her mother never let her touch such a thing. She looked away from her neck and chest, not wanting to relive the red and purple bruises. She pursed her lips at the indecorous mess of a dress. Ripped in different places, a mix of different drinks spilled on her side, and what looked like a spot of throw up on the backside. She didn’t know if it was her own or someone else's, she herself wanted to vomit right then. Cassidy couldn’t help but notice the fabric was stretched quite a lot on her back. A flash of a drunken and stoned Jace aggressively trying to pull her down the hallway by her small dress. She shuddered in disgust and fear. She reaches into the mirror cabinet over the small marble sink and grabs her facial wipes. It has come to the point where Cassidy would leave things behind at the apartment if she did spend the night. She started to wipe away the stains of the night away. Soon enough, after a minute of hard scrubbing, she was free from her smoky eye mask. Putting the package of wipes back and tossing the other, she takes the full bottle of Advil, popping two in her mouth and drowning them down with a paper cup of water. She felt as if she was coming down with something. Pain and fear with a side of nausea. She struggled as she tried to pull the ties and bobby pins out if her head to the point she never wanted to dress up again. Ever. When she pulled out the last pin and ruffled her sore head of hair, she walk over into the tiny kitchen with the bottle of Advil in her hand. She opened the fridge to see if there were any sodas left, and found herself lucky to find one sprite left.  She opened the can and poured it into glass for Will and walked over to find him half asleep on the couch, mumbling inaudible slurs.

“Hey,” She said nudging him,”drink this before you pass out again okay? It’ll help make your hangover easier on you in the morning.” She set the drink down with three Advils on the side.

“Mhmmmmm…t’ever you say Sober Sally.” Will refered to her when she refused to drink, for she never even touched one before. So much for a stereotypical college girl.

“I told you frat parties aren’t my scene. And I’m not letting you off the hook yet for dragging me there either.” She scoffed at him, even though she was practically was talking to a ragdoll. When he didn’t try to answer, she began to walk back to the bedroom.

“Cass?” Will asked.

She stopped, “Yeah?”

“I won’t ask tonight, but I wanna know what happened to you in the closet and…your neck, tomorrow morning.”

She stiffened at the thought, “Oh…okay.”

“It’s only because I care about you too much to let anything happen to you. And it be on my hands if I wasn’t there-”

“You said we’d talk about it in the morning.” She clipped.

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He apologized quietly.

She sighed, “See you in the morning William.” She padded back into the bedroom.

Even though Cassidy left her more essential things at the apartment, she never brought her own pajamas. Will always made fun of then because the looked like a silk suit on her, and asked where her top hat was. So she opened his dresser drawer and rummaged around it to find the biggest shirt she could find. When she found a NASCAR race shirt big enough to touch her knees, she tossed it onto the queen sized bed. She grabbed another old Led Zeppelin t-shirt and stalked out towards the couch, and chucked it at Will’s face.

“Put on a shirt too. You’re no Ambercrombie and Fitch model.”
Slowly he pulled the shirt from his face to look down and remembered he never grabbed his shirt from the room back at the frat. He giggled to himself,
“Goodnight Cass.”

“Goodnight Will.”

She kicked off the 5 inch heels across the room, treating them like the sin they were to women’s feet and slipped out of the disgusting dress and into the comfortable oversized shirt, quickly slipping into the bed. The bed was so soft to the touch, and the pillows felt like clouds. It was easy for her to fall asleep in minutes.

It wasn’t soon until she was awoken by the sound of footsteps in the room. She refused to open her eyes and laid perfectly still. As the sounds reached the side of the bed in front of her she squeezed her eyes shut tighter.

Will looked down at her sleeping, he was half awake himself. He sighed when he caught sight of the ugly hickeys on her neck almost trailing up her face. He knew her better than anyone to know she wouldn’t have let this happen by herself. He reached out to graze his fingers over her delicate neck, but when he did she flinched in her sleep. He pulled away and frowned. It was his fault, he thought. He wasn’t there for her. He went off and took four shot of tequilla with the brode he had slept with later that night. He did everything wrong. He needed to protect her. He leant down and kissed her temple.

“It will all change tomorrow,” he whispered, “I promise.”