The wedding rehearsal amounted to a relaxing break. I just had to sit there and be quiet, walk up to the stage when told, and then stand there and be quiet except for some clapping and congratulations. Tolerate walking back to the table next to some talkative groomsman whose name I'm not bothering to remember. It's like the paint-and-sip was, just with a much higher sense of dread in the background.
I barely paid attention to the rehearsal dinner; it was basically the same situation as the bridal shower regardless. The real gauntlet awaited me at the end of the night: the bachelorette party. Below I am going to provide a helpful bulleted list of everything I disliked of what I knew I was likely to encounter:
- Nightclubs
- Dancing
- Loud music
- DJs
- Packed, crowded indoor spaces
- Dancing where others can see me
- Strippers...? (Nobody said anything about it, but I wasn't about to discount the possibility that the maid of honor had a couple surprises up her sleeve.)
- High heels
- Being expected to seem like I'm genuinely having fun with all of the above
- Dancing where others can see me in a packed, crowded indoor space with loud music, in high heels
Pacing back and forth across my room at the hotel attached to the venue, in said heels, just highlighted how unprepared I was for this-- how unwilling I was to prepare for this. I can match faces to names, memorize wedding schedules, plan outfits, even practicing makeup feels kind of rewarding, but I couldn't bring myself to make more than a couple of token attempts at walking in these things.
I stared into the mirror at the still completely unreal sight of this self in a little back dress. She only looked ready for the club from the neck down; actual night-out makeup is another thing I hadn't bothered touching. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it'd be more embarrassing to slip and fall in front of everyone all drunk than to show up to the club in sneakers. Hell, that wouldn't even be remotely weird if not for the whole bachelorette party dress code. And I knew, I knew I'd get drunk. That'd be the only way I could possibly take all this.
Being second-to-last of the group to arrive at the hotel meant I didn't leave much time for anyone to ask why I looked so out of it. I held my tongue from criticizing how Cayley and/or her parents paid for a limo, but I'll admit the inside was kind of cool. I caught myself thinking the girls looked prettier than me and wondered why I'd let Ainsley's appearance matter to me for anything other than reputation-preserving reasons. I tried not to spend too much time looking out the tinted window.
Too quickly we arrived at some sort of small nightlife-heavy strip that looked like it's pretending to be a downtown. We went to a couple of bars, first a dive-ish sports bar that was fairly uncrowded for a Friday night, then a busier, classier wine bar. Each time, I positioned myself so I'd be one of the last of the group whose orders would get taken and copy what one of the girls in front of me got. (This was my first time taking advantage outside a grocery store of being drinking age months ahead of schedule.) I made the best small talk I could, attempted to balance getting drunk enough to survive this with how little I knew about Ainsley's tolerance, and fiddled with my BRIDE SQUAD sash.
I'd never spent longer than twenty seconds in a nightclub before but nothing surprised me about the place. Maybe a little less crowded than in my nightmares, the music a little louder than I remembered. Grit the teeth. I was hoping to spend as much time clinging to the wall as I could get away with, but a couple minutes after we walked in the DJ gave Cayley a shoutout and put on a song the maid of honor submitted days ago, and we were all rushed out into the center of the club.
This is what I was most afraid of. Everything else can be tolerated, but I can't dance. Not even in the sense of not knowing how to dance though that's also the case. I genuinely can't dance. I'm not able to let myself go in the way dancing takes. I can do very structured dances with instructions (there they are again), or things like slow dancing with a partner where there's a very limited number of movement options and I don't have to think about what to do with my arms, not that I've done even that much since high school. But free-form, nightclub dancing? Jumping around and cheering? Shaking your ass? All impossible for me without looking stiff and robotic. Like a parody of the concept. I don't know why I'm like this, someone who can't cheer, who can't scream, even if I were in a situation where I really felt like doing either, let alone in that nightclub. But I've always been this way, and Ainsley Thomas hasn't.
I tried anyway, for Ainsley's sake. Maybe I was wrong, and some combination of alcohol, peer pressure, and the possibility of an Inn-related brain structure change helping me out would let me fit in with these girls. No juice. I couldn't bring myself to move without half-assing it. Seriously, what am I even afraid of? Does it go deeper than fear? The girls mostly paid attention to Cayley or the DJ but whenever any remembered to take a glance at me I got a few raised eyebrows. Nobody said anything but I think they just didn't want to ruin the vibe. The longer it lasted the more worried I got that this humiliation ritual was bad enough that some stranger in here might be recording me for cringe compilation material. It was probably under ten minutes in when I finally announced, to no one in particular, "I'm going to go get another drink." I didn't know if anyone heard me over the thrum.
At the bar, which took some time finding a relatively uncrowded path to, I ordered a gin and tonic. There's not really a demographic that looks weird for ordering a gin and tonic, far as I can tell. I sat there with my drink and scrolled through Ainsley's Instagram looking at old pics in which it seems like she's genuinely having fun. Comparing oneself to the highlights-only side of other people's lives they post to social media never makes anyone feel better but it's much worse when you're wearing the very body you're looking at and knowing, maybe, you'd be theoretically capable of doing those exact things, if you were different. A tall guy slid in next to me and asked if something happened between me and my friends or if I just wanted to get away for a bit. Said a girl as pretty as me shouldn't have to feel this way. Offered to buy me another drink. I looked at him for a moment, silenced the lingering trace of Ainsley trying to give me a reason to at least hear him out, and very theatrically downed the rest of my drink. "Excuse me, uh. I have to go to the bathroom," I declared like I'm having a conversation with my manager about why I come across as less passionate about my work than usual. And I went in there and found an empty stall and cried.
Crying, that's something I'm not blocked off from doing for unknown reasons. I didn't do it much as Isaac, but I could, and as Ainsley it's way more intense and honestly kind of cathartic. Still silent, though. I don't like to make noise. I sat there on the toilet for who knows how long, catching up on some plant blogs I've neglected following for a while and overhearing women talking about things refreshingly unrelated to my problems even if often they also weren't having a good time. Until I heard the door open and someone shout, "Ainsley? You in there?"
It's Melissa. Back to reality. "Fuck I hope she didn't leave the building." She moved slowly across the bathroom until she arrived at my stall. "I know those sneakers, Ainsley, open up." Damn these flimsy stalls. I thought about ignoring her but that'd just give me more consequences to deal with whenever I saw her again later in the night, or at the hotel or the wedding the next day. Plus, ignoring her would only confirm that I'm actually Ainsley; if I could change my voice on command convincingly it might get her to back off. I opened the stall.
"Hi," I told her. Melissa blocked my view of the mirror, but I didn't need it to know my makeup would betray that I'd been crying.
"Yeah, hi," she added, clearly hoping I'd have a little more to say. "Are you okay? There's a right answer, by the way, so don't BS me."
"No." She got me there, how else could I even respond?
"Good choice." She allowed herself the tiniest moment of satisfaction before the facade broke. "Okay seriously Ains, you have got to fucking tell me what is going on with you. For the last few months it's like, like the life's been sucked out of you."
Oh, god. It's this conversation. The blog archives warned me this could happen but there's nothing that really prepares you for it being sprung on you, especially if you've had a few drinks.
"You stopped going out with the rest of us, you stopped asking how we were doing... You hardly even talk to me anymore and I'm really worried about you! I know Jaysen was, you know, a lot for you. And I get it. I've been there. You helped me through there! But right when it happened, you were feeling awful but you still kept us in the loop. You told me everything, Ains. So when you don't, I..."
Now she's crying, too. "I owe you so much, you saw how much of a fucking mess I was when we first met. All those hangovers you got me through back at the house, the, the whole thing with my dad... You've been there for me no matter what, and I, whatever it is, I can't let you go through it alone! You're Ainsley Thomas and you deserve better than that!"
"Melissa, I--"
"And I don't wanna make this about me but, it hurts, seeing you like this. Not being able to talk to you, that you've gotten so distant. So please, please just. I need you to know I'm still here. I care about you. I love you. You've always told me everything, before. So, if you can at all, please..."
I took a breath, knowing this was unlikely to be a satisfying answer. Also I had to stop myself from outright sobbing. "Mel, I, I... love, you? Too. And I'm not. Having a good time lately. You're right. But I can't tell you, I know, I feel like shit, but I can't. And it's not Jaysen, it's, I really can't, okay?"
I grabbed onto her arm, not really knowing where that came from. "Mel, if you want to help me, I need you to trust me. Please."
Melissa looked to be in disbelief. Her face tensed as she clearly readied a plead over why Ainsley's being so difficult, why her best friend won't tell her what's putting her through so much pain.
But she caught herself. Anger replaced with simmering resignation. "Okay," Melissa said. "I'll see you later, then. When you're ready." And she walked out of the stall, leaving me to confront it all myself.
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