Just Like You Imagined

Allie spun around on her bar stool and looked at Syd with one twitching eyebrow. "Ewww, that's so gross." She said. "Don't be a pig." She huffed. She then turned her head. Syd had a point but Allie wasn't going to let her justify things that way. "She could have died from what that other skank was doing. It's a fight, it's a beat down. It's in the heat of the moment. That's different." She said and looked at Syd sternly.

"It's. Different." She said again just to get it into Syd's head. "Well, it WAS fun though. I wouldn't mind doing more of that." Allie's heart raced a bit.

It was easy for the bartender to make Allie's drink after being privy to the best view in the house ever since the two walked in. Allie's eyes lit up when it was set next to her and she sipped the cool and icy mixture and licked her lips in a dainty and preening manner. "Thanks, Syd." She said and nudged the white haired girl.

"You might act tough and you ARE tough, but I don't buy it for a second that you don't care about ANYTHING." She said, grinning mischievously at Syd. Allie took another sip. Delicious.

"I think you're gonna like your first opponent. Just... don't get weirded out when you see her." Allie said, stifling a snicker.

"Whatever," Syd shrugged.

"There's a difference between caring and wanting something. I want lots of things. Caring about things is stupid. Caring is a vice," she recited, and sipped her tequila. "It leads to bad stuff. Maybe I care about some things, but I'm only twenty-two, so I can't be fully enlightened yet."

She threw back the rest of her shot. The warm, unsteady feeling in her belly was spreading into the rest of her body, and she could feel it just behind her brow. Her eyes weren't so severe when she glanced at Syd, as she turned around to lean her back against the bar and spread her arms out across it.

"Why would I get weirded out? I don't care who it is. Maybe if you're good, I'll let you pound on this one too."

Allie took a sip from her margarita and shivered as it slid down her body. She was starting to get cold. She then hopped off her stool and stood in front of Syd and grinned wryly at her. "Oh? Bad stuff, huh?" She said. "Like what? And when have YOU ever had a problem with vice? You're in a bar getting wasted and you'd probably doing worse if I LET you!"

Allie giggled. "Face it, Syd, you're just into being a contrarian or rebelling against society or whatever dumb things teenagers do when the cool kids don't invite them to parties. Only, you're twenty two and you're still doing it." Allie poked Syd in the rib, still grinning. Syd would probably beat her up or something but she had to do it. The way Syd had to drink and be a moody jerk.

"Anyway, your opponent kind of looks like you. So, maybe you will think you're beating yourself up. I don't know." Allie shrugged. "I have to pee though! I'll be riiight back! Don't wander off!"

Allie hopped away and stopped, looking at Syd with a wider grin. "I was a cool kid, by the way." She said and then tottered back to the bathroom, giggling.

"Of course I'm a contrarian. Society sucks," Syd stated, as if it was obvious. "Sometime I'll tell you what I did to cool kids."

She watched Allie disappear to the bathroom, and then dumped her shot of tequilla into the teenaged neophyte's margarita and stirred it in. She put her shot glass back on the bar and called for another. At this rate, she might just enjoy the night after all.

Her opponent looked like her, and might weird her out, huh? Syd wondered briefly what that could mean, and then dismissed it once, and then again when the thought crept right back into her head. She got up, and thanks to Allie's insistence to the contrary, she wandered off.

She didn't go far, only just past a wall that partially divided the back of the bar from the front where a pair of rectangular tables were arranged to accommodate a large group of people. Friends, maybe coworkers, about ten of them, with pints of beer and shots in front of the men and funny shaped glasses of brightly colored cocktails in front of the women. They talked and laughed and drank and laughed some more, and Syd leaned against the corner of the divider wall, crossed one leg over the other and folded her arms over her chest.

She found herself just standing there and watching them, and she was glad they didn't notice her. Her red eyes and white hair and... the way she was did not encourage eyes to just gloss over her. She always got attention, and always a specific kind. She pulled her long pony tail around over her shoulder, holding it in one hand against her stomach while idly petting it with her other hand.

Once Allie had finished powdering her nose, she pushed out into the open bar and looked around, not finding Syd. She sighed heavily and grumbled as she walked to the bar. She looked at her drink and eyed it. Syd was gone now so she didn't trust it. She certainly wasn't taking any chances. Heck, she wouldn't be surprised if SYD put a rufee into it just to make Allie's life miserable.

She pulled out her phone and hastily typed a text to Syd.

Very funny, Syd. Where r u at?

Allie didn't like the thought of having to walk back to the hotel by herself. She hugged her chest and stepped outside. Syd couldn't have gotten THAT far. She stuck out like a sore thumb anyway.

Syd's pocket vibrated. It was irritating.

She pulled out her antiquated flip phone and read Allie's text. She sure as hell wasn't going to spend an hour texting her back, though. Texting was for sheep.

She turned and looked over her shoulder, her eyes scanning the bar for her busty little cohort. She didn't see her. She figured that Allie wouldn't be texting her from the bathroom, so she made her way outside and immediately found Allie standing there like a dumb ass.

"Why'd you leave?" She said from behind her. "Whatever, let's go, this place sucks." She didn't wait for an answer, and started walking down the sidewalk in no particular direction.

"Eeyah!"

Allie was startled when Syd appeared behind her. "What the heck? You were IN there?" She said as she had to pace after Syd. The taller girl was just a pain in the ass!

"Have you settled down at least? Not all mad because you didn't get to commit a felony?" Allie pursed her lips and made fish faces at Syd to tease her before she eased into casual walk.

"Let's go to the boardwalk or the beach. We should see the ocean before we leave. You'll hate it though. I mean, you hate everything but there's lots of 'sheep' where we're going." She mused.

"Shut up," Syd said for what seemed like the millionth time. "You don't know anything about me. Just because we went to the same high school doesn't mean you know me. I know a lot more about you than you know about me, and I don't act like I've got you all figured out. So shut up."

She kept walking. The beach... She liked the beach. She had only been once, and it was a long, long time ago. Before everything was so complicated. Before she began to learn about the truth about things. In her mind, the beach was synonymous with ignorant bliss, a time when everything was simple. She would never tell Allie, but she really wanted to go.

"And I've got all the sheep I can stand right here. Why do you want to go there? It's late. What's the point of going to the beach at night. You don't think these things through."

"Hmph." Allie crossed her arms under her chest as they began to meander towards the beach. "I know plenty. I know you're a big stick in the mud and you think you're cool because you read some boring book by some stuffy dead guy. That's the opposite of cool, Syd." She said. "Besides, you don't know anything about me either!" Allie protested.

"What's the point of going to the beach?" Allie shook her head and smiled. "We used to sneak off to the beach all the time back home annd have older kids bring us beer and party and all kinds of fun stuff. You know, like being social." Allie's face brightened up at the thought of it.

"There are other things we could do at the beach if we had some guys around too." Allie giggled. "You really have no imagination Syd." Allie said. "Anyways, it will be nice just to take in the ocean breeze and look at the waves. You might even like it too. if you stare at the horizon, you just see a 'black void of nothingness." She said, doing her best Syd impersonation.

"You can look at it and think about how deep and introspective you are. I can look at it and think about all the good times I had and all the good times that will come and think about what I'm going to do moving forward. With Taylor, and with you." Allie smiled pleasantly.

"We can both enjoy it in our own way, it'll be good!"

Allie skipped ahead of Syd and spun on her heels, walking backwards to face the taller girl. "C'mon!" She called as she happily skipped towards the parking lot that led down to the sandy beaches.

"I don't think you have an imagination..." Syd muttered under her breath, turning her head away to watch the traffic.

She strode across the pavement toward the beach, with the distinctive floaty feeling that four tequilas brought. Or was it five? Aside from the slightly seasick sensation of her brain sloshing around in her head, she couldn't decide how she felt. She thought hard about it, and then finally looked up at the water, a vast expanse of almost nothing. It was nearly black, like the sky, with only the shine from the shoreline lights to help her tell the difference.

"I think about a lot of things," she said finally. "I'm not just that."

She pulled off her shoes and socks and carried them as she walked across the sand to a spot that she deemed as good enough, and then she sat, resting her arms on her knees in front of her while she stared off at the horizon, just like Allie had said. Only, she wasn't thinking about how deep and introspective she was.