As if nothing happened

Izzy tried to focus on drinking her coffee. A comedown off a **** had to be pretty similar to a hangover, she figured. The stabbing pain behind her eyes and the sense of exhaustion was similar. A thousand times worse, but that was a difference of scale, not kind. Her eyes kept straying from the rim of her mug. Mina looked like she could run up the mountain in her bare feet without and never say a word of complaint. It didn't seem possible that having done the **** before, if she had (Of course she has! thought Izzy), should make so much difference. But maybe there really was something about the idle rich that made them superior specimens of the species.

Not likely, thought Izzy, ruminating on all the insufferable and idiotic people who passed through this resort.

"Would you be down to go out again tonight?" Mina asked, scrolling idly through her phone.

The pain in the center of Izzy's nervous system throbbed. There were ten thousand different ways the answer to that question should be 'no.' First, Ivan would wring her thought if he saw her out partying. Second, she could pass away at any moment. Third, she hadn't unpacked what the FUCK all of that was. Fourth, she had to work again tomorrow morning. Fifth, sixth, seventheighthninth... they all swam together. Izzy's mouth opened and her tongue made a whirring sound, sort of. Like a fan that somebody stuck their finger into. "I can't," she said. Producing sound made the hangover worse.

"Aw, boo," said Mina. And that was the regular old Mina again. She pushed, but when you said no, she backed off. Where had she been last night?

You never *said* no, noted a specter crawling out of the folds of Izzy's cerebellum. At the time you were very gung ho. Nervous, yes, but never unwilling. It was an idea she didn't like. And when that specter turned into visceral flashes of the night before, wailing on her sense of self possession and self understanding, she wanted to push her nails clean through the skin of her arm. Instead, she squirmed. Her thighs rubbed together in the seat. The sound of her pants' fabric only distracted her for a second, and then she made herself stop.

Mina was looking at her now. Her phone was hanging limp in her hand. And there were those pearly whites, half hidden by smiling lips. "What's up?" she said. Ugh. That was so 'her' too. Always, always one step ahead of everyone else, and so fucking smug about it. Izzy could feel her skin burning off as her friend watched. At least if Ivan saw her now, he would think she'd been telling the truth about the fever.