The Seduction Vow by Bonnie Dee

lurched toward the ladies’ room.
    A sea of people surrounded
her. With her head spinning, the music deafening her, and the
contents of her stomach roiling, it was like she was literally
tossing on an ocean. Two thoughts chased round and round her
brain —s he couldn’t hold her liquor
anymore, and who was that bitch with her skanky arms around
Neal?
    She barreled into the ladies’ room and into
one of the stalls, where she crouched down, breathing hard. Nothing
happened. The churning in her stomach subsided as she stared at the
toilet and knelt on the disgusting floor of a public restroom.
    Her guts continued to
gurgle, but the impending threat had passed. Graci went to the
sink, cupped her hands under the faucet and drank before splashing
her face. A sloppy drunk with smudged eyeliner and hair clinging to
her damp face stared at her from the mirror. She could
illustrate pathetic in the dictionary.
    Someone entered the restroom. One glance at
the skintight, too-short skirt and the supersized hairdo chilled
her blood. This was the very skank who’d been swarming all over
Neal. Fate again. What else could have brought her straight to
Graci?
    “ Hey!” Graci shouted,
startling herself.
    The woman stared at her with wide eyes. “I’m
sorry. Do I know you?”
    “ Not yet, but you will.”
Logic fled the room, and an angry ghetto bitch took possession of
Graci. “You’re here with Neal Murray?”
    “ Yes. He’s a friend of
mine. Why?”
    Rage thundered in Graci’s head, pounding with
every beat of her heart. She moved a step closer, stabbing her
finger at the chest of the skank’s butt-ugly sparkly halter top. “I
suggest you keep away from him, Hairdo. End the night, and don’t go
out with him again.”
    “ Ex cuse me?”
    “ You heard me, you ’80s
throwback ho-bag.” Normal Graci hovered at a distance and watched
Crazy Graci go nuts, her voice growing shriller and louder with
every vile thing she said.
    “ You’re insane.” The woman
backed up and reached for the door handle, just as someone came
through, slamming the door right into her.
    “ Oh my God, I’m sorry!” It
was Tara, with Corinne right behind her.
    “ Jesus!” Neal’s date rubbed
the side of her head where the door had hit her. “What the
hell?”
    While Tara tended to her, Corinne moved
toward Graci. “Graci, Are you all right? I saw you run to the
restroom. Did you get sick?”
    “ Your friend is drunk off
her ass.” Neal’s date snapped. “You should take her home before she
pisses off somebody who’s not as nice as I am.”
    “ And who are you ?” Tara folded her
arms and jutted a hip, ready to defend Graci.
    “ Neal’s girlfriend,” Graci
whimpered as she slumped against Corinne who had put an arm around
her.
    The woman shook her big-haired head. “Girl,
you’d better check yourself. You are one crazy bitch.” She walked
out of the restroom.
    Graci called after her, “I’m sorry.”
    Tara offered her a tissue to wipe her leaking
eyes and sniffling nose. “What did you say to her?”
    “ Terrible things. I saw her
with Neal, and when she came in here, I just lost it. I went nuts
and called her names and threatened her. I wanted to hit her!” Graci spoke in
gasping bursts between sobs. “I am so messed up.”
    “ Yeah. I think we should’ve
thought twice before those tequila shots,” Corinne said.
    “ I don’t mean drinking
tonight. I mean everything. Ever since Joey left. I don’t know who
I am any more. Old Graci? New Graci?” She hiccupped and sobbed into
the disintegrating tissue some more.
    “ Aw, honey.” Tara pulled
her into a big hug. “You kept saying you were okay, but I knew you
weren’t. Tell us everything. No secrets.”
    Graci drew back, blew her nose on a fresh
tissue, and began. She told them about her vow to lose her
virginity and her half-assed attempts to make it happen. She
explained how she’d really met Neal and how she’d fought against
liking him too much.
    “ And then