If you time it correctly, you can hit up about three and a half happy hours before the bars and restaurants return to the regularly priced menu items. It's really an exercise in time management, which is no easy feat, mind you. Sure, it starts out easy enough. Soberly, you plan out all of your happy hour destinations. This s really easy to do on paper.

Step one: Pick a specific part of town. Be sure that the part of town you so desire has multiple bars within walking distance of each other. Otherwise, you're losing valuable half-priced drinking time. 

Step two: research hours of said part of town. Earliest hours first, latest hours last.

Step three: Arrive at earliest happy hour first. 

Now, step four is where things begin to get tricky, because step four involves drinking. Also, even if you happened to be overly ambitious and didn't stop planning at step three, say you planned all the way to step 17, well, it doesn't fucking matter. Step three is where you start drinking, therefore your plan is always going to be suspended there. It's always nice to think that you'll spend only thirty minutes at bar one before moving on to the next one, but this rarely happens. As long as you planned step two accurately and efficiently, the rest can all just be filler. 

Anyway, by nine pm happy hours are mostly extinct anyway, so it's time to hit different bars. Of course, by this time you'll be far too intoxicated to drive. My advice is to just keep walking. However, stay away from any previously visited bars. They'll most likely remember you and have some sort of mental tab on how much you drank. It's possible they'll feel the need to cut you off. Don't even risk it. It's best to keep a low profile while shit-faced.

Another thing to keep in mind is that nine is far too early for bars to be even remotely occupied, so you will probably be drinking by yourself for a while. If you are not the sort of person who can happily, or at  least steadily, drink by yourself then it's possible this plan is not for you.

This is, however, the plan for me. I am great at drinking by myself. I have been doing it for hours now. It feels as if I invented this. Go me. 

I am currently having a drinking contest with myself. I lost track of what the rules were hours ago, but I suspect I am winning.

I am winning.

I am infinite, I think.

And for however long this lasts, I am indestructible. 

I am. . . .

. . . . crying?

Yes, I am crying. Perhaps this isn't the plan for me. Or at least not the perfect plan. I apparently have a few kinks to work out, but I can't get to them right now for I am busy crying.

Why am I crying, you ask? Well, I shall tell you. I am crying because I am drunk. I am also crying because the boy I slept with around twelve hours ago is on a very obvious date at the other end of this very bar. I am also crying because I am drunk. 

I will have you know that while I am by no means an ugly crier, it is still pretty damn embarrassing to cry at a bar. However, I don't seem to care very much right now. I blame all of the happy hours. I planned this out far too well. I am cursed by my talents. 

My bar tender looks only slightly uncomfortable as he pours me another whiskey sour. I'm sure he sees this sort of thing a lot. I almost begin to hate myself for being such a cliche, which only serves to make me cry more, so I stop. Instead, I decide to hate Justin fucking Timberlake. And his brunette date.

"He's not worth it, hunny." The sympathetic bartender imparts some of his worldly wisdom on me as if he can read my thoughts. "No one is."

This makes me stop crying as I realize he's right. I noisily choke back the last of my tears and wipe my nose on my sleeves. I may be a mess, but I'm going to be a prideful one. I'm going to tell Justin Timberlake exactly the sort of asshole I think he is.

I am rejuvenated.

I have been resurrected. 

I wipe my face with my fingertips, smearing what's left of my make up into places it previously wasn't, but I don't care. 

I am an animal.

I am a force to be reckoned with.

I am. . . .

. . .walking towards Justin Timberlake. 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The light hurts my eyes. I would like to voice this out loud, but my mouth seems to be too dry to come up with the words. I keep my eyelids closed and squeeze them as tightly shut as I can. I pretend there is no light. Just darkness. An infinite amount of darkness.

"Get the fuck up, bitch." 

I cannot, however, pretend there is no Taylor.

I don't move. I don't know why I don't move, but there seems to be a disconnect between my brain and my motor functions.

"I swear to fuck, Lucy May. If you think that I won't throw you off of this bed just because of the night you had last night then just keep on laying there. Try me."

He tone is threatening, and even though I would really like to what the hell she is referring to, I don't move. I'm being honest when I say that moving or not isn't my choice. I am wondering if I'm even awake. It's possible that I'm not even really alive. I don't feel very alive.

My entire world begins to shake violently and turns completely upside down. My eyes open out of shock and light comes pouring in. My pupils painfully dilate to accommodate. I am certain I'm awake now. I am certain I wish I weren't. Words still aren't working, so I groan instead. 

"You have make up all over your face." She is standing above me peering down. I wonder how much effort it would take to kick her, but I have that disconnection thing going one. Instead, I try to will the ceiling fan to collapse on her. If that kid from Seventh Heaven can bend spoons with his mind in that John Travolta movie, then maybe I can make ceiling fans attack people. 

"You were supposed to be at work hours ago. They've been blowing up your phone." She is speaking again. I am still working on the fan thing. "Justin Timberlake has also been blowing up your phone."

Suddenly, my brain is in over-drive. No, it's in hyper-drive. No, it's in plaid. Last night. The bar, the crying, the date, the confrontation, the shamelessness, the mortification. It's coming to be in bits and pieces rather than a flowing stream, but it's enough to know that I made a horrible mistake last night. I feel the bile rising up from the pit of my stomach, making it's way up to my throat, crawling out of my esophagus. My brain seems to have found the connection and I lean over and throw up what I managed to hold on to last night. 

I remember tapping him on the shoulder and him straightening up a bit as he realizes it's me. I remember introducing myself to his date and referring to her as slut for the rest of the night. I remember a lot of interactions last night between the three of us, but I know I'm not remembering everything. I'm positive I don't want to remember everything. 

Taylor walks out of her own bedroom without saying goodbye. She seems to be fairly upset with me, but it can't be anywhere near how upset I am with myself.