Another wave of nausea swept over me. I gripped my hands around the bathroom sink even tighter, trying to stay upright. There is no way I can face her.

I heard the door behind me swing open, and I looked up into the mirror. There stood Kara, cold, still, paralyzed – a statue. The reflection of her eyes bored into mine. My hands shook as I burned under her gaze for seconds that felt like centuries. I have to face her.

Her voice was a deafening whisper. "What. Did. You. Do."

I forced myself to look at her, made myself face the suffering etched into her eyes. Her image in the mirror represented everything I had come to hate about myself over the past forty-eight hours. She was my own reflection, and we were both rendered motionless and mute by the aftermath of the storm we had been caught in, the tempest that I had wrought.

I released my eyes, letting them cast themselves downwards. I was saved by the image of the blank white sink rather than that of her anguished face.

"How could you, Nicole," she said, her voice thick and raw. "First period Monday morning, and the first thing I hear about is how my best friend f*ed the love of my life."

The drain of the sink spiraled in my vision, and the checkered floor tiles swam in a wave-like motion. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the scenes in my mind that flashed like strobe lights. The stream of plastic red cups that were pushed into my hands. The blurred faces, indiscernibly both familiar and unrecognizable, that swarmed in my hazy vision. The warmth of Mark’s muscular body pressed against mine as we swayed to the thud of music. Then, the scratchiness of the frieze couch under us. The static-electricity of his lips to my neck. The hot pulse in my fingers as my hands, seemingly by their own will, groped the cut of his chest. And the unintelligible mixture of passion and senses that followed.

I had been utterly deceived by the drink. The alcohol had seized control of my emotions, thoughts and perception of the world around me, and twisted it into recklessness, carelessness and lust. But it was no excuse, and it hadn’t been worth it. I didn’t love Mark. I wasn’t sure I even really liked him.

But it was true that in those fateful moments that our lips first touched, that our clothes began to flit off of our bodies with all of our cares, some part of me had wanted him. This part craved the contours of his body and the melted chocolate of his eyes like lungs crave air. This damned part didn’t regret what had happened last night. I wished it didn’t exist. I clenched my fists, only hating myself more.

I opened my eyes, wishing that the light that flooded into my vision could have forced out the memories. I looked down again, my head throbbing. Just focus on the sink. "Kara, I’m sorry," I barely managed. "It was a mista-"

"‘Sorry’ doesn’t fix what you did," she said in a strangled voice. She stared ahead mechanically, still immobile. I felt something block up my own chest and cut off my air flow with the crippling words that came next.

"I couldn’t ask for a shittier friend."

I knew it all too well, but that didn’t dull the fresh daggers of hurt that stabbed my chest or suppress the relentless echo of her words in my ears.

"I am nothing without him," she choked out. "I-"

She stopped. I felt the rope that asphyxiated her pain-ridden words continue to tighten itself around my throat. I would’ve taken shouts, screams and insults a thousand times over rather than this blatant hurt that she didn’t even try to conceal. I watched her struggle in vain to fight back tears, but they squeezed themselves out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, trying to show me just how tortured she was.

She must’ve hated that. Kara had always been the shoulder to cry on, the calm in the middle of the storm. She had always been strong and resolute. This was the first time that I’d ever seen Kara cry, and I shouldn’t have been the reason for it. I had never seen her forced to show her affliction, and I could barely stand it. I railed at myself for my own selfish weakness – you stupid c**t, you’ve flipped her entire world upside down, but you can barely even handle a few tears.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to make her understand – how could I even begin to explain all that I was feeling when I could barely understand it all myself? – but I tried anyway. I shook my head. "I don’t love him, Kara," I said, aware of the pitiful desperation in my voice.

Kara managed a shaky deep breath, her fists bunched up by her sides, and her shoulders hunched. "It doesn’t matter. Look at what you f*ing did to me, Nicole," she said through clenched teeth. "Everyone’s talking about it, Nicole... I’ve been nothing but there for you since we were in preschool. And this is what you do to fifteen damn years of friendship."

I winced. Fifteen damn years of friendship. I thought back to our early childhood years, to how we stayed up and whispered during nap time, to how we would tell our teachers that our parents (unbeknownst to them) had said we could have a play-date after school. I thought back to middle school, to how we baked a cake at midnight during our very first sleepover, to how we were once sent to the principal’s office for making animal noises in class. I remembered the matching friendship bracelets that we made out of each other’s favorite colors. I thought back to our first day of ninth grade, to how we entered the big red doors of the high school having promised each other that we would remain “Best Friends Forever”, no matter what we encountered in the rocky terrain of the next four years.

Kara saw all of this as negated by what I had done, and I couldn’t blame her. She and Mark had spoken of family, of marriage, of a life together. I wanted to take the torment that I had caused her and drape it around my chest, inhale it like a first fresh gulp of air, smother myself in it, hold it up on my shoulders like doomed Atlas for the entire world to see. I wanted nothing more than to throw myself down at her feet, clasp her hands in mine and beg her for forgiveness, but all I could do was stand there, pathetic and weak. Why can’t I move why can’t I move why can’t I move.

"Kara, I-"

"Don’t." She staggered over to the wall and slumped down, her knees bunched up to her chest and her face in her arms. Defeated.

My feet wouldn’t step towards her; my hands wouldn’t reach out to her. My limbs were chained by the flood of mixed emotions and my inability to face her anguish. I was rendered physically and emotionally inert while she wrestled with demons of betrayal and heartbreak.

And still there stood the mirror, unfailingly and relentlessly shoving into my eyes face the reflection of my miserable, incapable self, and the haunting image of Kara, overcome by so much more than her tears could show. Except for the fact that one of us had done absolutely nothing and one of had most definitely f*ing done something, we were one and the same, alone and together in this moment. Why can’t I move.