The music blared loud enough to make his eardrums bleed, even in here.

"Ugh...uhh...ulp."

He struggled to get up off his knees, but his head throbbed dully and his body threatened to shut down every time he stood. Instead he stayed on the dirty bathroom floor, leaning on his elbows over the toilet seat and feeling his stomach lurch with each pulsating bass beat rattling the floor of the house.

I don't even know whose house this is, he thought dryly as he fought down the urge to vomit. Or what I've been drinking.

He had already thrown up what felt like the entire contents of his stomach, but he was still dizzily sick. His whole body shook with it. He coughed painfully once or twice, eyes squeezed tightly shut.

I want to go home, he thought. Then, No, not home. Just somewhere else. Somewhere that's not here.

He raised his heavy eyelids to check the time on the watch around his wrist. It was late. Past three. Not late enough, though. Most likely he would be stuck there until dawn. And besides, where else could he go?

Someone was banging on the door, but he ignored the noise, focused instead on stopping the black spots from blinking in and out of his vision. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pushed his long bangs out of his eyes, staring down at the dingy floor. His head ached, and he wasn't even sober.

The person at the door finally gave up and he was alone again, moving shakily from his knees to his unsteady feet. He made it to the sink before collapsing forward on his elbows, and he reached out one hand to turn on the faucet.

"Some party," he muttered drearily to the mirror. The face staring back at him was tired and sweaty, accented dully by the smudged black makeup that stained his eyes and mouth. Straight black hair hung limply over his face, and a single hooped ring hung on his bottom lip. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, their color made even darker by the remnants of harsh eyeshadow.

"You look like a million bucks," he said to himself sarcastically. But his half-smile quickly faded as a bout of sickness made him shudder, and he dipped his hands under the cold running water to splash it against his face.

After a few minutes he felt well enough to stand up all the way, though his stomach had not stopped churning. He leaned against the door for a moment before going back outside.

A few fleeting thoughts flickered in the confusion of his mind. One of them said, You wouldn't be like this, if things had been different. You wouldn't be here. Another snapped back, But things can't be different. They're just how they are. You can't change them unless you go back and change the past.

And finally, perhaps the most inaudible of all his thoughts: What if you could?

He opened the door and was greeted with a long kiss and a seductive smile. The fingernails of her slender hand raked down his chest and gripped the fabric of his shirt.

"Ready?" Veronica whispered.

"Yeah," Ryan said.