Unexpected Love

Unexpected Love 9- The party

             The next morning I was feeling much, much better. The stress of moving and trying to fit into a new role and routine had obviously taken its toll on my already chronic case of insomnia. But there was no point in dwelling over it, so I texted Nick that I’d go to the party that Friday with him, which should make him happy. He usually needed to twist my arm about going, because I’d always try to meet with Paul and Julie first. But with the newfound charity that lies on the other side of sleep, I was there, dressed and waiting to be picked up on Friday night.

            The group drove to the house party in high spirits and we all quickly dispersed into the crowd, although Nick kept an eye on me most of the time. Two or three hours later, and I couldn’t find Nick. I had searched all over this bloody house and I still couldn’t find him. Sam and Sean were more drunk than I had ever seen anyone who was still conscious, and were starting to scare me, as well as everyone else at the party sober enough to be frightened. Will was passed out on a sofa somewhere and I couldn’t find Jack either. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t like this party. I wanted to leave, but more than anything I wanted to get Sam and Sean home before they could do anything too outrageously stupid. And I could not do that alone, I needed either Jack or Nick.

            Where were they! Gits. How did I manage to lose both my brother and my boyfriend in a house that definitely qualified as a limited space? I decided to look upstairs again. I had only looked upstairs three times, as supposed to the basement four times, and through the ground floor eight times. I opened the first door I came to, and… there was Nick with Kimmy. Doing something I had never done to him. My eyes widened.

            They had noticed me, Nick quickly pushed Kimmy off of him and opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out but “I– Gemma, I–”.

            Kimmy smiled evilly. I turned away in disbelief and ran downstairs to get out of that house as quickly as possible.

            I heard Nick scrambling to get his clothes on. I was already downstairs when Nick came bolting downstairs after me. I tried to get through the crowd as quickly as possible, but when I was close to the door Nick caught up to me.

            “Gemma!” he said, grabbing a hold of my shoulder. I swung around and slapped him with all my strength. By then we had drawn the attention of quite a few of the other people at the party.

            “Fuck!” he said, clutching his jaw.

            “Yes, aptly put, Nick. Fuck. Really, I couldn’t think of a better word to sum up this situation. It describes it on so many levels, I doubt a better word exists. Now I will spare us both my words of compassion and sorrow because I think the insincerity of my tone might suffocate us both.” I turned and kept on, on my way out the door.

            I had gotten down the terrace steps and halfway across the lawn, Nick calling my name the whole time, when he got close enough to reach out and grab my shoulder again to stop me. “Gemma, let me explain!”

            “Take your hands off of me!” I screamed, shrugging his hand off. I could feel my cheeks wet with tears.

            “Baby, it wasn’t what it–“

            “I dare you to look me in the eyes and finish that sentence with a straight face.”

            Nick looked me in the eyes, and stopped. He looked away again and said, “I’m sorry. It will never happen again.”

            “What! Don’t tell me you expect me to come crawling back to you now! It’s all a game to you, isn’t it? Girls drift in and out of your life and you don’t give a damn who you hurt because there are no consequences for you! Because there are dozens of girls who would gladly let you screw them just to be able to be seen with the Nick Williams, the insensitive berk that uses everyone! And if you so obviously didn’t care enough about me to refrain from sleeping with someone else, then you won’t care about the consequences either, so let me go and you can go back upstairs and take advantage of all those girls who are just dying to be taken advantage of by you! I’m not one of them, so I’m obviously a waste of your time! You’re just as much of a status symbol as I am, Nick, but you abuse that status while I despise it! We would have been the perfect couple if I could just be what this sick society demands me to be! But I refuse! And fuck you for ever demanding the same of me!”