The Whisper (Wattys2014)

Chapter 13: After a Party

"Best. Party. Ever."
That was the caption under Adrianne's picture. It was a selfie of her and her best friend, Kayla in Alice's party.

I scrolled down my news feed on Facebook. Every picture I see is from Alice's party with captions like: "So fun!" Or "hangoverrrrr..."

Each picture was getting tons of likes and comments, and I'm just here, reading and scrolling while feeling left out. I couldn't comment or like anything; I wasn't even there.

Just then, a notification appeared.

"Kayla Anderson mentioned you in a comment."

I clicked it, and the screen brought me to one of Kayla's pictures. I scrolled down to look for the comment where I got mentioned in. I found my name somewhere at the bottom.

"What happened to Cameron? She's so inactive."

Another notification appeared. It said, "Adrianne Winters replied to a comment you were mentioned in."

I reloaded the picture, and read Adrianne's reply. She said, "I don't know. Some say she wasn't at the party."

Another reply came in. It said, "But I saw her at the party. She was going home with Isabelle and Charlotte."

I reloaded again. "Yeah, I didn't see her around."

I kept reloading the picture. The comments were debating whether or not I was at the party, but one comment caught my eye.

"Hey Alice, what's up with the drinks last night? Never drank anything like it."

It seems like I wasn't the only one who noticed the difference in the drink. I could still recall its unusual smell.

Just then, Alice replied, "I got it from Italy."

Right after that, loads of comments started coming in at once. Most were saying along the lines of, "We drank imported stuff. Thats so cool dudes."

I stopped reading the comment thread and closed my laptop, and I placed it on my bedside table. I got out of my room and headed for the balcony. As I got there, I looked over our green and flowery garden. There was a mix of roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, tulips and even orchids. Our gardener, Linda, was watering plants on the far end of our balcony.

As I was staring outside, my mind slowly went back to last night when I was eating dinner with people I was barely friends with. I had a different feeling when I was with them. It was as if they didn't require anything from me. No expectations. No judgment. I could be myself around them without any consequences.

Just drop the thought, I told myself.

That's true, I wouldn't want to be seen hanging out with them.

Despite that, in the depths of everything I want is to be appreciated by people who know the real me. And I think they do.

I said drop the thought, I scolded myself, they probably don't even know you well enough for you to say that about them.

I decided that I need to get my mind off of my social life right now. I went back to my room, and remembered that I had schoolwork to do. I took out my planner from my bag and flipped it to the most recent page I've written on.

It said in my cursive handwriting:

Chemistry Assignment p.178
Math
English- Essay
4 paragraphs about *insert topic sentence here*
*All due on Monday.

I closed my planner, and got out my Chemistry book and paper. Flipping my book open to page 178, I stared at all the questions I had to answer. There were at least forty of them.