Summer Nights (Solangelo AU)

will ii • history of parties

   Partying has gotten a lot more exhausting over the years.

   When you're a freshman in High School and you go to your first party, you feel so fucking cool. Free and unrestricted from your parents, surrounded by your friends which are doomed to change by Senior year, and also, you can drink in peace.

   A party freshman year was the first time I sucked dick, the first time I kissed a guy, and the first time I had a crush. He was a senior. His name was Luke. And he was on the football team. He graduated the end of my Freshman year with a girlfriend he had had since I was in 6th grade, and he proposed to her right in front of everyone on graduation night. He married her a year later. 

   I have to admit, I was heartbroken. Which is pathetic looking back on it. I needed my fantasy of him proudly declaring his love to me and putting me in his car and running away destroyed. In fact, it made me grapple with my future.

   Sooner or later, I would be the image of Luke, graduating with a girl on my arm, smiling and pretending that I was at my happiest. And I would marry her just the same. And who the fuck knows, maybe in my depressing life as a middle-aged married man, I'll fuck some freshly graduated, younger doctor, who will inevitably spill my secret and my wife will divorce me, she'll take the kids, and I'll live sad and alone forever.

   Maybe I'm not the most ambitious person, but at least I'm fucking real.

   My ambitions and dreams ceased Sophomore year. Partying as a sophomore was less exciting, yet still golden in the way a memory from your childhood is gilded. If you scratched at the gold just slightly, you'd see it's falsities.

   That year, I had my first ever girlfriend, Piper McLean, which just so happened at a party. It was New Years, we were all in Percy's basement, and we were all awkward. Except for Percy, who always made it his mission to make sure nobody felt that way in his prescience.

  "Ball drop happens in one minute, you assholes!" He yelled after getting up on the coffee table, clearly already wasted, and carried on, "If I don't see sloppy make outs by 12, I'm gonna make you all do the Macarena!"

   I was content with staring at the bottom of my cup until I felt a tap on my shoulder. Looking over, a short Native American girl stands with one hand on her hip. She looks up at me, her eyes twinkling, and her expression annoyed.

   "Do you want to make out?" She asked boldly. "Jason's been hitting on me all night but I'm not interested."

   I shrug as the room turns into loud, unsynchronized yelling of the countdown. As it hits 12, I lean down, hooking my hand around her waist and pull her close, our lips meeting. Confetti explodes around us. Then, I pull away. Her eyes meet mine.

   "You're a good kisser," she folds her arms with a grin.

   There wasn't a specific instance where I asked her to be my girlfriend, but she was. She would hook her arm around my shoulders whenever we were near each other, and I'd wrap my arm around her waist. We went on a few dates at the arcade and I'd only ever kiss her at the end of them. She met my parents a few times, and they loved the fact she was a cheerleader. She's really the only person who's seen me in a not-so-good light.

   I found out Luke married that girl four months into our relationship, at you guessed it, a party. I had been drinking all night, mindlessly discussing politics, when I saw it on my Instagram. I ran out of Jason's house puking into a bush, and Piper came following out right after me.

   "Babe, are you okay?" She asked. She was wearing a short, white dress with cherries on it and big hoop earrings.

   Her white dress made me think of weddings, which only made me puke more.