Picture Perfect Night Sky

44 ¦ Jacob Pierce

Finally, I'm in the living room. I've expected this to be the most crowded part of the house, but it's quite cozy in here with the fireplace and everything. But I do believe a turned-on fireplace at a party is a disaster waiting to happen. With the fireplace giving me a sense of hope, sadly the birthday girl isn't here. Perhaps she's still getting ready in her room. I just need to wait.

A soft tap from my shoulder caught my attention. I turn around and hope that it's Jasmine, but I faced the devil itself.

"What the fuck are you doing in here?" Whenever she's near me, I always have my guard-up. It's an automatic instinct now because of how mischievous this person can get when she didn't like someone, and I can fairly sure after I've done to her in front of a crowd, she has a lot of hate inside her for me.

"Is that how you greet someone in your past?" Nicole tilts her head to the side, giving me a smile filled with mockery. "Isn't that quite rude?"

Rolling my eyes at her annoying presence. "Just answer the fucking question." I try my best to keep my voice calm as possible since we're in the middle of a crap ton of people.

She shrugs, still have that mocking smile on her pathetically comedic face. "I'm just here to greet the birthday girl!" The mocking smile slowly turns into a hideous grin. "But I've been wondering about something." She lightly taps her finger on her chin, pretending to be deep in thought. "Wondering about your talk with Amon last month."

"Last month?" What the hell is she talking about? Knowing Nicole, it could be anything ridiculous.

"You know, the thing you've said under that marvelous oak tree."

She's not just here to greet the birthday girl, she's also here to humiliate and expose me to the whole crowd, including Jasmine. Not only that, if she really listened to what Amon and I talked about under that oak tree, she would probably expose Margaret as well. Humiliation in my part is fine, I can deal with that, but if it directly affects Margaret, my sanity won't do me justice. I already denied her offer, but it seems I'm also gonna be ruin her social reputation.

Nicole must have read my nervous expression that she started to laugh maniacally. She slowly strolls towards the corner of the living room, where there's a microphone sitting on a table. "Mic test! Mic test!" She taps the head of the microphone, creating this irritant burst of sound from the speakers, and all the crowd is now facing her.

"Don't you dare do this, Nicole!" I try to get angry, but the overwhelming feeling of nervousness seems to overlap the anger that I should feel immediately.

I need to get out of here, I need to run fast and far away. Turning around, I immediately got blocked by the birthday girl itself, Jasmine. "Hey, where are you going? And what's going on?"

Every muscle in my body immediately tenses up, and I feel like I'm paralyzed in place, unable to move, unable to run from this upcoming disaster.

"Hey, it's the birthday girl." Nicole's points at our direction. "Happy Birthday Jasmine!" As if on cue, the crowd follows to greet her, but that didn't bring Jasmine to smile. If anything, she seems to be annoyed by something. "Everyone, listen up, I'm here to spill the sweetest tea ever." Nicole gives a quick glance at me before winking at me. The lump in my throat is back, and it's heavier than ever. "I've heard that someone in this room is juggling between two women?" She pretends to gasp as if this is new to her. Her acting is great, but it's but exaggerated. "Jacob-" She fixes her gaze at my direction, "-Is it true that you're juggling between Margaret and Jasmine, the birthday girl?"

I heard every gasp from each of the people in this house, the humiliation is strong that makes my whole muscle system heighten. Giving Jasmine a quick glance, I was hoping to see her filled with fury, but she didn't even flinch from her last expression towards Nicole.