The Shadows Of Yesterday

The Shadows Of Yesterday {1}

I made the mistake of making eye contact with Seth Rotain in the middle of the party.

He had a small group of women around him and a charming grin on his face when our gazes locked. I imagined his eyebrow raising seconds before it actually did.

My grip tightened on the red plastic cup in my hands. I really needed to learn to look in the opposite direction of Seth.

But now he'd seen me leaning against the wall by myself. He leaned towards one of the women and began to say something, grin growing and his head subtly nodding in my direction.

I waited until he was looking at me again before pretending to notice a woman walking past me. I shot Seth a matching grin and pushed off the wall, taking a swig of my drink before following after her.

She went into the kitchen and I followed, immediately breaking away from her and slouching against a counter. At least I could hide in here for a bit, because she got talking to some apparent friends who were getting high in the corner of the room.

I scrunched my nose up at the strong smell of weed in the little kitchen, trying not to sneeze. On the bright side, the music in here was slightly less deafening than it was out where I'd been before.

It didn't fix my headache, though. For a while I thought we were listening to Kpop or something else hard to understand, but then I realized it was just one of those mumble rappers. What ever happened to just shaking your ass to Kesha at a party?

Ah, great, and I was finally at the point in the night where I aged up by sixty years and reminisced about the good ol' days. "Back in my day, kids, you got to listen to one whole minute of a Lil' Romeo song on your HitClip, or carried a Walkman the size of your head to listen to the latest Backstreet Boys CD". No wonder Seth only wanted me close enough to keep an eye on but not talk to whoever he was with.

I glowered down at my drink. I'd been dumping it in the sink and filling it with something new every once in a while so Seth didn't know I hadn't been drinking.

I was all for drinking or getting high, but I'd never been a fan of these big house parties. I liked just getting together with a small group of friends. When Seth and I had a party in our dorm, he could pour as many shots down my throat as he wanted and I wouldn't complain- or, well, complain much. But here? A party at some random person's house? Not a fan.

Besides, the beer here was so cheap that it tasted more like someone had pissed in a bottle. And they had a giant tub of punch out in the living room, but I'd sworn off the stuff after the last time I drank it. Or, well, I'd sworn off it once I stopped throwing up enough to get the oath out.

But Seth seemed to be having a good time, so we'd be here for a while yet. Maybe I'd choke down a few piss-beers in the desperate hopes it would get me buzzed enough to endure the long night ahead.

I sighed and tipped my head back. This sucked. I don't know why I always let him talk me into these stupid parties. Most of the time, the bus wasn't running by the time we left and we had to walk our way back to the dorm.

I pushed off the counter as the girl I'd followed in here left the room with her friends. Time to go back out and pretend I was trying to be social before Seth dragged me into his group.

I headed for the door, mentally preparing for how to play this off like I was enjoying myself. Seth would notice if I was being too moody and try to perk up my night with his own ideas. I absolutely did not want that.

I also absolutely did not want a guy to slam into me and spill my drink, but it happened as we both tried to leave through the door at the same time. The guy jumped back as my drink miraculously spilled to the side instead of directly onto either one of us.