The Physics of Love

Chapter 27

It's forty five minutes till midnight and the New Year's fever's at its peak. I spent all day preparing Ted's house for the party with Annie, so now I feel much more tired than excited, but the rest of the school (yeah, it seems like everybody's here) and a few more college guys I've never seen before look more than prepared to turn the house upside down tonight.

Ted's parents left to Maldives yesterday and made the house available for teenage bacchanalia, pretending they don't know a single thing about it. Obviously, they have every confidence in their son's judgment, the thing I'm starting to see the reason for.

Ted has always been a part of the gang who drinks and parties, but he's never done anything terribly irresponsible. He was never too drunk to lose consciousness, like most of his friends (all of them jocks), he never got into fights, he never broke anything or got himself arrested, so I guess his parents' trust is fully deserved.

He spent a day with Derek, chasing supplies of alcohol sufficient for two hundred people expected to show up for the party. I didn't ask him about the details, but, basically, the job is about finding a guy who knows a guy whose twenty one year old brother doesn't have anything better to do on December 31 (and no ethical dilemma about it) than getting a keg for a bunch of school kids. Then, of course, they need someone who drives a car and someone who knows someone who will give them a car to get all the stuff to Ted's house, but since they show up at the doorstep in the early afternoon with tons of liquor, I assume everything went according to the plan.

So, now I'm standing in the corner of the living room full of young people, watching the effect of that successful action, grasping the idea of parents' constant worry more clearly and realistically than ever before. It's 10 p.m. and Brad is already dead drunk, singing at the top of his lungs, repeatedly trying to climb on one of the chairs, while Eric and a guy from English class with a foreign name I can't remember are holding his arms tight with a clear idea of what's gonna happen if they don't, a bunch of nerds from science class are jumping around to the sounds of some new Youtube trender, bumping into each other randomly, while one of the cheerleaders is having her throat checked by a college guy who literally stumbled upon her hot pants as soon as he entered the house.

'I'd get you a drink, but I know you'd refuse,' Ted's joining me from the back of the room, wrapping his arms around my waist.

'Right. They should play a video like this at rehab centers. It would do wonders.'

'You can't hate this guy, can you?' he laughs at Brad's performance, 'you would have to take him seriously first.'

I don't say anything. I just envy him for being a guy, being able to forgive and forget his infantile male friend's misconduct. If I had a friend like that, I would never speak to him ever again after what he'd said the other night at the Christmas dinner.

Ted focuses back on me, or my neck to be exact. He's taking advantage of the dark in the room to fully show all the affection he feels towards it. I'm taking advantage of the same thing to blush freely.

'I'm so glad you don't drink alcohol. I wouldn't want you drunk tonight anyways.'

Yep, that's it! Tonight's the night. The night of excitement and adventure, time to live that scene parents didn't let me watch in the movies when I was little. My body's cramping in fear and expectation of a practically announced event that's about to take place in Ted's room tonight, probably some time after midnight, before we get too tired and sleep deprived. Needless to say that I had to lie to my mom to get the permission to sleep 'at Annie's'.

'Why don't you just come home? She lives so close, I don't understand.'

'Because we have to gossip later,' I roll my eyes at her to make her feel so old that she stops asking questions in embarrassment. 'What's the point in going to a party if you don't get to badmouth everyone afterwards?'