𝘀𝗵𝗲'𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗱, josh richards

eleven

February 4th 2023
10:31 pm

Music blaring throughout the club. Josh scoured it, searching for the familiar auburn haired girl, who was no where to be found. It's not like he had expected her to show. This would be the second birthday he celebrated without her.

"Josh man!" A drunken Bryce called over the music, walking towards Josh with a tray of ten shots in hand. "Let's do shots! You're finally twenty one!" Without hesitating Josh downed all five of his shots. He needed the distraction.

"Josh!" A familiar blonde called from across the room.

Vada lay in the dark under her blankets, eyes glued to her phone as she scrolled through all the stories from the party. A tear rolled down her cheek. This was her fault. She could have been there, but instead she was holed up in her childhood bedroom. She knows it was a mistake, she still doesn't understand why she did it, and over a year had passed. She missed him, more than she could fathom. For the past year and a bit Vada had been putting all her energy into school. She turned on her side, facing her nightstand where she left the invitation. This was the second birthday of his she'd missed.

"What the fuck? Vada!" Josh groaned as frosting smeared all over his face. Vada had smashed a cake in the sleeping boy's face.

"Happy Birthday you old fuck!" She smiled, clearly proud of her work. This was an annual occurrence. Every year on Josh's birthday since the two were thirteen she would wake him up like this. This year's only difference was they would turn nineteen.

That had been the last birthday of Josh's the two spent together. It all became too much for her. He was rarely around, and even when he was she always felt she was second to someone else. She didn't know what she wanted. The two weren't even officially anything. Just friends that fooled around. Nothing more. On top of the Josh stuff, and her personal issues, Vada needed an escape. When August 2021 Vada moved back home, and completely ghosted Josh. It was hard to avoid him, especially since he lived next door (or at least his family did.) Whenever he came home, Rayna would make a point to get out of the town. And getting out of town essentially meant staying with her grandparents.

Vada hadn't been doing well. She was like the sun, constantly on. She had to be. She needed the distraction, because even in the slightest silence she'd lose control. She let out a long and soft breath before kicking off her blanket. A wave of dizziness hit her as she sat up, she ignored it and stumbled into her closet door. Turning on her phone's flash, she opened the closet and rummaged around for her old converse box. Inside lay a smaller box, and in that a pouch. In the pouch were five joints. Clearly, her hiding system was taken from a russian nesting doll. She pocketed two of the five before closing up the pouch and both boxes, and shoving it behind her stack of hoodies. She grabbed one of her many cheap lighters from her dresser before quietly shuffling toward her window. She tried her best to open the window without a sound, she slipped out the window and onto the roof, clutching her crocs in one hand, and the other keeping her steady on the roof. She wasn't sure why she was sneaking out this way, she was twenty, in university and even had a job, but going out the front door just felt wrong.

She held out her phone's flash, looking for a dry place to sit. It had snowed the day before, looking down it was a fresh blanket of fluffy white snow. She let out a cold breath before pulling a joint from the pocket of her grey sweats. As she lit it and took a hit, sense of familiarity and warmth danced throughout her body. Her shoulders relaxed. She felt calm. The goosebumps on her arms soon went away as she grew accustomed to the crisp air on her bear skin. She knew she shouldn't, but she opened her messages app, searching for her's and Josh's. Vada didn't have to scroll to far down, maybe 10 people at most. After leaving LA, she had ghosted almost everyone she knew and essentially disappeared off the face of the earth.