𝔯𝔬𝔠𝔨𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯𝔰 𝔫𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔡𝔦𝔢 [𝔥𝔲𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔶𝔩𝔳𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯]

𝟑𝟑𝟑

★★★

ℑ was always told to believe in myself. That if I did, I would achieve great things. And I was always left wondering if I had believed in myself for all that time, why I hadn't achieved anything great yet.

I was on my third spiked Coke. This kid threw quite the rager, and I was in the middle of it. Surrounded by hot, sweaty high schoolers, making out, yelling, laughing, jumping in the pool with nothing to cover up. I stood in the kitchen, my back against the island. I tried to tap my foot to the beat of the music, but Mollycoddle was so off-beat that I couldn't keep up.

I turned to face the massive living room. There was the drummer, head in the clouds. That's how he always was. There wasn't a moment his eyes weren't bloodshot as could be, he could talk in an annunciated sentence. I faced forward again. Two kids came through the door, looking out of place as ever. A tall brunette and a shorter brunette. I bit my tongue; I felt like shit.

{And then we start to dance

And now I'm singing like

Girl you know I want your love}

A dude, with whom I assumed to be his girlfriend, ran in front of me. She was removing her jean jacket as she followed him; her arm hit the red solo cup out of my tingling hand. I cursed under my breath as fizzing Coke and vodka soaked my left shoe. She kept moving. I'm not sure if she even noticed.

The lights above me changed colors. Clay was messing with a bunch of light switches nearby. They turned purple, then blue. He finally settled on some weird yellow-orange color.

The two guys who walked in a few minutes prior maneuvered through the thick crowd of people toward the kitchen. It was Kevin and Hunter. We'd been friends for a pretty long time. I made eye contact with Hunter. I'd had a crush on him since like, seventh grade. His eyes flicked to my shirt, and he gave an approving nod. I put my hands in my pockets and kicked the cup that fell out of my hand. It spun and hit some kid in the back of the foot.

Kevin came and stood next to me. He grabbed a lone shot glass and poured something into it. It was the vodka that I had in my Coke. I was about to tell him that it wasn't very good, but before I could even turn to face him, he had already downed it. Hunter pinched the bridge of his nose. 

"Great," he sighed.  

up, hold up, hold up....}

I wanted nothing more than to escape this shitty party music. I didn't care how nice and chill the dudes were; the band sucked. I stumbled away from the kitchen and went outside for fresh air and space. But it wasn't much different out here. It was just darker. People ran around, tossing stuff at each other, playing stupid games, and skinny dipping into the pools. I just couldn't get away.

I sighed and went back inside. Maybe if I had a few more drinks, I could bear this place. I ran into a group of girls who were dancing.

"Watch it," one of them said. Her words slurred together. She had a large bottle in her hand. I stood there for a moment, observing. They passed it around, and each took a sip. I nodded to myself. So this is what people with friends did.

I poured myself another drink. This time, a little more booze. I'd be careful not to spill it this time.

Over the music, I heard a loud thud. Hunter got slammed against the wall, held by the zipper of his leather jacket. Skip Hoffman, of course. He hated everyone unless they were stars of the sports teams or insanely rich and popular. I stepped towards them. Bad idea on my part. Skip grunted, shoving him in the opposite direction. I gasped.