Love is Madness

9: Heaven àwaits, Ängel

9: Heaven àwaits, Ängel

Quarter to midnight, and the party had spilled out onto the street and into the opposite house. A local band had arrived. They set up in the road, blasting out even more music. Someone had plugged in floodlights in the deserted street, show casing Lissa and her girlfriends dancing away. Lissa was buzzed up high on massive amounts of caffeine and the exhilarating feeling of dancing without any inhibitions.

It was fortunate that José's large family and extended relatives lived in the area surrounding the pub. The teenagers were making as much noise as possible and would have probably been busted out for public disturbance, underage drinking and intent on getting-as-high-as-aeroplanes.

Inhibitions had been drowned in alcohol or love or drugs. No one cared. Social and racial boundaries- if any existed- had gone. All people wanted to do was forget the drag and ache and bruises of their lives, even for a night.

As it was, Lissa and her friends were out on the street, still dancing hard to Temperature, then Thrift Shop and Aviicii. Cat was dirty-dancing with purple-haired Niamh, while Lissa spun and twisted and mirrored the movements of Alice. Cass and Taya needed to get a room, and there was barely any space to breathe. Still, they'd began to add in beatboxing and synced crazy gymnastics to their dancing.

"Gonna, gonna, gonna getcha, gonna getcha, getcha...!" Cat suddenly yelled out, wrapping her arms around Niamh, and gulping from a bottle of Baileys.

Niamh was aware of the hot stares they were getting, as she threaded her hands through Cat's luscious, semi-braided, curly hair. "Cat," she said, looking at her seriously while still snapping her hips. They fitted together, long and lithe in their heels and dancing closer than they should have. "In no way do those words belong in this song."

Cat shrugged, put a hand on Niamh's waist to yank her closer and shoved the bottle into the Irish-French girl's face.

"Hush up, preciosa, and drink this. There are sober kids in Africa, you know!"

"And so we gotta be drunk enough for them- and everyone else!" agreed Alice hysterically, whom by all rights, shouldn't have been able to stand straight, let alone gyrate her hips and arms and make it look good.

Lissa took a breather as the song came to an end and a new one started up. Without looking at what she was doing, she picked up her can of Relentless Overdrive and finished the contents, grinning as the acidic drink gave her another bolt of energy.

Should be a rehab for caffeine, init, she thought. It's all Mikhael's fault anyhow, he got us addicted and all.

As the tracks jumped and Enrique Iglesia began singing one of his fast Spanish beats, Lissa pulled Alice up and tried to forget that she hadn't seen Mikhael since the beginning of the night. The normally reserved and detached brown-haired Canadian girl enthusiastically jumped in the air and fist pumped to the completely different tempo that could still be heard from inside the pub.

"So let's pretend it's love," she yelled.

"Tonight-" joined in Niamh.

"Let's get some-" shouted Cat through her bottle, wrapped against some guy she had enticed into her and Niamh's reach.

"And live while we're young...!"

Lissa had just jackknifed upright from touching the pavement when a boisterous scrum of brawling boys came barreling in the girls direction. She flung herself aside as the heap of spitting, swearing bodies untangled themselves and squared up to each other.

Lissa swore fluently in Portuguese. Of course Mikhael was in the middle of it, his blond hair messed and shining, his maniacal laugh ringing out. He stood tall and strong, fearless.