Bad Love

02

The next Saturday we were invited to go climb the mountains near the lake with Ty and Charli, and a few other of their friends. Apparently Ty and Charli were a 'thing', not officially but something was going on. We were going to climb up to a cave that they regularly threw bonfire parties in, and then swim in the lake, before getting ready for the party they were throwing in the cave.

I climbed up the mountain with the assistance of Conner, who stayed by my side making friendly conversation the whole way up. It took us half an hour to reach the cave. I didn't even know which side of the mountain we were on at this point, and I was completely confused at how they remember the way to and from this cave.

When we reached our destination I found a large rock to sit on, while some of the others cleaned up the empty bottles and other things left behind from the last party. I could tell that Conner was interested in me, he stuck to my side like a lost puppy. I was friendly and polite towards him, but I wasn't really interested.

After a long hike back to the lake and swimming for a couple hours, I was worn out. But Alex was hounding me to go to the party tonight, even though I wasn't feeling up to it. She eventually got me to comply by bribing me with some muscle relaxers that Brian, one Ty's friends that went with us to cave today, gave her.

Once we were home and everyone else, besides me, Alex, and Charli, had went back to their own places to shower and get dressed, I popped a couple of the pills and started getting ready for a long night. Alex and Charli were getting ready together, they seemed to have gotten really close in the course of the week. After I washed and blow-dried my hair, I started searching for something to wear. I was already starting to feel the effects of the pills I had taken earlier, so much so that I hardly bothered in deciding, simply ending up with a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, topped with a jacket.

I wandered out of my room, clutching at the wall as I walked, to find Alex and Charli.

"Oh, hey, there you are!" Charli excitedly greeted me as I walked into the scarcely furnished living room and sat down on the love-seat in the corner, "No get up! The guys will be here any minute now."

I took a deep breath and pulled myself up off the couch, just as headlights shown through the blinds and a car horn honked from outside.

The ride to the mountains was a blur of lights from the backseat of the little car I was sitting in. When we pulled up in the small parking lot tucked away behind the mountain I thought there was no way I could make that hike up to the cave, especially in the dark.

After a few slips and falling into the brush on the side of the overgrown trail, Ty fell behind the group to help me walk it.

"Did you start drinking before we picked y'all up?" Ty laughed, holding onto my right arm and assisting me to step over a root that was poking up out of the ground

"Yeah." I lied to him, trying to keep my balance as best as I could.

When we reached the cave there were already quite a few people there, I scanned the crowd and didn't recognize anyone. I went and sat on a boulder near the fire, Ty walked over to me and handed me a cold beer from the cooler that was tucked away in the cave.

I chatted with a few, slightly interesting, people as I downed a few more beers. Suddenly I was left alone sitting next to the fire. I was lost in my own out-of-this-world thoughts for a while. When I looked up and scanned the crowd, I couldn't find the people I had came here with. A familiar face sat down next to me and eyed me suspiciously.

I closed my eyes to try and stop the world around me from spinning. When I opened them back up, I was sitting on the ground. I looked up into the hazel-green eyes peering down at me.