The Way It Was Before

nine

He shrugged. "I guess this party? But I had to nag them more than a few times to allow me to have this, so it doesn't exactly count as a gift. They refuse to give me anything now because I have bad grades, so... yeah."

We were quiet for a moment, both of us staring at the ground while the party around us was still in full swing.

"But thank you," Finn said again. I lifted my gaze and saw a warm smile on his face. "I'll bring this to my room to make sure they're safe. Feel free to go around. I'll talk to you later, Autumn."

He jogged away with the gift bag. I exhaled to soothe my nerves and looked at the crowd before me. Here was another gargantuan task: saying hi to people.

After bumping into some seniors and having my foot stepped on several times, I found three girls from my history class whom I thought I could be comfortable with. Unfortunately, I thought wrong. Our conversation went like this:

Me: "H-hi."

Them: "Oh, hey there! I can't believe you came! Isn't the—" (Their voices were taken over by loud music.)

Me (having no idea what they said): "Oh, ha-ha. Yeah. Um... so, how are you?"

Them: "Great. You?"

Me: "F-Fantastic! You?"

I had never sounded so stupid in a social setting.

Eventually, I stopped mingling with people. Instead, I stood near the bushes and watched everyone else. In the distance across from me, Sunny and her friends were hanging out in their glittering dresses that could be mistaken as disco balls.

I had tried hanging out with them earlier, but Aislin ridiculed me by asking if my clothes came with a feather duster because I looked like a cleaning lady. I could've retorted with, "Does your dress come with a mouthwash? I can smell crap coming out of your mouth," but I didn't want to be rude so I walked away.

I bobbed my head to the music and tapped my foot so people would see that I was 'having a good time'. Before long, I gave up and sought refuge in the kitchen. It looked like that of a five-star hotel with a high ceiling and luxurious interior design. A couple of people were hogging the counter, so I waited for them to clear out before I could take my turn and get my share of free food.

To my dismay, nothing was left. Everyone else had taken all the popcorn and chips. At least there was some fruit punch left in the bowl. When I was about to pour it into my cup, someone stopped me.

"Unless you wanna get hammered tonight, don't drink that. It's spiked," Clint said, leaning against the wall and holding his own drink. I was so glad to see someone else I knew that I immediately smiled at his presence.

"Oh, thanks for the warning." I put away my cup.

Clint walked to the counter to check for food and muttered, "Pigs," when he found none. He dug into the pocket of his cargo shorts and fished out a bar of chocolate. "Luckily, I got my emergency snack bar right here."

"Genius," I said.

He broke it and gave the other half to me. We rested our backs against the counter and munched on the food in silence.

After a moment, he asked, "So... where's Clover? I don't see her around here."

"She couldn't make it tonight."

"Is she still moping because Michael got mad at her?"

"Yep. Exactly."

"Give him time. He'll come around eventually." He drank from his red cup and sighed. "She really likes him, huh?"