Robin; Kids at 19

5

5

That evening Noel, Ben, Benjamin, Clarke and I turn up at Frank and Emily’s at half eight.

“Callie is already here,” says Noel as he puts his phone in his velvet jacket pocket and darts away into the packed house and I don’t see him again for a while. We follow in his footsteps through the front door and I’d barely taken in how crowded the place was before Courtney had appeared out of nowhere and wound her arms around my waist. I didn’t even know she had been invited. She was already wankered.

“Why are you so drunk already?” I ask her over the din of the other people shouting over the booming music.

“ ‘Cause I’ve been ‘ere ayhe-ges” she calls in reply. “Ooh I love this song! Lets dance!” she drags me further into the crowd and starts to wiggle unsteadily around me in a circle.

I watch her for a moment, repulsed, then leave. She doesn’t even notice I’m gone. I grab a beer from the side and spot Alayna on a sofa with Emily lying on her lap. It looks like Em is passed out or asleep or something. I start towards her but stop and think about how I might be able to break up with Courtney before returning to Alayna. I dither for a moment, down my drink then find a bottle of vodka and down 4 shots in quick succession.  I wander out into the garden and find Ben and Benjamin mindlessly chortling in a cloud of marijuana smoke. They offer me an un-smoked joint and I take it and sit next to them to smoke it. After nearly 4 months without weed it feels great to feel the familiar warm fuzz running through my body. Its like I could never be sad. The shots I took earlier start to kick in and I find I finally have the confidence to give Courtney the boot so I leave the Bens chuckling in the garden and make my way inside again in search of the bane of my life.

 I am quite tall and I scourer the living room for her backcombed mane of dyed black hair and couldn’t see her among the people.  The waves of THC and alcohol buzzed through my brain causing the world to swing as I headed for the door to the hall to escape the noise and continue my search.

I go up the stairs and reach the landing, taking a few deep breaths to steady my head as I went. The first room I stumble into is the bathroom and I find a girl passed out in the bath with a rather unattractive trail of sick down her front. I check she is breathing and then try a different door.

The lights are off but the glow from the landing light is enough to illuminate Courtney gyrating and moaning atop an other person.  I pause for a moment trying to blink away the haze from the drug. It is defiantly Courtney. I nearly fist pump with excitement. I step onto the room and flick on the light.

“Hey” I say casually.

She jumps and screams when she see me.

“Its not what you think! I promise! Its not what you think!” she cries and tried to pull on her dress to cover her near skeletal body.

I shake my head.

“Its what I see, not what I think” I say. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m going to leave now. Don’t bother to try and call, I don’t want anything to do with you”

“No. Babes! Wait! Robin I’m sorry! Don’t go!” she pleads to my back. Her words mean nothing to me, as I do not care for her. I turn and see a very familiar velvet jacket folded neatly on the seat of the closest chair. If I needed any more confirmation that it was Noel she was with, I catch sight of his black suede Chelsea boots arranged neatly underneath as I turn my back on the two of them.

I don’t feel hurt or cheated or surprised even that Noel had bedded Courtney. Weirdly I felt most sorry for Callie because this was most terrible for her.