Perfectly Wrong || Luke Hemmings

1

"Your first real party! Oh, I'm so excited, Izzy!" Tori makes a right after the exit, turning onto some back road I've never been on before.

Trees zip past the window, looming like giants in the darkness. I wonder what horrors could be hiding behind them, shivering down to my Converse-clad feet. Suddenly, I wish I had my sweatshirt to shrink into.

"Uh, yeah, exciting," I mumble, realizing I should add something.

Thankfully, Tori doesn't catch onto my tone, her high spirits still intact. "Oh, I can't wait to introduce you to some of my friends! My party friends, that is."

She tosses a loaded glance at me, a mischievous smile creeping onto her face.

I groan aloud, burying my head in my hands. "Tori, no, I've told you a thousand times I don't need you to set me up with people I don't know."

She presses her painted-red lips together unhappily. "I don't see you with any other boys," she points out.

I recoil from her words, dropping my hands. "I don't want a boyfriend right now. Some of us aren't as needy as you," I snap back a little too harshly.

The effect of my words is instantaneous. Tori's face shuts down completely, slamming closed like a door.

Realizing the full weight of my careless statement, I blink in shock. I can't believe I just said that to her, no matter how frustrated I was at the moment.

"Tori, I'm so-"

"Sorry?" she finishes tersely, her gaze locked on the road. Her hands are clenched around the steering wheel, her knuckles bone white. "Don't be. It's what you were thinking. I'd rather know that you really think of me as some dependent, clingy, spineless brat."

I frown, digging my teeth into my lower lip. "You're not a brat," I contradict, playing with the ends of my hair. "And you're definitely not spineless. Remember when there was one last push-up bra in your size and there was another girl holding it? You fought her like a pit bull for that bra. I swear, she looked absolutely terrified."

That cracks a smile from her, but just barely. "Well, I wasn't going to just let her walk away with it; I needed that bra for my date with Theo that night."

Tori and Theo had one of those on and off again relationships. They started going out in sophmore year when we were in high school.

Tori was one of the popular girls who made everything they did look effortlessly beautiful. Theo was on the football team, one of the only two sophomores on the starting line. Of course they would get together.

They broke up after winter break in junior year when Tori found out Theo cheated on her with cheerleader Audrey Perkins at the holiday party her parents threw. But they were back together again for prom, kissing and slow dancing like nothing had ever happened.

In senior year, they broke up again because Tori made out with soccer star Isaiah Janson in the boys' locker room. But by the time Valentine's Day rolled around, they were exchanging kisses behind the the curtains in the auditorium.

It made no sense to me, but seemed to make perfect sense to them. It just became an unspoken agreement not to mention the complications of their relationship and I never attempted to cross that line.

"Are you still dating him?" I imply casually, hoping I'm not intruding too much into Tori's confusing love life. There are still some things that I would rather remain buried a secret between them. I don't want to know every single detail of their relationship. "I mean, now that he's at the University of Washington and you're at Stanford? How long of a drive is that?"