Hey Monday

d r i f t i n g

"Sure thing," replied ear-gauge guy. He keyed in my order and I forked over the cash, praying that I wouldn't find any chicken heads today. 

Once I received my food, I glanced around the restaurant, looking for somewhere to eat. In one of the corners, there was a scraggly old man eating by himself, slurping food off of his fingers and glancing nervously around the restaurant. 

"Jesus," I muttered, looking in the other direction. 

To the left there was a woman with two kids who were playing with their happy meal toys. By the looks of things, neither of them had even touched their food. 

Occupying a table all by themselves, there were two boys who were talking and laughing now and then, pounding their fists on the table and using wild hand motions. 

A final sweep of the place revealed that there were no other people. I didn't want to sit alone in fear that the scary old guy would come get me, so I grabbed my food and hustled to the two boys. 

I grinned at them. "Hi, I'm Ellen," I said confidently. "Mind if I join you?" 

As to be expected, they looked a little wary of me at first. I mean, if some random girl with tear-stained cheeks and an oversized baggy sweatshirt came up to you, it's not like you would welcome her with open arms.

The boys exchanged some glances and the one on the left- a blonde- nodded.

"Sure, take a seat." 

I plopped myself into a chair and opened up my food. "So do you guys live around here?" 

The other one, a curly-headed brown haired guy, swallowed a bite of food. "Yeah, we live on the outskirts of town," he said. "We just stopped here before the party." 

My ears perked up. "Party?" 

"Yeah, there's this sick house party at our friend Amelia's house tonight," said the blondie. "And Logan here doesn't have a date." He nudged Curly. 

Logan's eyes lit up. "Yeah dude, you should come!" 

I bit my lip, hesitating. "I don't know..."

The blond rolled his eyes and gave me an empathetic glance. "Sorry that Logan's being a sexual predator," he said apologetically. "He's only a little bit drunk."

I laughed and bit into a fry. "Well, it's not like I have a lot of other things to do tonight."

"You can come if you want," he offered. "I promise we're not creeps who're going to tie you up and throw you in the back of a truck or something."

"Thanks for the reassurance," I said uncertainly.

Alas, I found myself sitting in the backseat of a spanking-new corvette- this must have been a rich kid- and on my way to a party with two strangers.

I wondered if I was only doing it to rub it in Noah's face, and I think the answer was yes. I couldn't wait to see the look on his face when he saw me with these guys. 

 I glanced down at what I was wearing- I had taken off my sweatshirt, revealing a white t-shirt with a feather on it. I had black skinny jeans and black converse, as well as two black braided bracelets that wrapped around my wrist. For once, I had left my hair down naturally. It was curly and frizzy and getting everywhere, but I tried not to care.

It was hardly party attire, but I was excited anyway. 

"So, what kind of people will be at this party?" I asked, leaning forward a bit. 

The blonde guy, whose name I learned was Dan, shrugged. "Hard to say. We just invite friends, and they take friends, and those friends tell other friends, and evenutally you've got a nice mix of people. Sometimes people just show up, though, and that's not always fun."