My Only Exception

Chapter Four

"Look at all the beautiful men!" She yelled happily into my ears.

I shook my head with an eye roll as I pulled her with me towards the large stadium, "Cmon, my little viper." My arm slung around her shoulders, bumping her hip with mine as we made our way towards the stage.

Aria reciprocated, throwing her arm around my shoulder; Bent at, what looked like an uncomfortable angle. We were about the same height, me only having about an inch or so on her.

Many bodies grouped together, causing the already hot atmosphere to become even more sticky and humid; No thanks to the early August atmosphere. It was loud as everybody buzzed with excitement ready to enjoy the lively feeling everybody got from being spiritually free.

Happy.

I always immediately felt like I was finally happy whenever I went to a rave. Sometimes when I'm sad or I miss Aria, I'll close my eyes and picture myself at a rave, jumping up and down dancing with strangers and just having a good fucking time.

Aria grabbed her bag, swinging it around in front of her unzipping it in the process. She pulled out the ziplock bag, jiggling it in front of me as she pulled out the sheet of the tiny square absorbent paper with cute little looney toons characters.

My heart beat jolted quickly inside my chest, the same time my mouth filled with saliva; It's almost as if my body knew exactly what those little square tabs are and it almost as if it was waiting expectantly.

Just as quickly as we began to grin at one another, Aria suddenly stumbled forward, causing my arms to shoot out to stable her almost instantly.

Just as fast as I had stabled her, before I could even ask if she was okay, we both turned to look toward the unknown voice.

"I am so sorry!" A girl about our age began apologizing profusely. Her pale blonde hair was decorated with glitter and pulled back into two messy space buns. Her freckled cheeks pulled into a frown, her own tiny hands reaching out toward Aria to make sure she was alright.

Almost as if we were the same person, Aria and I both began to shake our heads, brushing off the incident. However, we couldn't help but to grin as we watched the poor frightened girl continue to mutter apologies even after Aria had told her it was alright.

"Really, it's okay! It's to be expected at this point honestly." I chimed in this time. Her light eyes flickered to me and back to Aria, still pleading with us.

"I'm really so sorry, I really gotta learn how to watch where I'm going." She apologized once again, in return causing Aria and I to giggle.

I slipped two bracelets off of my wrist as I held them out to her, "Kandi?" Her grin grew if that was possible at this point, mimicking my movements and slipping two of her bracelets off. We exchanged, she turned to Aria, to repeat the process stopping herself almost immediately.

"And what kind of 'Candy' do we have here?" She questioned teasingly causing Aria to jiggle the bag again but this time to the new comer. "Would you like to trip with us? I promise you they aren't lace." Our newfound friend nodded as she reached back and tugged her friend closer to her side. "I'm Ivy and this is Juniper." I grinned at both of them as Aria spoke for us.

Juniper was dressed in a bright tye-dye outfit, her fiery short red hair blending in perfectly. "I'm Aria and this is Lincoln." She motioned between us as she leaned forward a little bit more so they could hear her better.