(I DOUBT THAT YOU WONT KNOW THE SONG BUT IF YOU DON'T, HERE IT'S LINKED)
"Are you sure you want to go to this party?" Zach says, sitting at his desk.
Him and I have gotten super close over this past month. I mean, we as a group have spent probably every single day together since the party at Jack's. Now that I think of it, I haven't gone a day without seeing 1 of them. Either I'm sleeping over at Emerson's or helping Corbyn clean his room, or even going shopping with Jonah for Wes, I might as well be glued to them. I also haven't heard so much pop music in my life, but luckily, I've gotten them all to listen to dinosaur jr. so it's not half as bad.
"Yeah dude. It's halloween. I finally get to see what the hype is about. Plus I already put it in the journal so I have to." I say, sitting up from his bed.
"Ah, the legendary journal. At some point, I'm gonna stick a why don't we sticker on there. Might make it look less messy," Zach gets up and sits next to me. "Is Nate coming?" he looks at me. I lay back down, staring at his ceiling, the sunlight shining brightly on it.
"First off, my journal isn't messy, the stickers make it cute. You also aren't allowed to touch it, much less put stickers on it. Second, Still haven't talked to him. He's declined all my calls. Won't answer my voicemail. Nothing. Literally didn't even see him for our 3 months." I sigh, my eyes still stuck on the ceiling.
He lays down next to me, both our eyes now facing the wall, "I'm sorry Ira."
"You know how I feel about that."
"Yeah I know. Pity, blah blah blah." He says, gesturing at the ceiling about my long talks.
"So, you bringing a special girl?" I say, turning my head to look at him.
"Nah. unless you're trying to go with me." He jokes.
"Please Herron. I might have not talked to my boyfriend but I still have one."
"Yeah, yeah." he scoffs, turning his head to make eye contact with me.
The second his eyes greet mine, my mouth goes dry. He has this weird overlying effect on me, not even Nate has. These little moments we have, they cling to my brain. His hand will linger on the small of my back for too long. He'll grab my hand and be so close to interlacing our fingers, it burns, but then he'll just drop it. I feel so unbelievably guilty for feeling the way I do with him but it's hard not to.
I continue staring into his eyes, trying to figure out what he's thinking about. He drops his eyes to my lips, then back up at my eyes, my stomach twists and turns. I try to figure out every single emotion with him, but one single thought always pops out.
I want to kiss him. Just for a minute, I'd even be okay with a second.
Kira, you have a boyfriend.
He doesn't look at you like that. He also doesn't LOOK like that.
He slightly coughs, breaking our deep eye contact. The friendship feeling regains my body control, "You ready to join the skeleton clan?"
"Never refer to us as the skeleton clan again." I grimace, putting our moment behind us.
He didn't feel anything compared to what I just felt. Like every single one of our other moments, he just brushes it off like it's nothing.
"I THOUGHT IT WAS COOL." I sit up to look at him.
"We need to work on your idea of cool." I grab his phone to check the time. "C'mon, we have to go meet everyone."
*
As we drive along, music always plays. There's never awkward silence between us, but we both still regularly play music. Zach's music taste is so much more different than mine but will give me the aux every other time.
I wonder why he does that.
Zach looks over at me. "Kira?" he asks, his eyes still on the road.
"Yeah?" I ask, looking up from my hands. I put on all my favorite rings, trying to figure out what worked with my costume.
"You'll check other peoples phones, clocks, even Corbyn's watch. Why don't you like checking your phone?"
"Well, my dad taught me to never rely on my own technology. Something about how you need someone else to rely on survival, be independent but not alone. He'd always bring up the fact lone wolves were more likely to die. But I guess it's just a habit to check everyone else's before mine. The logic isn't completely there but he always said check everyone else before yourself." I say, slightly laughing at the memory.
He would walk us into random stores to ask the time or directions, to the point where my mom would ban him from certain stores. We were never on time to anything but all the memories of us finding a new boutique or cool pet store made up for it.
"You don't talk much about your dad. Well at least not about how he is now. Just old stories. Why?" he looks over at me, trying to read my emotions.
"He died. There's not much to it." I say bluntly, playing with my rings. I don't ever sugar coat what happened to him.
A good man got sick, REALLY SICK and died. As he used to explain it, life happens. Sometimes, when you aren't looking, prostate cancer comes to ruin your life. We found out when 3 weeks before my 9th birthday. I knew what cancer was but never ever in my life was I personally affected by it. I didn't know the severity until you're sitting in front of your birthday cake, being told your dad has stage 4 and has 5 years at most left. '
"Oh." He sounds like the breath he had was just sucked out of him. He breathes in continuing the conversation.
"Kira, there's a lot more to it. If you don't want to talk about it, that's okay. But don't just disregard your feelings. Y'know?"
I reach out, touching his hand on the gear shift. "Thanks Z." I smile at him, hoping he can feel my smile.
*
As people start to roll in, the bass amps.
"Shit, y'all love your bass." I say to Jack. All of our faces are covered in paint to make it look like we are skeletons. I'm not Van Gogh but definitely a solid skeletal system.
"Duh, that's what makes a party." he replies, rolling his eyes.
"I feel like that's not-"
"Dude, why are we not drunk yet?" Emerson interrupts, walking up to us. Her hair is slicked back to show off her makeup and her dark clothing.
"We got to work on your alcoholism." Jonah says, draping an arm around her.
"WHEN DID YOU GET HERE?" She smacked him in the chest, astonished. He's been with his family for the past week but flew in this morning. He wasn't planning on coming but Zach convinced him to bring the girl he's been talking about, so he came early so I could do his make up.
"First off, OW." he rubs where she hit. "Second, I flew in this morning, Kir did my makeup like 10 mins ago. Had to surprise my girlfriend." he says sarcastically.
"YOU KNEW HE WAS COMING?" she says, looking at me.
"We all did." I say the point at the group, taking a sip of my cup. "He just wanted to surprise you with something."
"What something? I haven't seen you in so long." She hugs him tight.
Emerson shows her love for everyone, but she really loves Jonah. Not even romantically, she genuinely just cares for him. She's not an open person, but I swear seeing those two interacts is like watching complete opposites meld. It's like twin flames but even better.
"You saw me like last Monday." he laughs, hugging her back. "But the surprise is, you're gonna meet the girl I've been seeing." He smiles at her.
"SO YOU ALL WERE GONNA KEEP THAT FROM ME?"
We all look at each other, "Pretty much." Corbyn said.
"So are we getting plastered or what?" Daniel says, rubbing his hands together.
*
I've become a pro at downing shots. It might be because I think of them as water or because of my alcohol tolerance now, but I'm really good at it. I haven't let myself get drunk in a few weeks. I'm still to my 1 drink limit and drive everyone back home. But I realized I need to stop acting so in control. Nate, even with my best friends growing up with my family, I always care for them. I make sure they're okay before I can do anything, and it just ruins my own self outlook. I promised myself I'd let go of college, actually enjoy myself.
I don't want to always have to be the mature one.
"Kira Jade, can I just say how proud of you I am?" Jack says as Emerson shoves a lime into my mouth.
"Thank you Jacky." I say, puckering at the sourness. I bring my hand up to slightly smudged his makeup back into place. "Perfect!" I smile.
"Let's go dance." Daniel says, grabbing Franny's hand. She lets out a yelp getting dragged onto the dance floor. I run after them, feeling the tequila flow through me. It almost feels like I'm going as hard as Julia Stiles dancing to hypnotize in that one movie Isabella makes us watch until we are sick.
Emerson comes up to me, dancing just as hard. "Shit, you in 10 things I hate about you?"
Ah, that's the movie.
"C'mon, I have to go as hard as physically possible." I yell at her. The bass is pumping so hard, I can feel it in my ribcage. Emerson and I continue dancing as a song fills the air around us, (scroll up)
Cameras are flashin' while we're dirty dancin'.
They keep watching (They keep watching)
Keep watching
Feels like the crowd are saying
Gimme, gimme (More)
Gimme (More)
Whoever runs aux needs a kiss goodnight because they couldn't have possibly chosen a better Brittany song. I don't think I've ever let go like this, to the point where the music consumes me, and all I can feel is the beats. As the song finally ends, I catch my breath, looking at Emerson, who's doing the same.
"Drinks?" I ask her.
"Yes please. Something light though." She huffs.
"I'll be back. Stay put." Em blows a kiss in my direction as I walk off.
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@ seaveydaniel
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seaveydaniel:💀
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bryne.bitch: dead asf
user1: sp00ky
endlesssummers: fire ass makeup
user2: ain't this where we play spooky scary skeletons?
user3: 💀💀
iguessitslaila: wowie
↳seaveydaniel: 💙
↳iguessitslaila: no because I am in fact freaking out
user4: go ahead bestie!
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word count: 1893
the next chapter is GREAT, I hope y'all love this book as much as I do
much love
~ nish