"Jesus!" Arlo blasphemed as a really drunk guy puked all over the bonnet of Eli's car. He honked the horn and the guy shit himself, swearing loud enough for his voice to pierce through the glass. Arlo started laughing hysterically.
"You're such a dick." I commented. He tugged on the door handle and it didn't budge. I couldn't hold back a gasp as the panic flooded in once again.
With force he pushed his elbow into the glass and the whole thing cracked up the middle, he winced as it grazed his bare skin.
He leaned his hand out the window and opened the car from the outside before coming around to open mine too.
"Stay close, okay? If I lose you in the crowd, I'm leaving you here." I rolled my eyes at him. Together we pushed through crowds of pre-pubescent kids, all drunk out of their minds.
The whole place had been teepeed with toilet paper and the pungent alcohol stench permeated the air.
"Arlo!" A girl grabbed his arm and when he tried to shake her off she licked him. "How come you're at my party?" She couldn't stand or talk properly.
"I'm not, you're dreaming." He told her, moving her away and continuing through the house.
"Stay and have a drink with us." She pulled his t-shirt like a damn chain, following us to the bathroom. "Remember when I sucked your dickkk?" She laughed drunkenly to herself.
"What?" I cried out in horror. The girl must've only been fourteen, fifteen at the most.
"I didn't. That didn't happen." He told me.
"It did, at the burger joint in the bathroom." She pushed her tongue into her cheek and moved her other hand backwards and forwards next to her mouth.
"Oh my god." I felt completely disgusted, firstly, why would anyone do that and secondly isn't she a little young for Arlo?
"Shellfish will you just shut the fuck up?" He snapped at the drunk girl. Finally we got to the bathroom and he knocked on the door "Chloe?" The door unlocked and she yanked him inside.
The drunk girl looked me up and down, holding herself upright with the help of the hallway wall. Her heavy eyes kept roaming involuntarily due to her intoxication.
"Why would you want to do that to him?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. She smiled sloppily.
"Because he's so fucking hot have you seen him and his dick is so big and it tastes mighty fine and I think I'm in love with him and all my friends are jealous and he's so fucking hot have you seen him?"
"But you put it in your mouth?" I asked slowly, not quite grasping the concept of why anyone would want to do that. It sounded so disgustingly unhygienic.
"All the way down to my tonsils." She answered.
He unlocked the door and both of our eyes widened at him. "Get in here." He pulled me inside the bathroom and locked the door again. I yanked my arm away from him like he was poison.
"None of that happened, she's fourteen for fucks sake. She's chatting shit like all of the other girls who say they've fucked me."
I crossed my arms over my stomach. "She sounds pretty sure." I told him.
"Ask her." My bewildered expression made him continue. "Ask her what I've got down there, she won't be able to answer. None of them will. They're all lying little bitches."
"What are you talking about?" Chloe asked as she swayed from side to side on the toilet seat.
"She knows." Arlo answered vaguely, pointing at me with his chin. "I want you to show me who the guy was." She looked up to face him, her emerald green eyes made even brighter with the wetness of her tears.
"I can't he took another girl into the bedroom because I wouldn't go with him." Arlo stood up, pulling her to her feet.
"What are you going to do?" He smirked and raised his eyebrows at us both.
"Wee Willy winky isn't getting any tonight." He unlocked the door and searched the bedrooms, we followed closely behind.
When he got to the last bedroom the door opened to two people caught in the act. "This him Chlo?" She nodded.
"What the fuck?" The girl shouted from underneath him, she pushed him off and covered herself up, away from all of the prying eyes gawking in from the hallway. Arlo grabbed him by his neck and dragged him down the stairs, stark naked and still rocking a boner.
"Get the fuck off me!" He screamed.
"What the fuck you crazy bastard!" He tried fighting but he was far weaker than Arlo.
"Who the fuck are you? Leave me alone!" Arlo dragged him outside and pushed him up against Eli's shitty car.
"It's fucking sick trying to pressure girls to touch your scrawny little dick. When you feel the need to do it in the future I want you to always remember this moment." Arlo punched him in his face, his lip instantly pissing with blood.
"Arlo!" I shouted.
He grabbed the guy by his mop of mousy brown hair and slammed his face down on the bonnet of Eli's car, right in the vomit from earlier. He swiped his face all over the puddle of sick, making sure he got some in his mouth as well clinging to his skin and hair.
"Remember how fucking sick it is you dirty fucking bastard. You should not pressure girls to do anything, consent is everything. Remember this!" Arlo pushed him to the ground and pointed at the car for Chloe and me to get in.
With one window broke the car was breezy on the way home. Billowy strands of my hair swooped over my forehead like a fine silk.
Nobody spoke for the longest time, Chloe fell asleep in the back seat and I was processing everything I had seen and heard tonight.
"What you said back there... about consent, it was a little hypocritical don't you think?" He glanced at Chloe through the central mirror, she was sleeping soundly.
"No." He offered informatively.
"You kissed me without consent." I whispered.
"Don't do that." He shook his head at me.
"Don't do what?" I was clueless.
"Don't pretend like the signals weren't there. I'll admit at first I panicked, the cops were after me and I just needed a way out. So I kissed you, I apologise for that, it over stepped boundaries clearly. But it wasn't like some intimate kiss. I barely touched you, I kissed you like I kiss my mom and had you been a normal person you'd probably be okay with that. But then you were the one who deepened the kiss. You wanted to make out, so I did."
"Don't flatter yourself Arlo, you repulse me." I sounded disgruntled but he was right, why couldn't I admit that?
He stopped the car in the middle of the empty road. "What are you doing? Drive." I uttered nervously.
He swivelled in his seat to fully face me. "What are you doing?" I repeated starting to get more and more panicked.
I looked back at Chloe, she was breathing heavily but not snoring and her eyes were still firmly closed.
"You're nervous, why would you be nervous if you're so sure I repulse you?" He dropped his voice seductively lower and slowly brushed away the blown hair from my face.
My breathing slowed and I couldn't help but gaze deeply at him. He closed his fingers around my chin and moved my face closer to his.
"Your pupils have dilated, making your eyes darker, you're pressing your thighs together subconsciously, your breasts are moving up and down in a rapid motion because I'm stealing away your breath and you can't stop looking at my lips, remembering the taste of our last kiss and wondering if I'll still taste the same right now."
He said his words slowly, so his lips moved at an aching speed and then he licked them ever so slightly to moisten them before he brought his face even closer to mine and I fluttered my eyes closed anticipating the touch of his kiss.
"I want to kiss you right now." I could feel his words bouncing off the soft flesh of my face. Warm, sweet and seductive. "I've wanted to kiss you every day since our first kiss."
Then do it!
Kiss me!
If you don't, I think I'll enter cardiac arrest!
"But if I kissed you now" He whispered into the millimetre of air separating his lips and mine. "Would you tell me you didn't want it?"
I exhaled a small amount of air, releasing my stubborn regret.
"Would you tell me it wasn't consensual? That I stole yet another kiss from you?"
I closed my mouth and gulped, letting him know that was exactly what I would say because I wasn't brave enough. I could hear every profanity screaming in my mind, every racial, homophobic slur. I could feel my fathers shrapnel buried beneath my skin. He backed away and I opened my eyes, blinking back the focus.
"That's why I'm not going to kiss you right now."
The disappointment stabbed into me like knives, giving me a hard, cold dose of reality. He turned the key and restarted the engine.
"Good." I muttered stubbornly, sitting myself back in the seat, feeling so frustrated right now I could've actually killed him.
"Good." He repeated and then refused to talk to me for the rest of the way.
When he pulled into the driveway of the Maines household I immediately reached for the door handle wanting to escape this tension.
"Wait." He grabbed my arm back. "I wanted to tell you..." I sat back in my chair and listened. "At the hotel you were really scared about them kicking you out. You need to stop worrying about that, they won't kick you out."
"You don't know that."
"I do." He answered sincerely. "You know about Liams past, right?" I shook my head. "They won't turn their back on you Blossom. This is your home so start believing it."
I turned to leave but just before stepping out of the car I glanced back at him.
"Arlo?"
"What?"
"Please tell me why you're mad at me." He sighed deeply, his whole body moving on impact.
"Mo fe fe e, Ololufe mi"
(I want to date you, my lover.)
"What?"
"Because I like you. I want to date you. But it's not reciprocated and it can't be, right?" I glanced nervously at Chloe but she hadn't moved and still remained sound asleep.
Very slowly I nodded my head, feeling so many negative feelings inside I just wanted to burst into tears.
Arlo nodded quietly. "It's because I'm black, right?"
How did he know?
"You don't understand what would happen if-"
"That's why I'm mad at you. Because it's easier to be mad at you than to want you."
He pulled on his door handle and opened up the backseat, picking Chloe up into his arms and carrying her inside. I had no choice but to follow behind him, taking my regret with me.