The doorbell rang a few minutes before half past eight, telling me the first of Levi's guests was here. I quickly said bye to Mikayla, signed off How To Get A Life and checked myself in the mirror. A navy blue skirt and a Hollister t-shirt and jacket. Perfect, although not as slutty as the badass day. I shuddered, remembering how awful that idea was. At least I didn't feel as exposed this time.
As I checked my hair and make-up one more time, I heard the door open.
"Happy birthday, Levi!" Two girls chorused downstairs in sickeningly sweet voices. Ashley, the girlfriend, and Francis, the girl that made me unpopular in the first place. I sighed and looked over my reflection one last time.
Time to be a party girl, Lexi.
"Welcome to Levi and Lexi's party!" My mum's voice rang out from downstairs. "Lexi! Your first guests have arrived!"
"Coming, Mum!" I tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear and ran down the stairs to see my mother wearing an apron and embarrassing Levi, and Ashley and Francis giggling and whispering into each other's ears. Once the girls saw me, they glared at me quickly, as if they wanted to throw me out of my own house.
Brilliant.
As soon as my mum turned around, Ashley and Francis turned their simpering sweet faces back on and my mum smiled back.
"Well, you look like lovely girls to be my Levi and Lexi's best friends!" My mum exclaimed. Fake smiles appeared on all of our faces, although they probably wanted to throw up at the sight of me.
If only you really knew who they really were.
"Have a nice time - remember, the party must be over by eleven at the latest!" My mum planted a kiss on both mine and Levi's cheeks, which I quickly wiped off again. "Remember, no alcohol or naked bodies! Good night!"
I felt myself blushing bright red at the mention of naked bodies, which all three people standing in front of me noticed and started laughing. My mum went upstairs, waving towards us.
I was expecting Levi to announce the beginning of the party, but instead, he walked towards the two girls and stood in a huddle whispering to each other, whilst I was leaning against the wall awkwardly.
But everyone on How To Get A Life told me I had to be a party girl. This was my birthday party. None of my friends were here with me; nobody was here to stop me. I wanted to be popular. Being a party girl couldn't do any harm - it was just being a little louder and crazier than normal. Anyway, if I pulled this off, everyone would realise I was just a normal human being like they were and they would stop singling me out. Of course I would stay friends with Holly and Robyn and them lot, but I wanted people to like me. Levi to appreciate me. Everyone to actually give me a chance.
"So, let's get this party started!" I shouted, my voice slightly uneasy. All three teenagers turned around and stared at me as if I was insane.
Three seconds later, they started laughing their heads off and started tapping around on their phones.
Oh well, you have to start somewhere, I thought to myself.
But I followed them to the living room, where our Christmas fairy lights were hanging up to try and make the dark room look 'cool'.
The decorations kind of failed, but I had to admit, our living room looked a lot more modern than it normally did. We had our new stereo playing some kind of dubstep music and the food and drink crowding up the whole of the conservatory. Levi, Ashley and Francis sat down on the sofa, chatting while I sat down next to them silently. Francis noticed me.
"If you knew your place, you would be out of here, party-pooper," Francis snarled.
"Yeah, Lexi-Loo," Levi said, smirking.
I tried to keep my attitude up. "And why would I do that?"
"Ooh, someone's getting angry," Francis teased.
"Well, I guess we're stuck with this bitch for tonight. Just don't mess up our lives like you've already done!" Ashley said, sniggering.
What did I do to them, except spill Sprite a few weeks ago onto Francis' skirt?
Thankfully, I was saved from having to think up a witty reply by the doorbell ringing. Everyone except me went to answer the door.
"ISAAC! Hey man," Levi said from behind the door.
Great. The whole popular crowd to deal with alone now.
Luckily, as soon as Levi closed the door again, the doorbell rang again.
For the next half an hour, I moped around trying to look like I was popular whilst the doorbell kept ringing and ringing. Every few seconds, someone would be literally cheered into the room, and attacked with a bunch of hugs. Someone had opened the conservatory door as well, so the food had started being attacked as well. Nine o' clock and there was already popcorn and Coke all over the carpet.
To be honest, I was hanging around the food and drink station trying to talk to everyone who came my way. This party wasn't particularly entertaining, since all anyone was doing was sipping fizzy drinks whilst listening to garage music and gossiping with their friends.
I wasn't exactly friends with anyone in the room, so there was no way I could get popular if the whole night went like this.
No more being-a-wallflower time, Lexi. Time to take matters into your own hands.
"Come on guys!" I shouted at the top of my voice. Everyone stared at me for two seconds, and started sniggering.
"This party is boring-ass! Just talking? We need some good fun in our life! You're not just going to spend the whole night eating food and chatting with your friends! We can do way better things than this crap!"
For a moment everyone paused.
I wondered if I had done something wrong by standing up and saying that, but then Levi stood up.
"You're right, bitch," Levi said. Everyone giggled quietly at the word 'bitch'. "Let's have a real bash here!" Levi started walking through the crowds, towards the kitchen.
"Wait!" I said. "What about Mum?"
Levi winked. "I have a plan."
The next few minutes were a blur as a few cheerleaders picked the lock to the garage, and Levi brought out packs of beer and champagne, Ashley made some cocktails in the kitchen (as much as I hated my brother's girlfriend, she was quite good at it), some random boy got much more food out and we did the Mum Mission.
Levi and one of his friends ran up the stairs whilst we pretended to be calmly listening to some chart music, and asked Mum for some more Coke, complaining that "more people turned up than expected". Our extremely gullible mother walked out of the front door to go to Tesco, and everyone quickly moved all the tables and chairs in front of the door and locking it.
Inside I knew it was really mean to my mum, but after all, it wasn't my idea. I had to go along with what their plan was, to lock her out, however sorry I felt for her. Hopefully my mum would assume somebody accidentally jammed the door or something, stay at her friend Nikki's for the night and phone us in the morning.
At least, that's how the Populars reassured us.
And that was when all hell broke loose.
Well done, Lexi.
Over half the people at the party took a bottle of beer or champagne out and either started throwing it all over the room or chugging it down their throats. People ran up the stairs (luckily my bedroom had a lock on it, that nobody bothered to try and unlock) and started running free. We turned the speakers up to full volume, Black Sabbath now playing at an almost deafening volume. I screamed and shouted along with everyone else, drinking my Coke. I didn't want to get drunk like everyone else - I knew the effects.
A few people had even gone outside into the night-time to smoke, and I was sure some of them were smoking weed.
Maybe it wasn't a good idea to tell everyone to start partying hard, but at least I was getting involved now. I had eaten the most amount of Doritos that I had ever eaten in my life, I had managed to have a few normal conversations with popular people, tried out pink lemonade and joined in a very energetic game of hide and seek.
Not the babies' version, but the teenagers' version.
A slightly drunk girl counted up to one-hundred-and-forty-six for some reason, whilst we all hid. Well, tried to hide.
A few drunk people tried to hide by lying down, a few people hid behind a door and one person even tried camouflaging themselves with Pringles.
Yeah, I think that dude was one of the druggies from our year.
I went upstairs to the deserted room in our house that nobody used and hardly anyone would even notice the door. It used to be the guest room for the people who lived here before us, but since there were four other bedrooms and only three of us in the house, we already had a spare bedroom. So the old guest room was just the room for miscellaneous junk.
I thought nobody would be inside, until I managed to open the door with a loud squeak.
And inside, there was Levi and Ashley having a little make-out session.
But oh no, not just making out. Oh no.
There was definitely tongue action going on in the mouth, and it seemed like they had been kissing for hours, yet none of them seemed to be gasping for oxygen. In fact, they were just making awkward noises of pleasure.
Eww eww eww eww eww eww.
To make matters worse, Levi already had his shirt off and while Ashley had her hands as close to his bottom as she could without actually touching it, Levi was snaking his hands up her top.
I was past getting jealous of Ashley being the only girl in Levi's life now, and I was now getting more and more disgusted by the way they were coming so close to literally getting in bed together.
Wow. I didn't think my brother would be so gross.
Also, actually thinking of tactics for Hide and Seek was a very bad idea, as I had managed to forget that Levi also lived in the house and also knew about the secret room. And of course, the secret guest room was a perfect place to secretly have a romantic moment.
Suddenly I saw Ashley's blouse getting unbuttoned and that made me run the hell out of there.
I sprinted to the bathroom, but of course someone was inside there hiding and I couldn't vomit in there.
Eww eww eww eww eww eww.
My eyes were scarred for life and I had no idea how I would ever erase that vision from my head, but firstly I needed to find somewhere where I could throw up at the idea of Levi and Ashley getting too far.
But then I ran into the living room, and bumped into the girl who was counting. The girl was quite drunk, so she seemed to 'wake up' and remembered she was meant to be looking for people by now. She spotted me though, and grabbed me.
I need to get to a toilet.
"Found you!"
Now. I'm going to throw up.
"Hey, where the heck is everyone else? Bloody hell."
Get off me!
"Anyway, who the fuck are you?"
I need a bathroom now.
"You're Lexi, aren't you? Levi's stupid sister!"
That was when I vomited all over her.
Good going, Lexi, I thought as the orange-green slime dribbled out of my mouth.
Well, it wasn't that much. But there was a lot of stinking vomit on her shoes, and she screamed.
Literally. She screamed.
"GUYS! THIS BITCH HAS JUST VOMITED ALL OVER ME! SERIOUSLY! EWW EWW EWW EWW EWW!"
This girl had an astonishingly loud and high-pitched voice, which made most of the people rush over and come and see, whilst I blended into the background pretending that I had not just emptied my stomach of everything I'd eaten today. I wasn't surprised that Levi and Ashley didn't come downstairs, seeing as they were the people who had made me sick by their romance at fifteen years old. Luckily, the girl was so drunk that she didn't remember who it was. In fact, she told everyone that the girl who had vomited all over her had light brown hair with black streaks.
My hair was blonde, so I was fine for now.
I was sure that people would have definitely suspected me if she had said it was a girl with blonde hair, because everyone thought I was one-hundred-percent bull, but I was safe.
The game of hide and seek was completely cancelled after that, as the girl went to clean her shoes (yet the method for cleaning the carpet was to just place tissues over the slime and have lots of people slip on it) and I went back to the food and drink area to have another glass of pink lemonade.
Pink lemonade was definitely one of my favourite things that I had ever had. It was slightly different to normal lemonade, and it was a little more sour, but it was addictive and my new favourite drink. I couldn't stop, and so, after about ten more glasses and a bunch of cherries as well, I went over to Levi (who had finally finished his romantic moment with Ashley and had come back downstairs in a new shirt).
"Hey, Levi, we've run out of pink lemonade," I said, sounding more casual than I had ever sounded in my life.
Levi looked slightly confused. "Pink lemonade?"
I assumed it wasn't him that had bought the lemonade. "You know, the pink drink. It's so nice!"
"Oh, that. Yeah, I'll go get more," Levi grinned, walking away and whispering to a few people on the way. A few people started laughing. Must have been Levi telling them about a fail or something, because they seemed pretty amused. When Levi came back with three more giant bottles, as soon as he poured them into the glasses I immediately reached for one.
And drank.
And drank.
My head was starting to pound from all the music, but I felt that I was finally settling into the party. My loudness and craziness was growing into me, and I was laughing and chatting and feeling...free, for once. Like I was finally settling in.
Like I could finally be popular.
Ten minutes later, Francis announced a game of Spin the Bottle. I was particularly excited for this - I had never played such an adult game before, and I was really looking forward to it. Some of the people were too busy acting like morons or doing drugs to bother to join in, but I sat in a circle with about fifteen other people.
As I sipped more and more of my lemonade, everything started to feel a little wobbly.
"Francis, spin the bottle!" everyone chanted. Francis's green eyes seemed to flash brighter, and she spun the empty beer bottle.
"It's landed on...Chad!" Ashley chanted. Even if Francis was dating Isaac, she didn't seem particularly bothered as she leant in and kissed Chad. I think it got a bit further than just kissing, but I wasn't sure. I was feeling a bit dizzy so I wasn't sure if it was my imagination or not. To be honest, it did keep flashing from making out to a peck to making out again.
I didn't really know how long it lasted either - it was like my brain had turned into mush and I couldn't think. However, I kept going. Anyway, pink lemonade made it a bit better.
Chad spun the bottle next, and it pointed at Isaac.
"Oh-my-God-it's-a-gay-kiss!" I squealed. I wasn't even thinking of it with that much energy; it just seemed to come right out of my mouth. Thankfully, nobody thought it was too weird as everyone started laughing. Some laughs sounded a bit evil in my head, but I didn't really care.
Isaac and Chad, after a little bit of protesting, gave each other a quick peck on the lips. The room seemed to sway a bit as we did it.
"Hey, can you turn the music down a bit? It's kind of hurting my head," I said.
"Sure!" Ashley said, her smile seeming a lot more genuine than it normally was. The horrible sound of the 5 Luts was finally quieter, yet the ringing in my head didn't stop.
"Go on, Isaac, spin the bottle!" everyone said, whilst I drank more and more pink lemonade. I was sure I was addicted to it now - I had been non-stop drinking it since the party started. I had no idea what time it was now.
The thing was that I seemed to become more of a party girl when I drank it. And that's what I wanted.
"Oh my gosh!" A girl said, and everyone gasped. I looked up to see to see the beer bottle pointing at me.
"Lexi!" Ashley said, shocked. "It's landed on you! A Popular and the loser have to kiss!"
"No," Isaac said flatly.
"What?" I blurted out, my mouth controlling me. "Why not?"
Isaac was about to say something, but Levi looked at me strangely. "Because you're my sister! Not only my sister, but also my twin sister! And not just my twin sister, but you're you! Why would Isaac want to kiss you?"
I took another gulp of my lemonade. Why was Isaac refusing to kiss me? I couldn't help thinking it, but he was incredibly hot in that outfit. You could see his muscles starting to form under his shirt. The way his blonde hair stood up in the exact right place. The way his blue-grey eyes seemed to sparkle, the way that when he smiled his gorgeous smile, you could see dimples. This boy was the definition of hot.
And I wasn't going to turn him down.
"So what? You're still sooooo hot," I whispered, putting on a seductive voice. I could tell everyone was trying not to laugh, but then, I knew they were just shocked that I knew how to be romantic.
"No, idiot. No," Isaac said. Was he worried?
"Yes," I grinned, crawling towards him.
"Lexi, you've had too much to drink."
"Drink? Me? No, you're just so..." I thought of a word and drank some more lemonade.
"Ugly, stupid, annoyi-"
I cut him off by placing my lips onto his. They were soft and tender. I really started to snog him, but it seemed to end as quickly as it started. Isaac pulled away, taking something from my hand and backing against the wall.
"Don't. Do that. Again," Isaac said, his voice shaky. Levi was watching me warily from behind.
"Why did you-" I started, until I saw the pink lemonade in his hand. I grabbed it from him and chugged the rest of it down my throat..
I went back for Isaac, trapping him against the wall. I couldn't really comprehend what I was doing; I just let my body go with the flow. I mean, I was sure he had a six-pack, the way he exercised. The way he was just the right height for me, just a tiny bit taller. The way he had that cheeky smile on his face all the time.
"Don't worry, Isaac," I whispered. "It'll be fine. It's just spin the bottle."
"NO!"
Before I could do anything more, I felt something sticky get tipped all over me, distracting me and causing Isaac to jump up and run away.
"Why did you run away, Isaac?" I shouted, licking my lips. Pink lemonade. "And who spilled that on me?"
"Me," someone said. I wasn't sure who - everything looked quite blurry. But I was pretty certain that voice was Levi's. "Drink more, Lexi. It'll make you feel better."
"Yes," I agreed. I took the bottle from him and drank as much as I could. I could feel everything drifting away, becoming dream-like and vague.
Then everything went black.
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Hellooo! I'm so sorry this is a day late, I don't actually have an excuse this time because my cough has gone (but every time I breathe in the wrong way I have a coughing fit that basically makes me start crying haha) but yeah, I'm really sorry :/ I'll try and get the next chapter up sooner!
Dedicated to @Zidomi, one of my best friends :)
Song on the side: We Are Young by fun.
Thanks for reading! :)