Mari and Charlie walked back into the venue just as Ava reached the stage to make some announcements. Stefan, Blake, Dustin, and Laurie were hovering by the side with drinks.
"Are you really holding a bowl of chips to yourself?" Mari snorted at Dustin, who was protecting his bowl.
"I'm not really surprised at this point. Is that bad?" Laurie joked. Charlie walked towards Stefan with a determined look. He looked over his shoulder and noticed her swaying a bit. She grabbed his waist and pulled him closer only she tugged on him a little too much sending him to crash right into her body. She stumbled backwards but not before he grabbed her arm and prevented her from falling. Again, she grabbed his waist and pulled him closer. He leaned in and sniffed her breath.
"Are you kidding me? Why? You could get in trouble! Charlie?" Stefan scolded.
"I'm not doing anything!" Charlie giggled and held onto him in a suffocating embrace. His arms were out and above her as he looked down at his drunk date.
"I know, I know," Mari intervened. "I told her not to."
Stefan leaned into Mari and pulled back with a frown once he took a whiff. "Mari!" he gasped.
"What? She made me! Plus, you know I can hold down my alcohol. She... well... obviously can't."
Charlie smiled goofily and swayed with the music. She felt amazing and she could see the music notes flying into the air as her friends argued.
"Let's... let's dance, guys! Come on, form a circle!" she exclaimed. "I'm not drunk, guys!"
Everyone looked at her with a complacent look. "Okay, so maybe I am but I'm still right in the mind! Blake, come on!" Charlie insisted, grabbing Blake's hand and dancing.
"I like drunk Charlie. Let's keep her," he laughed, as he twirled her around. She stumbled a little bit but held onto his shoulder.
"We need to get her away and sober up. Ms. Dutch is looking this way," Stefan said, sternly. "God, I didn't think she was this lightweight."
"Well, she didn't eat," Mari squeaked. "Hey, don't blame me! This is all on her! She went to Joey for this."
"Just when I think I know her, she pulls this shit," Stefan chuckled. "I'm gonna' go take her out into the hall and just wait it out."
"I'll go with you!" Mari said.
"Nah, you go hang with Isaac, wherever he is."
"I have a feeling he doesn't like me. He just kind of disappeared," she said, shrugging her shoulders. It didn't bother her as much as she thought it would.
"Makes the two of us. Rachel left early," Blake chimed in. Stefan held Charlie's hand and walked towards the doors. She leaned her head and weight on him as he pushed the doors and entered a different hallway.
"You... sit here," he muttered under his breath while he slid her down against the wall by a closet and onto her bottom. "I'm going to go find some water for you." Charlie yawned and nodded her head. She could still hear the music playing in her head.
Stefan walked into the kitchen of the cafeteria where the vending machines were. He inserted a dollar and pushed the button for a water bottle. It had only taken two minutes but by the time he had gotten back to where he left Charlie, she was gone. He gulped and looked around the corner for her.
"Charlie?" he called out. He noticed the closet door open and looked in only to find several tools, 'Caution' floor signs, and cardboard boxes. His mind started racing with so many possibilities. If a teacher caught Charlie intoxicated, there's no way she could get out of that mess. She could be suspended or worse – expelled. He marched back into the gym to his friends.
"Uh... I think I lost her."
"See that girl," Allie eyed towards a blonde girl in the corner, "is going to go and cut in that boy's dance and suck on his face," she continued gazing at the brunette boy dancing with a redhead. Sure enough, the blonde girl scrunched her face into pure determination and vengeance, placed a red solo cup onto the nearby table, and stomped towards the dancing couple. A few words exchanged between the girl and the boy ending with the redhead timidly stepping away and the blonde girl giving a victorious smirk. Thirty seconds later, the girl and the boy were embracing each other and locking lips. They separated their lock and the girl held hands with the boy leading them off the dance floor.
"How did you even know?" Remi awed, panning his vision as he watched the couple walk out the gymnasium doors in amusement. Allie chuckled, shrugging her shoulders. Okay, so maybe she was more observant than her friend.
"That was her ex-boyfriend," she explained. "I've been working here for a very long time."
"Do we go and stop them?"
"We should," Allie stared out to the dance floor. The music changed to a high-paced Spanish remixed song that caused nearly everyone to run to the dance floor and shriek in excitement, grabbing a partner to do a very average salsa performance. In reality, half the dance floor moved their hips to the music while the other half did a basic hand-in-hand routine. "But I know what it is like to be eighteen and in love so I pretend to not look."
Remi nodded his head. "I don't think I have enough energy to stop that, anyways," he agreed, "plus if he's getting lucky like I did at my prom then have at it."
"Ah, so you lost it on prom night. Typical," she replied, smiling harder. Remi half-smiled and shrugged.
"Let's just say it was a disaster," he shuddered, thinking about the eighteen-year-old him miserably trying to unhook Cierra Laughlin's bra for about twenty minutes. It was like a jigsaw puzzle to him at the time.
"Probably not as bad as when you lose it in a Pike frat party," she chuckled at thought.
"Ah, so you were a sorority girl," he replied in a hidden judgmental tone. Allie shoved her shoulders into his, retaliating.
"Hey, I hear it from your voice! I promise I was not the typical one," she convinced.
"Alright, alright. I believe ya'," he said waving a hand in surrender. She smiled back in victory and looked back out to the rest of the gymnasium. Ria and Ava stepped onto the center stage to announce the Winter Formal King and Queen.
"Ah, what it was like to be in high school," she remembered.
Remi snorted. "You make it seem like we're ancient."
"We pretty much are," she groaned, "my mom and sister won't stop reminding me of it."
"When's the wedding again?"
"In a few months," she mumbled, her shoulders slumped in realization. Few months was much shorter than a year of engagement which she had thought was enough time to find a boyfriend or a promising date. Her only hope was Remi but she had just started getting closer to him as a friend. She needed to figure out if he was alright being a friendly date to her sister's wedding. Whether it was a serious date or not, it was better than going empty-handed and she was getting desperate as the weeks pass by.
"So, do you think something was wrong with that girl, earlier?" Remi asked. He and Allie had noticed a girl who was stumbling and looking a little too relaxed and happy with her friends.
"Oh, Charlie? Yeah, she was drunk," she said, casually. Remi's eyes widened. "But, I like her. She's one of my favorite students and since she wasn't that bad, I let it go. Her boyfriend seems like he's taking care of her."
"You should be the teacher of the year," he complimented.
"I already am," she winked at him.
Charlie beelined towards the back garden of Mifflin Academy. She knew she was getting increasingly drunk with every step she was taking. That explained why the floor was shaking and she felt like she was taking higher steps as if she was walking up the stairs. She dragged the shovel she found in the janitor's closet – correction: had to stop a make-out session between Honey Grey and Timothy Reed to get it – against the muddy floor until she reached under the large willow tree with an engraved plaque with the time capsule's details and year. Beneath it were several little bushes and flowers. The wet mud from rain earlier in the night had invaded her feet. Her ankle bend inward and nearly toppling her face forward. She yelped and held her hands out in front of her trying to maintain her balance. Reaching down, she unhooked her heels and chucked it to the side.
All she could feel was the adrenaline and the drunk good feeling; her heart raced and the heightened sense of determination poured into every dig. She smiled victoriously. So, maybe she was going to open this capsule a few years before it was supposed to be opened but if one million dollars were on the line, who would even think to wait? Besides, thirty years to open a capsule was far too long of a wait.
She giggled under her breath. She was way too out of shape in her upper body strength to continue but she gave it a sloppy effort. Suddenly, she felt a tree branch crack from behind her and she whirled her body to the direction, pointing the tip of her shovel to the intruder as her weapon.
"Oh, hey guys!" she exclaimed at first sight. Mari, Stefan, and Blake looked right at her with horrified looks. They scanned her from head to toe absorbing the fact that she had dirt all over her dress, her body, and smudges on the sides of her face. It was as if they had discovered a child playing in the mud.
"What—," Mari began.
"—the hell," Stefan finished.
"Charlie!" Blake groaned, as he took the shovel from her hands.
"Babe, what are you doing?" Mari cooed.
"Digging," Charlie grinned.
"Digging," Mari repeated.
"Yeah! Since everyone is inside, the coast was clear! We couldn't put off one million dollars!"
"How are you feeling?" Stefan asked.
"You look like two Stefans so a wee drunk," she squeaked, placing her thumb and index finger close to each other.
"Wee?" he mocked. "Come on, honey, let's get you home."
"I'm not a child."
"Oh, we'll see about that," he said, grabbing onto her. She yanked her wrist away and crossed her arms.
"Listen here, mister!" she huffed. "If you want your share, you better help me dig. I'm not leaving."
"Charlie,"
"I'm serious."
Stefan looked like he was an internal debate. He looked over his shoulders at the building and wondered what the chances were that they would get caught. Would they get a slap on the arm or serious penalty? He rolled his sleeves and grabbed the shovel from her arms. Blake and Mari exchanged glances.
"She's not going to budge," he explained. Blake agreed and kneeled with Mari, digging with their fingers. Charlie began to kick dirt away.
"Stop that," Stefan warned. She ignored him and continued. "I swear you're a kid," he muttered under his breath.
A few minutes passed by and Blake was ready to give up when he felt the tips of his fingers brush against a metal surface. Mari noticed as well and immediately started to rub the surface.
"A genie's not going to pop out," Blake snickered. Mari shoved his shoulders with hers and began to push the dirt away. Together, they lifted the a large metal cylinder out of the ground. There it lied on the muddy ground covered in ants, dust, dirt, and grass.
"I'm scared," Mari admitted. Stefan kneeled over and opened the ledge with a rock. Once opened, several old items had fallen out.
"Come on, we need to hurry up and put it back," Blake said.
"Wait, let's just grab everything from inside, seal it, and put it back into the ground. It won't be opened again till a couple years later. By then, we'll return all the things back once we figure out the next clue," Mari explained. The boys agreed and Blake and Mari grabbed an armful of small items. Stefan looked to his left and watched Charlie sitting against the tree sound asleep. Although she had smudges on her face and body, he couldn't help but crack a smile at the cute sight.
"Okay, now what?" Blake wondered, holding onto the shovel. He had successfully pushed the dirt on top of the capsule to seal it.
"Let's call it a night. You guys take this with you and I'll drive Charlie back home."
Once Stefan reached her house and grabbed her keys from her purse, he entered her house and stood at the base of the stairs. There was no way she was going to be able to walk up to her room. He had basically made her walk from the willow tree to his car and from his car to her house. It was as if he was a puppeteer – a bad one at it.
'Alright,' he thought to himself, 'let's get this over with.' He bent over and scooped her into his arms, bridal style. She didn't weigh like a truck but she also wasn't a feather. Her dead weight covered in patches of dried mud and grass made it that much harder. Once he reached to her room, he debated on how he could handle the situation. She needed to take a shower but he knew that he couldn't pass any boundaries.
"Hey, Charlie, wake up," he said, patting her arm. He sat her on the covered toilet seat and tried once more. "Hey, I need you to wake up just so you can jump into the shower and then I can tuck you in and go. You're covered in mud."
She moaned and fell limp into his arms. "Huh?"
"Hey!" he said, shaking her shoulders. He sprayed a few water droplets into her face.
"What?" she snarled.
"Give me just five minutes, okay? After that, you can go right to bed, I promise."
She nodded her head and finally, opened her eyes.
"I found a towel and I think your pajamas. Jump in the shower, wear these, and come out. If you don't come out in five minutes, I'll think you're dead and I will come inside even if you're naked, got it?" he commanded and even though, she was disoriented, her heart fluttered at how caring he seemed at the moment. She nodded her head and stood up, ready to undress.
"I'm waiting right outside."
Thankfully, she survived but barely. Even if she didn't properly shampoo or soap, she had successfully rinsed all the mud off her face and body and now she was standing in a large shirt and shorts. He awkwardly wrapped her hair in a towel and attempted to dry it only for her to bat his hands away. Finally, he led her to the bed, tucked her in, and left a water bottle right by her table. He grabbed his keys, pecked her on the forehead, and slipped out her room and the front door of the house, locking it with her own keys.
'Oh, you're going to hate that hangover tomorrow,' he snickered in thought.