Vee and I talked for hours at the coffee shop, but decided to go home after we got annoyed looks from the owner for only buying one drink each and staying hours after we'd finished them. Vee convinced me to come home with her, even though I felt like I was intruding, but she promised I wouldn't be.
We walked the short way from the coffee shop to her house, not giving me much time to prepare myself to meet her roommates.
It wasn't at all what I was expecting. It wasn't an apartment, it was a house. Not the best house, but it was a house.
As soon as Vee opened the door, she was attacked by a girl with light brown hair tied into a messy bun.
"Oh my god, where have you been?! I saw Travis again and we went out and-"
The girl stopped short of her sentence when she saw me standing behind Vee awkwardly.
"Oh, who's this?"
Vee stepped out of the way so the brown haired girl could get a good look at me.
"This is Hayley. I met her last night and we just went to the cafe for a while."
The girl smiled at me.
"Nice to meet you, Hayley. I'm Skylar."
She had a bright smile. Her personality was very bubbly and she seemed outgoing. So, basically the opposite of me.
"Nice to meet you too." I smiled weakly.
Vee led me into the house, greeting a dark haired boy in the kitchen.
"Hey Finn."
"Vee! You're home finally. Who's your friend?"
"This is Hayley. Hayley, this is Finn. Stay away from him, he'll try to fuck anything that breathes."
"Hey!"
Vee laughed and jogged up the stairs, leaving me with Finn and Skylar. I sat on the couch, watching Skylar as she quickly typed on her phone.
Her hair was a light brown, almost blonde color. She wore glasses that framed her face perfectly, accentuating her asian-like eyes. She looked like a nerd, but a popular one.
I glanced over at Finn to see he was already looking at me.
"So, how did you and Vee meet?" He asked leaning on the door frame between the kitchen and lounge.
"We met last night at a bar." I said, playing with my fingers.
He nodded.
The room fell awkwardly silent, and thankfully, Vee came back down the stairs.
A curly haired boy followed behind her their hands clasped together.
"Okay, last one. This is Ashton. He's my boyfriend."
Ashton waved a shy hello, smling at me.
I waved back, offering him a small smile.
"Finally, everyone's introduced." Vee smiled.
I internally sighed, mentally exhausted.
Today is going to be a long day.
I didn't stay with Vee for much longer, I lied about needing to go home so I could avoid any more awkwardness. She begged me to stay longer, but I don't think I could handle much more of Finn staring at me like I was a piece of meat.
I threw myself down on the couch, Matty staring at me in confusion.
"Are you alright?"
I rolled over onto my back staring up at the ceiling.
"Can we go see George?"
Matty laughed.
"Yeah. What happened that made you throw yourself like that?"
"The girl, Vee, introduced me to all of her friends and one of them kept staring at me the entire time I was there. I couldn't take any more of it so I left."
Sighing, I closed my eyes.
"Gross."
I laughed.
"I know."
It didn't take long for us to get to George's flat, it was only a fifteen minute walk, max.
Matty knocked on the door, waiting for the curly blonde boy to answer. It took a total of ten minutes and a ton of knocking for him to finally answer, looking tired as he opened the door.
"I was asleep." He said groggily, rubbing his eyes.
"I can tell."
Matty walked past George, into his apartment as if it were his own. It was strange to me how he was comfortable enough with someone to walk into their house like it belonged to them too. Then again, I'd never had a best friend.
George closed the door and rubbed his eyes once more, saying he was going upstairs to get dressed. It seriously took everything in me to not stare. I mean, how could you not? He answered the door in nothing but his boxers and he was actually very fit. You can't blame me, can you?
I snapped myself out of my thoughts to see Matty digging through George's cupboards, soon pulling out something I had never seen before. I watched him pull out other things I wasn't familiar with and stared in confusion.
"Have you ever smoked weed before?"
I jumped and saw George standing behind me with a smirk.
"Um.. no I haven't."
I'd heard of it before, but never actually seen it. Or anything that goes along with it.
"Well, d'you want to?"
He walked over to Matty, grabbing a glass pipe from his hand.
The thought terrified me. I've heard people say that it's the "gateway drug", meaning it'll start out with something small, like smoking weed and before you know it you'll be looking for something else that'll get you even more high and eventually it'll turn to some of the worst things you can imagine. One minute you're smoking weed with your friends, the next you've sold all your things to get more money for heroine.
"I dunno... I don't know anything about it or how it works."
"That's why we can teach you." George said with a smile. "But you don't have to if you don't want to, we won't force you."
I thought about it for a minute, deciding whether or not I wanted to risk later being addicted to heroine.
"Alright." I agreed.
Matty smiled at me.
"Way to loosen up."
Not long later, Matty, George and I were all sat in a circle, our eyes red and the room filled with smoke. My mind was everywhere, I couldn't focus on one thing, and I thought too much about what things could really mean. It was giving me an existential crisis.
"What if were all just characters in a book and someone is writing out our lives?" I asked into the smoke.
"Then they would be a dickhead." Matty laughed.
I smiled let myself stare into space, my eyes just so happening to be in Matty's direction.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" He raised an eyebrow.
"My brain says you're pretty." I giggled.
George and Matty looked at each other with the same expression, then back to me.
"She is so high." George said, shaking his head and picking up the plastic bag with the green substance in it.
"We did smoke a lot, and she's never smoked before." Matty concluded.
While they continued talking about how high I was, I let the imaginative part of my mind take over and think about anything and everything.
I thought about Vee's roomates and how surprisingly welcoming they were, going shopping with Matty, the party when I first met him when we stayed up all night talking about everything. I thought about how comforting he was, I felt like I could tell him anything and he'd never judge me. Not only was he comforting, but he was attractive too. He was gorgeous. His hair was always messy, but in a cute way. His smile was contagious,a smile always found its way onto my face when I saw his. People always say that brown eyes are boring and dull, but his were far from it. They were the color of chocolate, always so warm and inviting. I never felt intimidated when he looked at me. Just everything about him was so perfect.
I snapped out of my trance and realized everything I had just thought. If I really think that, then does that mean I have a crush on him? No, I can't, I've only known him a few days. You can't have a crush on someone when you've only known them a few days. Right?
I looked up at Matty, feeling a strange warmness flood my cheeks. I brought my hands up to my face and felt the warmness of my skin.
Fuck.