NATHAN
It was suffocating to be surrounded by happiness, but not be able to feel it.
My birthday party was filled with beaming smiles and overjoyed laughter, but I felt so heavy on the inside. Kind of like lying in a grave deep under layers and layers of dirt, the darkness pressing down on me, making it so hard to simply breathe.
Hope Lance beat me at beer pong
the two first two rounds. When the third round began, she said she was getting hungry and wanted to go back to the brownies. I won the third round.
"Let's talk about those dares later," she said before she was striding to the table of snacks and drinks while the crowd surrounding me stared after her. Confusion of what a forgotten legend was doing at the golden king's birthday party was plaguing their faces.
Hope Lance was EverGreen's ex-star swimmer. Just like the basketball team did with tournaments against other schools, the swim team also won many contests for this town. Hope Lance, who from when she was fourteen in freshman year and until she was sixteen and a sophomore, was a legendary swimmer. The swimming coach, other swimmers on the team and practically the whole town believed she'd go far with being a professional competitor in swimming. Scouts from famous colleges already had their eyes set on her.
However, tragedy struck when she was sixteen and went to pick up her dad from work in the evening and lost control of the car. She had apparently been drunk as she was at a party when her dad called her. It was during winter and the main road people entered and exited this town with, was icy. She lost control of the car and it went flying down a cliff. Her dad had been in a coma for two years. Hope injured her arm for good and all her swimming dreams and goals crumbled to pieces.
After Hope disappeared behind the dancing crowd that had taken up most of the living room floor, I slumped down on a nearby couch.
Trent Raymond, a blue-eyed and sandy blond-haired teammate, and "friend" of mine dropped down next to me with a can of beer in his hand. "Hope Lance, huh? I think she wants to hook up with you, bro."
Connor Landon, a green-eyed and chestnut brown-haired teammate and "friend" of mine, dropped his butt down on my other side. "What is she doing here anyway? Beating you at beer pong and eating brownies? Doesn't she like, have two jobs?"
"After being off the swim team for two years, she still has that hot body though," Trent added, his eyes searching the dancing crowd to spot her.
Unfortunately, my mind was plagued with other things than a forgotten star swimmer's hot body.
"I don't know. She didn't flirt or anything. She was too focused on beating me at beer pong. I have no idea what she's doing here," I replied, giving the plastic cup of beer in my hand a swirl before taking a sip.
Alcohol was helpful when it came to forgetting, but I tried to lay off it and any type of drugs when I had a game the next day. As team captain, I couldn't show up with a hangover and a raging headache to a game. I couldn't disappoint
my dad, but then again, when had I ever made him proud?
Five minutes later, the name Hope Lance was forgotten from the tongues of the people surrounding me faster than it appeared. That's what happened to non-special, invisible and forgotten people. Conversations about them didn't last longer than a few heartbeats.
Anyway, the reason why I enjoyed parties was because people were too busy dancing, laughing, drinking, make out, hooking up and posting stupid pictures on their social media to notice what was happening around them. It made it easier to just slip away and I did when Connor, Trent and the rest of the guys and girls around me, started another round of beer pong while getting more and more wasted second after second.
I found myself pushing through the sweaty bodies moving and swinging along with the rhythmic beats of the music dropping from the speakers. When I walked past the table of snacks and drinks, my stomach lurched and twisted.
I eyed the big plates of brownies and the bowls of chips.
"No, no, no. Don't. You can't. You won't," the demon's voice in my head said.
I balled my hands into fists before pushing past the delicious-looking food. I made my way to the pushed open glass door that welcomed me to the backyard of my house. Even though there were people out here too, the amount was way less than the wild zoo inside. Out here, most people had occupied the pool.
I leaned back against the wall and immediately felt the cool air tingle my skin. The sun had disappeared behind the horizon and showed up again behind the moon. Little stars dotted the harsh blue night sky.
I didn't understand what was happening to me. I was bored at a party. I didn't feel like socializing, drinking, eating, dancing, hooking up with anyone or posting pictures of my birthday party on Instagram. I felt like my so-called "friends" had done that for me and for themselves already.
I was in this weird place. I didn't want to do anything and I wanted to do everything.
My mind felt like this dark tunnel with no light at the end that guided you out of it. I had no idea which direction to head to. Instead, I felt lost and swallowed up by the darkness. It was a suffocating feeling.
Fuck. I'm lonely.
Screw birthdays. You just got a year older. Turning eighteen was supposed to be different because you were legally an adult, but I still felt like a lost, scared little boy in an enormous body.
I just wanted this day to be over already.
"Hey, Goldie!"
What?
I looked around but all I saw was girls and boys jumping, laughing, making out and getting wasted in the huge pool that covered up most of the backyard.
"Up here!"
I immediately tipped my face upward and my brows shot up when my eyes caught long ginger curls shining in the moonlight.
Hope Lance was waving at me with her lips stretched into a huge grin. "First dare. I dare you to come on up!"
She was still here?
Either way, I genuinely didn't want to. I really did not feel like pretending to be happy and perfect today. Smiling felt so fucking exhausting right now. It had been for a while now. Probably ever since Maya returned and I started having group sessions with her, Bree, Owen, Cayden, Heaven, and Mr. Standall.
However, I did owe this girl two dares. Plus, she did kick my ass at beer pong. Something told me she wouldn't let those dares remain incomplete.
I sighed, pushed my weight off the wall and started climbing the tree until I was sitting on the thick, firm branch. We sat facing each other with several inches of space between and our legs swinging on either sides of the branch.
It was now I properly took in her appearance. She was wearing black leather shorts and a sparkly golden top. She had tall restless legs, but I was still a few inches taller. Her face was makeup-free but I noticed her skin was clear yet roughened by the cold winter that passed a month ago. Her crooked bangs were parted like curtains and reached just above her dark brown eyes that made me think of wet dirt. Brown eyes were always described as plain and boring, but hers were "cut the bullshit" kind of sharp, the type that looked straight into your soul and noticed everything that nobody else noticed. They were wild, carefree and filled with madness.
She looked wild and hot.
Smiling, she held out her hand to me. "Hi. I'm Hope Lance."
Puzzled, I looked down at her hand and then flickered my gaze back up to her. "Yeah, that introducing yourself thing doesn't work in a small town of only one thousand people. I know who you are and I know everything about you, Lance."
"You're right, Northwood. You know everything about me that other people know about me. You don't know what I know about myself," she corrected me. "So yeah, I'm Hope Lance."
Staring at her outstretched hand, I still didn't get where she was going with this.
She groaned. "Dude, just shake my hand!"
Did she just dude me? No girl had ever duded me.
Eventually, I stuck my hand out and took hers. She gave my hand a small squeeze but didn't let go. As her new and unfamiliar touch settled against my palm, I felt electric currents bolt through me in lightning speed. I pulled my hand away.
"And you are?"
I laughed at that. "Seriously?"
She had to be kidding me. What surprised me was how she wasn't joking about any of this. She genuinely wanted a proper introduction.
My laughter surprised me more. It sounded surprisingly unforced and genuine. That felt so weird, but also easier somehow.
I gave in eventually. "Nathan Northwood."
"Nice to meet you, Nathan," she said, passing me a can of beer while taking a sip of her own, her arresting eyes still glued on my weirded out blue.
"Rumor says you're here to get laid by me," I told her.
"Aha! I love rumors. I always find out very interesting things about myself," she said, grinning. "Like on time, a rumor said they caught me and my family taking shelter in the second floor of the local library, because we couldn't cover up the bills for our house, which is not true btw."
I took a long sip of my beer, the liquid burning my throat. "That's not a rumor. That's called being rude."
"I know, right? Like, don't people have anything better to do than gossip and create shitty rumors about people. Seriously, get a life." She laughed at her last sentence."
I didn't say anything. The guilt felt swollen and heavy within my chest as I knew I sat there and listened and did nothing when my friends created pathetic rumors about the people in this town during lunch.
Silence filled the air between us. The loud music vibrated through our chests and the laughing and cheering in the pool and from inside made me wonder why I was having such a hard time being happy and perfect today. I had been doing it since I was fifteen. Why not today? Why not on my birthday?
"So what's your deal?" Hope's question made me blink at her.
"What do you mean?"
She shrugged and leaned back against the tree. Her next words froze each and every bone and cell in my body. "You've acted like this perfect golden king since you were fifteen, but today you seem so...I don't know...sad, I guess. Are you okay?"
***
Author's note: Hi, everyone! Here is the second chapter, which is from Nathan's point of view. It ended up with over 3000 words real quick so I broke the chapter into two chapters. So make sure to scroll down and read the next one too, and then tell me what you think:)
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