Stepping onto the walkway in front of me, the blaring music slowly became louder and louder as the bass thundered through the ground beneath me. Aside from all of the rudely parked cars and loud music, everything else about the neighborhood was completely normal, if not even a little generic. With small strides toward the door, I wasn't really sure what to do at all. I hadn't ever been to a party like this at all.
As I finally reached the door, I was confronted with something of a small predicament. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to knock or just walk inside, and that left me standing in front of the door like an idiot waiting for some sort of answer. Just as I was going to lift my arm to knock on the door, a sudden gust of cool wind hit my exposed skin, reminding me of just how little I was wearing.
In a shredded black tank top that exposed most of my stomach and a little black skirt that left next to nothing to the imagination, I was dropped off by Erin who drove off to go pick up someone else before coming back. Most of that day had been spent with her and Nathan at her apartment listening to music and doing whatever caught my interest. At some point in the afternoon Erin brought up a party, and needless to say, I was hesitant in saying anything close to yes.
After a bit of playful ribbing, she finally managed to make me agree on going. The next thing I knew, she was offering to let me borrow some of her clothes, and that was how I ended up in what was likely the most revealing outfit I'd worn up to that point in my life. I could only question what drove her to dress this way, because she hadn't been in a relationship and never seemed to be out to impress anyone else.
The weeks following that night at the beach, it seemed as though Erin was making an effort to actually be around me. Through those weeks, I learned a lot about her, Brian, and even Horse. Erin's parents had passed away in a road rage incident, where the other driver stopped in front of their car and shot them both. It was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it was a case that left three children to fend for themselves.
What I was surprised to learn was that she was the middle child between Horse and Lindsey. At seventeen Horse resorted to dealing drugs in an area that was cleaned out once the two gangs that ran that world in Ely vanished. It wasn't long before he was making more than he expected, allowing for him and his sisters to move into a nicer place. As he made more money, his drug variety grew and he soon became the place to go for the highest quality drugs in Ely. This brought in all the money he needed for himself and his sisters.
Reaching for the doorknob attached to the heavily thudding, large house, I was going to turn the golden circle when it suddenly opened for me, revealing Mathew Cullen with a guitar case hanging over his shoulder, a boy who usually went by Matty with almost anyone who knew him. Standing in front of him was almost as scary as even hearing his name, honestly. I, and likely everyone else, heard the violent rumors about him. He was unpredictable and constantly looking for fight, beating people into the ground for saying the wrong things. As his glare hit me from above with his tall frame, I was glued to ground right in front of him.
His tongue clicked before walking around me. "Whatever."
I could only breathe a sigh of relief as the tension he created began to dissipate, leaving me in front of the opened door. Something told me that if I made the wrong move around him, I probably wouldn't have been standing up straight. He was always with one girl, and I had no idea how she dealt with it. He had this air around him that made it feel like I was being crushed without him actually doing or saying anything. The pressure that escaped from him wasn't that of a teenage boy, it felt like it belonged in a grown man who slept behind bars.
Stepping through the frame of the door, I sifted through the crowd of strangers and familiar faces until I bumped into another towering figure dressed completely in black with chains seemingly hanging everywhere. My eyes traveled upwards and that's when I was met with the familiar bright green hair. Those crescent-shaped brown eyes perfectly encapsulated his personality, shared with that soft smile he had been wearing in front of me. While he looked at me, his finger pointed towards the keg behind him. I nodded in return only to have him grab one of the nearby blue cups and slowly fill it.
"You look great." Cody tried to speak over the music, smirking as he peered through his long green bangs. "Looks like something Erin would wear, though."
He had no idea how right he was, nor how much he had hit the nail on the head. Taking the blue cup from his right hand, he filled one of his own. The smell of beer stormed my nostrils as Cody stood straight back, tapping his cup against my own before he took what looked like a large gulp. Taking a drink myself, I followed his eyes which seemed to trace their way up the stairs, like he was looking for someone in particular and wasn't seeing them. It was only a moment later that he looked back down.
Cody's lips slightly parted, revealing the slightest bit of a small chip in his tooth before that same index finger pointed at his back pocket. "Wanna party?"
The one thing that allowed me to nod with a small smirk was that I trusted him. Not only was he the drummer for Erin's band, but the biggest was that Cody claimed to be asexual and I hadn't ever seen him get intimate with another human. I wasn't sure at all, but that might have been the reason I was able to feel even somewhat comfortable around him. If he hadn't been attracted to me, then there wasn't a risk of anything happening. Ever since that night, I rarely felt at ease around men, even when I was standing in a room full of other people.
I followed him up the crowded stairs, swerving through and around the strangers who stood, talking to the others across from them. Following behind Cody, I was met with the back of his jeans, and in the pockets of those jeans I saw the top of a sealed plastic that bounced with his every step. Distracted by that bag, it only seemed like seconds later where I found myself following him into a, surprisingly, empty bathroom. Cody turned on the light and followed me in as he kicked the door shut behind him before pulling out not one, but two of those plastic bags. In those bags rested two powder-looking substances. Though, I wasn't sure what they could've been.
Cody poured out a small line from each of the small bags and pulled out a single dollar bill, holding it in the air for a short moment before bringing it back down to his waist and rolling it up. He held it out to me, still smiling with that same softness he showed to everyone. Even though Cody had come off as quite feminine, he wasn't afraid to fight when he needed to. He just preferred to avoid violence if he could, that was all it was. Most people mistook his kindness for weakness and they usually learned the hard way.
"Are you sure?" I took a peek at the now straw-formed money.
"Wouldn't've asked if I wasn't." his arm nudged itself slightly upward, raising the bill's angle. "Stop looking so scared for once and have some fun, sweetheart. Let loose."
I took the money from Cody and took a lost step forward as he moved out of my way, towards the door. Bending over, I brushed my hair behind my ears while I tried to think of all the movies I'd seen where people snorted drugs with the exact money I had been holding. Before meeting the drugs, I took one last look at Cody who was only gave me a smirk while plugging his left nostril. It hit me right then that he was telling me to plug my free nostril while I inhaled drugs through my other one.
"Snort the first one and then the other. It's a fun ride." Cody walked over to the bathtub and cracked the window as he lit a cigarette.
Bringing the rolled up bill to right side of the first white line, I held my left nostril shut, inhaling as I brought the straw-like money to the left until it had all disappeared. After a single breath, I did as Cody said and dragged the money across the white line in the same I way I had done to the previous one. As the odd sensation in my nostril faded away from notice, it hit and it hit hard. Just like heroin, the feeling was euphoric, but whatever this was had been on a different level. It was more intense than I could've ever expected.
Leaning against the countertop, I took a drink of the beer to moisten a throat that had suddenly become slightly dry. With the closing of my eyes as I sipped on the beer, the music on the other side of the door began to pass through my ears. It was like every note touched, sung, and played within that song was heard in my mind - a whole different, new feeling than what I had always experienced when I put that needle in my arm. Finishing the beer, my eyes opened to the sight of Cody just looking at me from across the bathroom while the cigarette hung from his lips.
"It was smack and blow. A speedball." Cody pushed himself off the wall and pulled a clear glass bottle out of his jacket's pocket. Spitting the cigarette through the small window, he stepped out of the faintly pink bathtub and approached me. "Wanna share?"
"Vodka?" I took the bottle and unscrewed the lid as I leaned against the wall, letting myself fall down it.
"Yeah, mixed with a little bit of Brisk. Enjoy." Cody used his right to prop himself up as he slowly lowered the rest of his narrow frame to the ground before letting out another quiet smile. "How lame. We're at a party with a house full of people, but we still find ourselves alone in a bathroom."
Just as I brought the bottle to my lips, I was stopped in my own tracks as a ghost decided to take over my vision and ruin my mood. That ghost was Devin extending his arm with a bright orange drink and that same smile spread across his face. With my movements halted, I sat still as my lips remained around the threads of where the lid should've been. Still stuck in a pause, my eyes rolled to my left and watched for a change Cody's reaction. There wasn't a change, only an arced brow and questioning eyes.
Smiling, he extended his index finger and arm outwards until it met the bottom of the bottle, where it slowly began to lift upwards. The flavor of tea began to hit my tongue as it fell down my throat and followed itself up with a slow, yet strong burning sensation in my chest. Pulling the bottle away from my mouth, Cody let his hand fall slightly as he took it away from me and began to drink some himself. Maybe I was looking too far into what he was doing, but had he done that to show me there was nothing in it?
Cody let out an exasperated breath before cracking a small chuckle. "I can see your underwear."
"Do you want me to take them off?" I looked up and caught him staring at my exposed legs, which I followed with the further spreading of. With the lightest of whispers, I seemed to lose control of my lips and tongue as the barely audible next sentence seemed to take over my mouth. ". . .It's not like you could do anything worse."
Dropping the bottle into my hand, he used his newly-freed cold right hand to close my spread legs as he remained silent, seemingly not answering what I just asked. Without another thought, the bottom of the bottle had been pointed at the roof and the alcohol was drenching my throat like a waterfall. That was, until Cody finally ripped the bottle away from me, glaring like a child who had just gotten his toy taken away from him. That was what I thought he had been doing, simply taking back what was his. What he had actually done was save me from killing myself. Probably.
"Lame?" I took a deep breath and put a smile on my face as I jumped up from the ground. Leaning over Cody, I extended both of my arms, waiting for him to grab on. "Let's go have fun out there, then."
"Sure."