''Really?''
''Yea, I just want you to be there.'' Embry replied, meeting her on a Saturday at Subway.
''I just want to rest of the weekends,'' I said frustratingly.
''You should be there, it's a house party, and his colleagues would be there. Maybe you can find a good catch after you rejected Jago.''
It's her point, the multitude of everything, dealing with his girl thing. Why should be she is with her boyfriend, I don't wanna be a third wheel.
''You just know that you must be there for me no matter what. We're best friends, right?''
A house party. Cool. Yeah, you've got it right most of Price's friends were there, his house was just out of the corner. Jasper and that girl he's dating meet his friends, and I feel diffident actually, combust with the people, mostly I don't even know why I agree to be here in the first place. Their muscles too stretched over their recently enlarged skeletons.
Yet neither were they young teens, the swagger of the later teens fully in place. They moved like guys gaining a sense of surety in themselves and perhaps that was the most dangerous phase of all - physically competent without the experience to know when to show restraint.
''This is Bradford, and Merrick, they're on the football team.'' He introduces.
''So who is this girl?'' Merrick pointed at me. ''Is she your girlfriend?''
''Nuh, nuh. Stop bro!'' He chuckles. ''and this is Embry.''
I flushed, and it was an awkward moment. Boys greeted her with a kiss on the cheek. I stood on the porch away from them, And when they laughed the loudest and swore it helped them to cope with the world. I don't even know that Riggs was there, without skepticism he's also part of the team.
No need for me to be out of the place though, he handed me a drink. I stayed there for an hour. We moved to the couch, even given just a script of their conversation, with no context or voices, you would know they were boys. The task-directed conversation was interrupted only by jokes, often at the expense of one of their friends. Yet from the dialogue that followed it was clear that no offense had been taken, quite the contrary. They enjoyed the banter, the witty and not-so-witty put-downs.
They teased and jibbed one moment and discussed team strategy the next, taking one another seriously and giving well-thought responses. But the sensible talk could never last too long like it was scheduled by an egg timer. Soon the hilarity would start all over again.
Embry sat between the two very good-looking boys; she was short and thin and smoking a blunt. The taller of the two guys were laid back scanning the room in his way while the more muscular one was whispering in the girl's ear as the two of them laughed. The muscular one tells the tall one what I could assume was some type of joke, he laughs too.
They were the type of people I always wished I could be. They were cool and powerful and never going to talk to me, or so I thought. because moments later while I was sadly staring at my drink when Bradford had come up to me and asks, "You're the chick on the debate team, right?"
He's right.
But Jago walks in, saying he was late.
As she passed to his eyes locked onto my face, I stood up and excused myself, and went to the kitchen. I tried to get some water, and Jago came over.
''How have you been?'' I asked, staring at the boys from the kitchen.
''It was good,'' He replied, and spare a smile.
''I'm really sorry about what happened-''
''Don't you worry. I won't mind that. Your best friend seems to enjoy hanging out with Jasper. I think he's cool,'' He stated.
''They are just dating tho, they have more days to be plunged out,'' I say and drink my beer.
''You're a supportive best friend,huh?'' Jago commented.
''I am just setting to be conclusive for her,'' I mentioned, motioning my upper lip curling upward.
It means you only become involved with someone you truly love rather than out of some lonely impulse to fill a void. Your own soul can fill that void. In a relationship you are as two pillars standing next to one another, supporting those who depend on you. And so, being single is a chance to learn how to stand straight and be the kind of lover your future partner deserves.
Leaning on one another is for the hard times, not every day. There is a form of emotional independence that is hard-won. It is the mark of the matured brain, one in control of its emotions to a large extent.
I got a refill, and find the restroom. There are too many doors where to spot it. I am a little sober, but I think I can manage it. A door is slightly open, and I realized that Jasper was dressed up, I had no intention of peeking at him. He saw me, and he smirked his way.
''Sorry, I'm just looking for the restroom.''
He got to change because his friend Bradford, vomit to splash on his shirt and his new jeans. He was slumped as if dead, but merely unconscious. We looked at each other for a few seconds, and Jasper pointed out the direction, and barely make my headway far from his room. A sigh was of a softly deflating; it was as if the tension had lifted yet left her with relief.
It came as a signal, not of my resolve leaving but of the level his tension had reached. The sight that escaped my dry lips was slow as if my brain needed that time to process what had happened. My eyes remained fixed on the floor.
I jutted my bottom lip out, redirecting the air-flow to her long bangs. For that brief moment, my black hair fanned upwards before resettling just over his eyes. Desire and disgust. Streamed through the air. A sigh. Disappointment and gladness. Decorated the air leaving a path. A sigh. Of relief and worry. Leaping through the air like a deer. A sigh. Of happiness and sadness. A sigh. Of excitement and fear. Strolling through the air like a roller coaster. A sigh means it all.
''Hey,'' she said as her voice sounded so drunk she lurched from wall to wall. ''Have you seen Jasper?''
''He's upstairs,'' I say to Embry, the people like the party just get started. I've heard loud music from downstairs while she went to his room. Jago called out, and I walked toward the couch.
''You know what Jago, I've heard that you dated Sanders here,'' Merrick says. ''So what's going on between the two of you.''
''No, we're just friends. It's just a friendly date.'' Jago replied.
''Why? Sanders is such a hottie chick right.'' He speaks mugging.
I didn't realize Jasper is already in there, completely quiet, mayhap Embry is drunk ends up sleeping in his room. Merrick is set unreservedly sitting next to me, he placed his hand on my lap which makes me not comfortable and he's drunk. He keeps messing up with me, he's totally an asshole.
''I know you want it too. You're just a girl from Northwood, and such a strumpet like the other girls in school.''
I try to get him away but he was hit by a punch and hit him hard with his fist, sending him sprawling across the floor. It was Jasper and pulled me to get away from the scene. Merrick relies on pain in his face got mildly inebriated. I saw anxiety in his eyes for me. He grabbed me in both arms, and saw how he worried for me, I looked close to him.
At that moment, as if I were amazed, the world stopped for me, and my chest was beating so fast but I come back to my senses, and go out to jasper's handling of me. Merrick is carried and help by Jago's and brought on the couch, slumped as if dead, but merely unconscious.
''I'm sorry for that,'' Jasper asks for pardon, after what happened to his friend.
''Apology accepted,'' I keep a straight face, while we're on the porch. he took a mouthful of beer.
''I'm really sorry about what I did the first time, I humiliate you,'' I mumbled.
''And now you're apologizing,'' He cracked a smile and shifting his face leftwards.
''For all I know I was guilty, dying to know about the first day Embry met you,'' I say giving a gaze blankly. ''I don't see your parents.''
''I lost my mom when I was twelve, my dad left us because he has some drug addiction, I only live with my Aunt. She doesn't know that I threw a party.'' He announced.
I saw the trace of vexed in his eyes, maybe I am such wanky. What are you doing Sanders? Why are you trying to hurt him?
It's two o'clock in the morning when I check my phone, dug into my pockets, and Jasper was still there. He is in his deep thought and his view away.
''I hope you and Embry that your love is for keeps,'' I say.
''You think?'' He analyzes my statement.
''Well, Embry is a good girl, and you are not that much credence, but not something awful,'' The whine in my voice made him cringe.
''I doubt that,'' he tries to wrangle, and I laugh at him inwardly.
That night, I convince myself that Jasper might be the perfect guy for my best friend Embry, he's charming and has humor but eventually, I feel some doubt about myself thinking how does it feel of someone who cares about you, like the law of attraction, that you will attract into your life whatever you focus on.
Whatever you give your energy and attention to will come back to you. So, if you stay focused on the good and positive things in your life, you will automatically attract more good and positive things into your life. If you are focused upon lack and negativity, then that is what will be attracted into your life. Like attracts like. Whatever you are thinking and feeling at any given time is basically your request to the universe for more of the same.
It needs to be in tune with what you want to attract in your life. That's your best future and theirs. So keep working on it and the mystery man will come through the luck of the universe, through positive karma. It helps as a coping mechanism with uncertainty. I can have hope that someone good will come without the complications of other anxieties.
I woke up, my breath was the underlying cause of the smell of alcohol that entered my nostrils, and my mouth was sore from the amount of alcohol that I poured down my throat last night. My eyes swiveling towards the back of my head in a distressing sense of a headache. I have to drink a real lot to get rid of the hangover, found myself in his room, and perhaps nobody is there including Embry. Where's everyone?
''You've woken up,'' Jasper walks in, he is like mucking out.
''How did I get here?'' I asked while I was remembering what happened.
''I help you to go upstairs, and you keep mentioning this name Walter a few times,'' He says.
I thought about what he said, but he spoke again.
''By the way, Embry's been picked up by his brother, I told her not to wake you,'' Jasper muttered as the house was a complete mess, everything was upside down, there were beer bottles everywhere and the wooden floor was sticky from spilled wine and cocktails. Ashtrays were overflowing (I never smoked in my life). And somebody had put all the pictures upside down.
When I returned home, I end up at Storm doing something in the kitchen, I walked in his direction and he noticed that I was home.
''Your mom told me to check if you have enough supplies since they weren't coming for a while.'' He assured.
''That's pretty fine, they had been used leaving me It was as if I had not yet been alone,'' I say, turned off about his statement.
''And you're parents ask me about you getting fail with your minor subject, and I just saved you from Uncle Murry, though your school counselor said that you cut your classes for a week, got some wanky notion that you're only respectable if you own a piece of property.'' He announced, after looking over at the cupboard.
''It seems minor, and it isn't a big deal. I didn't violate anything that falls under felony.'' I say, curling the corners of my mouth up slightly in an expression of subtle amusement.
The doorbell rings. It is tinny and grating. It demands that I leave the kitchen and go to the door. Someone wants my attention pretty bad, shrill and it jangled my nerves and guest arrived. As I get the door open, I saw him standing right in front of me. Storm was there and he isn't expecting any person to visit.
''Hey, Jasper.'' I staggered my feet and had a quick glance at Storm on my back.
Storm glared at him, unsmiling.
''I think it's yours, you just left it.'' He handed me a bracelet, and I looked back in his eyes as if he wanted to convey something.
''You seemed getting closer to that guy. I didn't want him for Embry feels like I had bad vibes on him.'' He spoke in a stern way after I closed the door, motioning his glance so terrible.
Maybe he's right more skeptically invalid neither. I placed my headphones to my ears after Storm left, 5 seconds of Summer. With closed eyes, I imagine their music to color, painting stairs in the same way grapevines grow - this way and that, in the beautiful chaos that isn't quite random.
My legs dangled over the edge just like they had when I was small, but now my toes tapped the dusty boards as I sat back and listened to music. With eyes closed, I let the lyrics flood like an early summer breeze. They weren't always upbeat, but they soothed just the same. If these singers felt just like myself, maybe I wasn't alone after all. If I close my eyes I can hear my mother calling me for lunch, my father rustling the newspaper as he turns a fresh leaf. In my closed hand appears a red bucket and spade, there is nothing to worry me, I am alone, yet as the soldier on the battlefront.
They say once you have mastered being alone, you are ready for the company of others, that doesn't make it easy though, perhaps that is what others call to panic, home in the city could be somewhere remote, It's odd because I feel that I'm a good person and friend. I feel that I make good choices and love and care to the best of my ability. I am quick to love and slow to judge. I walk the extra mile for strangers, maybe that's what makes me strange. I have friends and be comfortable with who I am warp into someone else.
The world is empty for me, the world looks almost fake sometimes. Like the mountains and sky in the distance is a backdrop for a set. A green screen. I hate the places my mind can take me. The places that scream everything is plastic and nothing is real. I take that part of me that is broken and make it a ghost, a ghost that falls away and becomes nothing. What remains is me, strong and ready to move on.
I suddenly heard my phone beeps, it's Embry. Her message says that she will be having suicidal thoughts, and she needs to end her life. So I hurriedly rushed to Embry's house to stop her from what she is planning. As I reached her house, I get the door open, and went inside, I saw her parents in the kitchen.
''Oh hi, Sanders, glad to see you.'' Mrs. Bunker greets me and waved gaily.
I disappeared from them and headed to Embry's room. I found her like I was been trolled, she found me as I groaned and pulled the blanket over her head.
''What is this?'' She made me in a huff.
She stared at me blankly and laughed.
''You're crazy, I don't know what to say, I thought you will end up-''
''I won't kill myself for nothing.'' She rolled her eyes and mumbled.
''It's a good prank tho, but seriously,'' she pulls me and sits on the bed. ''I don't know what to say, Jasper and I are already together.''
She screams loudly, I know her parents heard that from downstairs. I tell her to keep quiet.
''Keep your voice down,'' I say. ''I am really happy for you.''
Did the upturn of the corners of my mouth, looking delighted.