"Suck your cheeks in!" Emma scolded when inner cheeks slipped out of my teeth for the third time.
She sighed and stepped back looking at me with hopeless expressions.
"If you dont hold it in for more than two seconds, how am I gonna put the blush on?"
"That's the point,"I grimaced,"You don't have to do all this." I waved my hand at my face while looking in the mirror at my makeup stained face. I felt so caked up with the foundation. Me being clueless about makeup, thought that was it but turns out, that was just the beginning.
I turned my face a little sideways, squinting my eyes at my reflection," why does it look so thick and...cakey?"
She looked offended,"That's the reason I need to put all this stuff on after this cause its incomplete." She looked over at the scattered palettes, highlighter, mascaras, brushes and the stuff I couldn't figure out yet.
I closed my mouth, expecting the inevitable and leaned back again for her to continue.
After about ten more minutes, she bent backward, scanning my face and then gave a satisfying hum. I looked again at the mirror and for a moment my eyes got stuck at my face.
Why does it look like so evened out and not bad!
I looked back at her and found her smirking proudly at my baffled face.
"You see! Looks so natural right?" She beamed and I opened my mouth to answer her but then she started spraying all over my face due to which I quickly pressed my lips together, tasting acid on them.
Tucking the stray lock of hair behind her ear she approached her tiny closet-the same size as mine- and started shuffling through her dresses.
I gave her a curious look,"What're you doing?"
"Finding a dress for you to wear." Her voice came out muffled as her head was digging inside the closet by now.
I approached her,"And who told you that I'll wear any of your dresses?"
She turned around with her hands on her hips,"And since when do you own party dresses?"
She had a point.
She turned around and started digging again.
"I mean yeah-" I struggled for words," You are right in a sense but," I leaned over her shoulder again, wishing her to stop her spree already,"Would you stop and listen to me for once?" I snapped.
Emma being Emma didn't budge," I'm listening."
"I'm not wearing your dress." I informed.
"You already mentioned that, dummy!"
I narrowed my eyes at her,"Then why don't you stop it."
She turned around with an exasperated look holding a purple dress in her hand,"Stop what?"
"This," I pointed at the dress,"Whatever you are doing."
She gave a long look to the dress and then finally huffed out in surrender and looked me in the eyes,"Alright then, show me what you got."
After fifteen minutes of arguing over the collection of my outfits, she finally let me wear the one which looked less ridiculous in her opinion but still not acceptable.
At least she was letting me wear this.
After putting my outfit on, i looked at it in the mirror. My black pants under plain v-neck white shirt looked okay when I wore a black and maroon printed over shirt on top. Wearing maroon scarf helped to even out the color contrast.
Exiting the toilet, i took in the different dresses scattered messily over her bed while she was glued to the mirror, applying peach colored lipstick.
She put the cap on the lipstick and put it back. Giving herself once over.
Turning around she posed herself in a barbie style, shifting her weight over one leg, showing her stupid smile that I grew to like a lot with time,"So how do I look?" She chirped raising her eyebrows then turned her face skyward dreamily.
I chuckled at her dramatic posture as I took in her black crop top that read 'hot af' in bold letters. She had white thigh high skirt on with black belt that served no purpose whatsoever. Its end dangled aimlessly at front giving it a classy look. Two studs visible on her belly button piercing.
"You know that logo is a little too overboard right!" I stuck my finger out towards the front of her shirt.
"What, this?" She clutched her top and stretched it out to have a good look at it,"Well its a fact." She shrugged her shoulders, grabbing her knee length boots from the floor and settled down on my bed that wasn't messy with her clothes and started putting them on.
"Yeah but I mean-"
"Okay, admit that you're jealous." She suggested in a cool tone.
My mouth hung open,"I'm NOT jealous as we both know it an-"
Honking of horn from outside made us both shut up.
"It must be Jake." Emma hurriedly put the keys, her cellphone and other stuff inside her black channel bag and hung its chain over her shoulder as we both made our way out of the appartment.
"Hey sweetcheeks!" Jake embraced Emma then unhooked their arms to have a good look at her giving her a knowing smirk.
He wore ripped Jeans under plain green shirt over which safetypin was dangling in silver chain around his neck.
He had blonde highlights in his hair that were sticking out permanently at odd places.
Jake had this weirdly carefree persona which matched Emma's and both just clicked together in an honest fashion.
She gave out a nervous laugh hitting his chest while color rose to her cheeks.
You could only get to see this giddy side of Emma when she is in Jake's company.
"Oh hey! Didn't know you were coming along as well." He threw his infamous mischievious smile my way which I returned getting in the back seat.
"Okay so I found this really cool place which is like some kinda abandoned asylum or something when I was accompanying Tyler for filming a youtube video and the instant I saw it, man!" He groaned exaggeratingly as he started his story like always.
"No kidding!" Emma completely turned his way suddenly forgetting everything else.
I rolled my eyes.
"The instant I saw it, I knew I had to bring you there cause you will love to explore this place..." I zoomed out of their conversation which I knew would grow into more creepier stuff as both of them loved exploring abandoned places and solving mysteries.
"Here we are." Jake announced as me and emma leaned ahead turning our heads sideways to examine the place.
There were so many cars and bikes in front of the house that it was nearly impossible to make our way through them to find a parking spot somewhere.
Jake struggled for like five minutes, and finally parked the car at some distance from the main gate due to no space available near it.
Music boomed so loud from inside this mansion like place that it felt like, the walls of it were also shaking by its effect. I could feel the vibration under my feet as we entered.
Girls walked around in the lawn in their shorts and overly exposed tops as guys' eyes roamed over their bodies in interest.
Some of the guys met Jake halfway and he fist bumped and started talking to them.
Emma tugged on my hand and we both entered the building through opened door.
It was quite dim as only colorful lights were flashing in blinks along the tempo of the music. It was already so crowded inside. We both made our way through dancing bodies of students that were swaying along the beat while chugging down their drinks.
We struggled our way towards the kitchen and emma picked up champagne for herself among different varieties of drinks that I wasn't sure how everyone was allowed to drink here in the first place.
Extending one cup towards me, she gestured me to take it but I shook my head in disapproval, settling for just coke.
I tried to make out the faces of people in semi darkness whenever lights flashed in their faces but it was hard to figure out who was who.
I could hear them chuckling and laughing over the music as we walked past them but couldn't clearly hear them talking.
"God, this place is awfully packed!" I muttered and my voice came out as a muffled groan under the influence of music.
Not able to hear clearly, emma leaned towards me to hear me better,"What?" She shouted over the music.
"Nothing. Can we just find some place to sit?" I spoke in her ear then looked around in hope.
Instead of replying, she pulled me along towards a quiet area at the corner a little away from the dancing bodies and stood there to finish our drinks.
Soon Jake appeared from the door and Emma flung her arm in the air to signal him in our direction.
"Hey, come on, let's dance." He exclaimed as soon as he reached in our hearing vicinity holding a drink in his hand already.
Emma jumped ahead, placing her hand in his and looked behind at me, "You okay staying here for sometime? I'll be right back after this dance I promise!" She removed her hand from Jake's and squeezed my arm reassuringly.
I encouraged her to go and have fun knowing how much she wanted to enjoy this party with Jake.
My eyes followed them as they morphed into other couples and soon got out of sight.
It was then that I started freaking out. I didn't have any other friend along and I couldn't recognize most of these students here.
I looked around anxiously, trying to look through those who were dancing, searching for a familiar face.
Looking at my left, there were these beads like sticks dangling down from the ceiling, separating a small area on the other side where I could see people chilling on the couches. There were stairs leading to the upper storey beside couple of doors.
"Hey hun!" A guy's voice startled me and I jumped away from the source turning around to find this giant guy hovering over me, almost holding himself back from falling,"Wanna have some fun?" He showed his crooked smirk making me take a step back.
"Uh-no," I desperately looked around to catch the sight of Emma or jake but then felt him encircling his fingers around my upper arm.
"Come on. Don't be shy!"
"Hey, what are you doing?"I unclasped his fingers from around my arm in panic.
Although my voice was barely audible he must have seen my panicking face,"Whoa chill out,girl!" He raised his hands in surrender," I was just messing around, you know w'im sayin!" His words slurred out of his tongue making me more uncomfortable.
Not being able to keep standing there anymore, I hastily moved towards that small area to approach other people that weren't dancing atleast and could notice the misbehavior of this dude if he tried anything again.
As I made my way there, I could feel him hooting in laughter while following my trail close behind.
Goosebumps appeared on my neck as unease spread all over my body and I pushed back the beady sticks and stepped inside just to halt at my spot.
I took in my surrounding with wide eyes. There on the couches were guys sitting with their shirts off, making out with almost naked girls. It seemed like they were on crazy hormones right in the middle of the world war three.
But what made me freeze on the spot was someone I was quite familiar with by now.
There king sat in between two girls. One of them had her hands pushed inside his shirt which was exposing half of his abs and Calvin Klein underwear band peaking out of his Jeans that hung low on his hips. He was kissing the other girl like crazy, almost eating her face out in the process while holding her waist tight. I could see the blonde locks hiding her face and I had a vague suspicion that it was the same girl from our class who confronted me in the cafeteria.
Was she his girlfriend!
Something close to uneasiness started spreading inside my chest and I willed myself to stop right there.
An arm encircled around me from behind and the stench of alcohol hit my nostrils making me drop my coke on the floor.
"Gotcha!" Came an excited male voice of the same guy from earlier and I struggled in his grip.
"Let go!"
Somehow I loosened his grip to an extent that I managed to turn around to come face to face with his smug face as his eyes kept on drooping.
I pushed him in the chest now hitting his legs with my Vans as he kept cursing profanities at me in response to my struggles.
"No!" I shouted as my eyes filled up with tears and I was already regretting coming to this party in the first place,"Lemme go, you freak!"
As if my words fell on deaf ears, he grabbed both of my hands in his and started steering me along.
"She asked to let go." His steps halted making me stop as he turned around to see who's talking.
My breathing stopped. My raspy throat was burning from all the screaming as I looked at king standing there looking right at this guy.
His black shirt was now in place over grey jeans. His hair unruly as he stood in a posture ready to strike but calm enough to know when to.
"Mind your own business,man. I put my hands on this chick first." The guy replied in what seemed like a negotiating way making me sick to the core.
"Let.her.go." Came a calm voice through gritted teeth.
The guy held out a hand,"Look, I told you I found her first but if you are looking forward to share-" a fist came out of nowhere and made contact with the guy's jaw, resounding a loud crack. I flinched back in horror.
Grip of that guy loosened on me and by that moment other guys from our class that were chilling on the couches also approached and held both the guys back to stop the escalating fight.
Without another thought, I took off and ran out of that secluded area making my way through the slapping bodies of dancing couples.
Sobs escaped my lips as I wildly looked around for any trace of Emma in the crowd through teary eyes. I was so done with this bullshit. I needed to go home and feel safe again. I could not stay here any longer.
"Hey, stop right there!" I heard king calling from behind but I didn't want to look back and instead of looking for Emma, I kept rushing ahead to hide behind others and finally stopped in front of the kitchen pondering if I should go hide inside.
I looked behind me and thankfully I had lost him.
"Faith!" Emma shouted from afar and I looked around to see her waving at me, still dancing in Jake's arms with quizzical look as if asking me what the hell I was doing there.
Relief spread over me like a blessing and half of my misery dissipated.
Before I could reply to her or do anything at all, king appeared from behind a dancing girl making me freeze on the spot.
His eyes pierced my soul in half as he pushed back his hair wildly.
An electric rush went through my form and all the anxiety came rushing back in making me conscious of everything all over again.
"D-d-dont come n-near me,please." I whispered out in a sob as my eyes pleaded him to stop approaching me.
Ignoring my pleas, he ate up the distance in hasty steps, and it felt like he was entransing me in a lion's den.
Not saying anything at all, he took my hand pulling me along with him away from the kitchen. I tried to look back at Emma but it all became blurry and she couldn't be seen anymore in such hasty strides.
"Where are you taking me?" It felt like my question fell on dead ears.
Soon he approached one of the doors beside the staircase and pushed me inside before entering inside himself.
I heard the door click to a secure lock.
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