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CHAPTER THREE

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Saturday night and I have absolutely nothing to do, nothing. I’m seriously beginning to think that I am a loser and that maybe I have been my whole life. Clarissa called me about a party her and Abby were going to. She said our friends John, Dahlia, Brendan, Jessica, and Fiona would be going. Honestly, I am a big party person. I mean, who could blow off such an exciting thing?
But guess who did, me. It’s all because I can’t find my stupid cell phone. However, I had given Rissa my home phone which is how she was able to reach me.
Maybe I should go anyway; just for the heck of it. I could always borrow someone else’s phone if I need to. Yeah, I will just do that.
“Dad, I’m going out tonight!” I called down the staircase.
“Where?” he asked.
“To hang out with some friends I made at Wilmslow.”
“Okay. Will you be staying there, or…?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll call you.”
“Alright, have fun. I’m doing night shift tonight, so I won’t be home. You know how to reach me.”
“Yep, I do. Love you, dad!”
“Love you too. Bye, sweetie.”
“Byeeee!”
Phew, that was easy. And no, I did not press the easy button. That commercial got pretty annoying after a whilst. I don’t know, maybe it was just me. That could always be a possibility.
After I finished my short-lived chat with my dad, I went back to my room. Now it was time to figure out my outfit for this party. I shuffled through multiple options in my closet and just couldn’t seem to find the one. This is much more difficult than I would have anticipated.
Finally, I decided upon something [outfit on the side] that I was pleased with. Now I just have to get my makeup and hair done. For makeup I just kept it simple. The only things I put on were mascara, winged eyeliner, nude lip gloss, and grey/silver eye shadow. My hair was left to be straight with just a headband angled in it. One last glance at my reflection in the mirror and I was ready to go.
Good thing my dad was working nightshift, otherwise I probably wouldn’t be leaving the house like this. Again, I’m not trying to sound conceited, but I looked hot. I was even giving off a bad girl vibe with the leather jacket adorning my upper body accompanied by a tight-fitting top half of strapless dress. Well, I’ll just say this: I look pretty damn good for being what I consider a loser.
As I walked out the front door to my car, I reached in my back pocket to get my phone out and send a quick text to Rissa telling her I changed my mind and that I was on my way, but then I remembered how I had lost my phone on Monday and hadn’t seen it since then. Ugh! I could scream from everything that’s happened to me in only my first week at Wilmslow.
It all started with that Harry lad. He scared the pee out of me in the parking lot on the first day, then he made me sit with his mates at lunch and people won’t stop bugging me with questions as to why he would have done that. In all honesty, I don’t have the slightest clue; it just happened. That’s what I told them all, but they still haven’t given up on their interest in the whole situation. It’s starting to give me a bad feeling about these five lads. I mean, what am I supposed to think after all that and how they presented themselves? That in itself was off kilter.
As I drove along to find this house with the big party, I got bored and turned on the radio. I’m probably a horrid singer, but I didn’t care; no one was in the car with me or going to hear me, so I just belted it out. Don’t you love that, when there’s no one around and your favourite song comes on and you can just sing it at the top of your lungs without a care in the world? Well, even if you don’t, I most certainly do.
About twenty to twenty-five minutes passed before I saw the house with all the lights on. There were some cars parked in the yard as well as the street and the driveway. Luckily this house was all by itself in the middle of basically nowhere, so we wouldn’t be disturbing any neighbours or be getting fined for the volume level. Besides, I’m sure there’s underage drinking going on if they invited anyone in grades below ours.
When I got out of the car, I’d just barely gotten the chance to straighten my jacket before I heard a squeal and was being hulled inside.
“Hello to you too,” I replied slightly annoyed with my friend Abby as she weaved us through the globs of people standing around in the gigantic sitting room.
“Sorry, Jade, I just had to get you in here to meet the host of this amazing party!” she squealed again.
“Oh-kay…” I replied slowly.
Another screech left Abby’s lips as she hastily tugged my arm and ran with me forced to trail behind her. Seriously, if this girl doesn’t stop squealing I’m going to need some duct tape before my eardrums start to bleed.
She took me into the kitchen where she unexpectedly halted. Good thing I’m quick on my feet, otherwise I would have crashed straight into her back. When I had composed myself fully and fixed my jacket, I looked up to see a lad staring at me with a smirk. He had cool blue eyes and dark brown hair. His figure was much taller than mine, much like Harry’s. Whoa, wait a second, why did I just say that, or, well, think that. Never mind, I can’t let Friday’s unintended events ruin the evening. I still haven’t been able to wrap my head around why I let him kiss me, let alone why I kissed him back. But enough about Harry, back to the party and this handsome lad staring at me.
“I’m Mitchel,” he said through a perfectly-white, toothy grin.
“Jade. Is this your house?” I asked taking a quick glance round.
“It is.”
“It’s gorgeous,” I said in awe, “Well, you know, besides the drunken people.”
He smiled, “Yeah, it’s nice.”
“Okay, you two are bor-ing,” Abby complained. I rolled my eyes at her comment and Mitchel just smiled.
“C’mon Jade, I want to get the girls.”
“Okay,” I replied. Abby started to walk off and as I was about to start following her someone lightly grasped my wrist.
“I’ll talk to you later?” Mitchel asked when I turned round to face him.
“Yeah, sure.”
He winked, “Good.”
“It was nice meeting you.”
“My pleasure.”
I smiled at Mitchel and then turned back to follow Abby. She was quite a distance from me considering all of the people I’d have to get past to catch up to her. As I slinked through the groups of people, I could have sworn I saw a mop of brown curls leaning against a wall. Quickly, I brushed it off as a weird suspicion and continued on my way to find Abby.
After pushing, shoving, and elbowing my way through the clusters of teenagers, I finally saw Abby’s loosely curled, light brown hair as she approached our “group”, if you may, of friends.
“Jade you came!?” Fiona exclaimed as she raced over and gave me a hug. She’s the big hugger out of our group. I’m not too much off a hugger myself for reasons that I’d rather not discuss at the moment.
“Yeah, I figured it’s better than calculus in my bunny slippers and fuzzy pyjamas,” I shrugged.
“Well, we’re all glad you came,” Jessica said with a warm smile.
“So, you and Mitchel…?” Dahlia stepped into the conversation.
“Yeah, what did he say to you?” Clarissa inquired with much curiosity flooding her tone.
“He just said that it was nice meeting me, like any normal person,” I lowered my voice, “and that he wanted to talk later.”
They all made their ooh’s and ah’s in response to my revelation.
“Honey, he doesn’t want to talk,” Dahlia said with a wink.
“Yeah…no, that is not going to happen,” Clarissa interjected whilst rolling her eyes.
“Over my dead body,” I gave my input.
“But, maybe you should talk to him anyway. You never know; something might come out of it,” Jess suggested.
I pondered the option in my mind. No doubt that he was very attractive, but I’m not the kind of girl he’s probably accustomed to. There is no way I would just let him use me, or anyone for that matter; I respect myself enough to avoid those situations. But, like Jess said, maybe I should talk to him anyway; see if maybe there could be something there.
As I was still thinking about what I should do, Dahlia shoved a red plastic cup in my face; typical. I took it and looked inside. The liquid inside was clear like water.
“Um, what is?” I asked, looking up from the piece of plastic to my friend.
“Abby told me you don’t drink, so I got CJ to get you some water.”
“And you trust this person?”
“Definitely, yeah.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Dahlia tipped her cup toward me with a smile. I reciprocated the gesture as one for saying thanks.
After being at this party for a good amount of time and chugging down a few waters, I was quickly realising that whatever I thought was water, wasn’t water. I had thought it tasted kind of funny, but I just brushed it off. Bad decision. It must have been vodka, great. Note the sarcasm. Gosh, I wish people would just be honest about whether or not it was actually water in that cup…err, cups.
People were starting to settle down and sit in a circle, well, their attempt at a circle. I found an empty space next to Jess and sat down. Are you serious? Even the carpeting was incredibly soft and cosy. I wouldn’t have a problem staying here a few days…scratch that; I would live here for life.
“Instead of ‘Truth-or-Dare’, we’re going to play ‘Dare, Double Dare, or Devil Dare’,” some boy with an empty beer bottle in his hand announced.
There were hoots and hollers from the people in the circle as approval to the choice of game. The boy set the bottle down in the middle of our large circle and walked back to his spot.
“Hey, new girl,” he said looking straight at me, “Why don’t you go first.”
* * *
The sound of birds chirping woke me from my peaceful sleep. Crap, I didn’t call my dad and say I was staying over. I rubbed my eyes and threw the cover off of my body. My tanned legs were completely bare. What the-
As I looked up my figure I realised that I was wearing a white t shirt, my underclothes, and nothing else. What the hell happened last night?
I got up from the bed way too quickly and the room seemed to spin for a couple seconds accompanied by a painful sensation in my head. The feeling passed as I padded across the wood floor. I flipped my hair over and gathered it with my hands. Taking off a ponytail, I put my hair up in a messy bun. Whilst I looked in the mirror, I noticed just how bad I looked.
“Don’t stare too long, the mirror might crack,” a familiar masculine voice joked.
I jumped, startled by the sudden interruption. When I looked over towards the left side of the room my eyes widened. Harry?
“What are you doing here?” I asked confused.
“Well, I do live here.”
“You do?” I asked completely dumbfounded.
“Just ‘cause my brother throws a party doesn’t mean I don’t live here anymore.”
“That’s not what I – Wait, Mitchel is your brother?”
He nodded, “Could I possibly have my shirt back sometime soon?”
“Oh! This is yours?”
“Wow, you really were trashed.”
I sighed, “I don’t even remember anything. Maybe you could enlighten me as to why I’m wearing your t shirt?”
“We can talk about that later.”
“No, I want to know if I… If we…”
“Oh. No.”
“Thank God.”
“Here’s your dress, it just came out of the dryer,” He said tossing me the jean material.
“You washed it?” I raised my eyebrow.
“Well, unless you were planning on sporting someone’s upchuck…”
“Ew. Yeah, thank you.”
He nodded, “I’ll let you change.”
As soon as he shut the door I pulled the t shirt over my head and dropped it to the floor. I got myself into the dress and zipped it up. Luckily it was a dress with a side zipper, that way I wouldn’t need to ask for any unwanted assistance.
After I finished getting dressed, I crept out of the room and down the hallway. I made my way down the staircase and walked a little ways before I found the kitchen. It was morning, so I had guessed that someone would most likely be in the kitchen cooking or eating. Turns out that my suspicions were right.
As I walked onto the hardwood flooring, Harry spun round. He leaned back against the countertop with his arms crossed as he watched me. That made me nervous to say the least. So nervous that I actually tripped over my own two feet. Smart move, Jade, smart move.
“My bad, I forgot to warn you to look out for the air,” Harry smirked.
“Ha-Ha, very funny,” I replied sarcastically as I climbed onto the barstool.
“How’s your head?”
“Awful; I feel like I was hit with a bus.”
“Coffee and aspirin.”
“What?”
He went into a cabinet and pulled out a mug and then to another where he got a bottle of pills out.
“That’s what helps get rid of a horrid hangover,” he explained.
“I see.”
“What are you two kids up to?” another familiar voice interrupted.
When I turned round I saw Mitchel standing there with just some joggers on and dishevelled hair. He smiled warmly at me, but something didn’t seem quite right about it.
“So, you and my brother, eh?” he inquired seemingly amused.
“Nothing happened, Mitch,” Harry grumbled whilst he was focusing on making the coffee.
“Good, ‘cause I had my eye on this one,” Mitchel said sending a wink my way.
I looked over to see Harry’s reaction. He didn’t do much, but his muscles in his back seemed to have tensed up.
I wonder if Harry still thinks about what happened on Friday. Maybe he just let it go as nothing. That’s probably what I should do anyway. I mean, it’s stupid to keep on thinking about it when that’s exactly what it was, nothing. We were both caught up in the moment and it happened. Granted it’s not every day you accidentally kiss your enemy, but maybe he wasn’t an enemy. After all, he has been nothing but helpful to me.
A little time passed in awkward silence and finally the coffee was finished. Harry brought it over to me along with two aspirin. I took them from him and gave him a quiet thank you. He went to a stool two spots away from me and grabbed his black hoodie. He put it over his head and pushed the sleeves up.
Once I had swallowed down the pills and a good amount of the coffee, my curiosity got the best of me. Harry had been sitting there tapping away at his phone. Occasionally his brow would furrow as he concentrated on something on the screen of his cell phone. I leaned my head on my hand with my elbow set on the countertop. Harry smirked, probably knowing I was looking at him. Well, the joke’s on him because I wasn’t looking at him for the reason he probably thought I was.
“Whatcha doin’?” I quizzed.
“Nothing,” he replied bluntly as he locked the screen and shoved the phone in his pocket. Oh-kay…?
Harry got up from his seat and went to a drawer, opening it and taking out something that I recognised. Was that…
“Here, I found this on Monday after you fled the parking lot,” He said as he handed me the electronic device I’d been yearning for.
“My phone! I’ve been looking everywhere for it. Thanks.”
He nodded in response as always.
“Well, I should go. My dad is probably worried sick. Thank you for everything.”
“You doing anything later? Maybe we can catch a movie,” Mitchel interjected. I hadn’t even noticed him sitting at the table.
“Actually, I think I do have plans. Maybe some other time.”
“Too bad, I was really looking forward to it,” He smirked.
Ugh, he’s so annoyingly persistent. Obviously I want nothing to do with him or his brother. Letting me stay was nice, I won’t argue that, but I’m just not interested.
I said goodbye once more before exiting the house and going down the drive to my car. Well, that was definitely something.