Victorie plus N

Chapter 8: Tune it all Out

"Ding-dong," the doorbell rings.

Ann follows with, "They're here!"

Violet opens up the two doors with Leo, letting in Ann and Teddy's group of friends.

Ann, Teddy, and I are standing at the platform in front of the house crest on the grand staircase, so I can easily see the people coming in. First a girl with straight platinum hair and pink highlights comes in. Then a girl with wavy, dirty-blonde hair comes in. Next a girl with dark hair and glasses, then two boys with short blonde hair, one with a streak of blue in the front, and finally two boys with short brown hair.

"Yo! Teddy!" one of the boy's with brown hair calls out to us. He waves, his designer duffle bag swinging. He runs up the stairs. "You gotta be Victorie," he says to me, holding out his hand. I shake it. Do people really shake hands nowadays? "I'm Randy, nice to meet you!"

"You too."

Randy points out each person in turn, who are all still down in the foyer/hall. "The one with pink highlights is Lolita, John is the other brown-haired guy, the girl with glasses is Margaret- Margy, the guy with the blue highlight is J.T., the blonde is Owen, and Kelly is the dirty-blonde."

They smile and wave, and walk up the steps to us.

"So excited to meet you, finally," Lolita says, "You were all Ann could talk about." She rolls her eyes. Her voice obviously has a British accent like everyone else's, but her's sounds snooty. Well, what did I expect?

"Yeah, so cool you're here!" J.T. says, shaking my hand.

"Yes, I'm glad I finally get to meet you," Margy says.

"Me too," Kelly says.

"Well, umm, it's good to meet you guys, too," I say. Everyone's being really nice, but it's all kind of awkward, like it's forced. I wish I was back home in California.

"So we're watching Lake Summer Camp, right?" John asks, taking a bottle of gatorade out of his backpack.

"Yeah!" Ann says, as she leads our group- I guess it is "our group"- to the theater, which I learned earlier is on the fifth floor. I've only explored up to the fourth floor. Also, Ann told me the house has 6 stories, like I thought.

Apparently, Lake Summer Camp is this new British movie that just came out and all the critics are saying it's really good, so Ann chose it for all of us to watch. Ann planned out the whole visit- first, movie, next, a TableTopics game to get to know each other, or more of, me get to know them, because Ann's basically told them everything about me, after is dinner at 8, and finally free time to just, like, talk. I think Ann is way too into this, but whatever. If it will help me get more friends, I'm basically up for anything.

When we reach the theater, like always, I gasp, but I desperately try to hold it in and succeed. I'm sure the rest of the group has been in here a million times, so they're not really impressed, even though this is my first time, and I totally am.

"Impressed?" Lolita asks me, with a hint of sarcasm, "I'm sure you've never been in a home theater before."

"No," I say, "But it's cool."

I nod, trying to act nonchalant. I don't think it works because Lolita just gives me a fake smile and flips her hair. I hope Ann isn't wrong about her.

Half-way into the movie, all of us reclining on the reclining seats (ones that are like the ones they have at AMC's back in the U.S.), I come to my conclusion- this movie is super lame. Like, there's no plot line, and it's like the actors are trying too hard. I fish out of my pocket my earbuds, planning to just listen to music on my phone on Spotify, when J.T., who is sitting next to me leans over. I see he has wireless earbuds in.

"This movie sucks, doesn't it?" J.T. actually has an American accent, so I guess he's from the U.S. like me. "I've been tuning it out for the past 30 minutes."

That's 15 minutes after it started. Did he really get bored that quick?

"Yeah, kind of," I reply as I pick out my playlist and put in my ear buds.

He leans back into his chair, and I tap my fingers to the beat of Go Crazy, by Chris Brown and Young Thug, the clean version. Eventually the movie ends, where I discreetly put away my earbuds and phone. No one seemed to have notice I even had them out except for J.T. We smile at each other while the others go on and on about how much they loved the movie. Then we head into the connecting drawing room. I notice J.T. still has his earbuds in.

We play the TableTopics where at the end, I feel like I literally know everything about these people, and then we all head down to dinner. Randy is telling us a funny story about someone whose favorite book was the same as his and their encounter at M-Prep's library last year.

"So then we realized we had the same book, and I honestly didn't even know this guy that well, and he was kind of creeping me out with his greeting, so I was really spooked," he says. He continues on, but I kind of just tune him out. Soon, I realize I'm walking beside J.T.

"What are you listening too?" I ask him.

"Talk, by Khalid. I know it's kind of old, but it's my favorite song, for real."

"Right."

"What's your favorite song?"

"I'm not even sure, I have a lot of them."

"What's this talk about favorite songs?" Teddy suddenly asks us, appearing at my side, book in hand.

"I was just asking her," J.T. says.

"Okay, well for you two's information, my favorite song is Adore You- Harry Styles."

"You like pop songs? Like, for real?" I ask, in shock.

"I know, I'm kind of in shock here, too," J.T. says, "I didn't know you liked American songs, Ted."

Teddy shrugs. "That's about the only one I like. I just like the tune."

"Don't we all," J.T. rolls his eyes.

(A/N: Hi everyone this chapter was actually kind of bad, I'm sorry about that, but I had to get the introductions out of the way first. Please keep reading, and thank you for all of the votes!)