Dysfunctional

Chapter 9 Frequency

It was Halloween night, and I was already wearing my Christian costume I had thrown together from some thrifted clothes, when Matt's car pulled up in front of my house.
"Bye mom, I'm leaving!" I gave my mother a quick kiss on the cheek before hurrying out the door.
Matt was looking particularly hot in his Travis costume, which felt really unfair because Travis was supposed to be a rather silly character in my eyes. Apparently neither of us had bothered with trying to make our hair match, as Matt's hair was dark as ever, and my messy, rather curly hair was nowhere as neat as Christian's.
"Are you ready for the party?" Matt asked as I sat down on the passenger seat and buckled my seatbelt.
"Sure thing. Are you? Is a party like this not too scary for you?"
"Too scary for me?" Matt asked as if he had no idea what I was talking about.
I grinned. "Didn't you cry last time we watched Animal Planet?"
"Hey, that was not scary, that was really sad, okay?!" Matt laughed. "The poor baby seal got separated from his mother and then the polar bear came and-"
I was laughing too, at how passionately Matt was describing the scene. "Okay okay, I get it. You're right, it was pretty sad. ...I kind of like it that you allow yourself to cry." I mumbled that last part because it might sound corny, but I wanted Matt to know that I did not think any less of him because he was brave enough to cry openly. It was quite the opposite: it made me like him even more.
"Thanks," Matt said, and there was a serious and appreciative tone to his voice, "you should try it. It feels good- hey what is that on our neck?"
I froze, as Matt was pointing at a fresh bruise in my neck. The day before, Jason had gotten really angry when I said I was going to a party, because I hadn't asked his or mom's permission first. When I told him to go fuck himself and may or may not have thrown a few more curse words his way, he'd grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me hard, like a dog tugging on a dead rabbit. His thumb had dug into the nape of my neck, and from the force of it left a nasty bruise.
I hadn't told my mom about the incident, because I was afraid that if she'd hear the way Jason reacted to me going to the party, she might side with him and not allow me to go either.
"A hickey," I said, trying to make a joke out of it, "I have a feisty new boyfriend."
"Who, your teddy bear?" Matt laughed, knowing very well how single I was. But luckily, he didn't ask about it anymore, and after another minute we arrived at Violet's house to pick her up too.

The party was not very hard to find. Wes lived in a big villa, that was decorated with Halloween decorations all over the place. Even if it hadn't been, it was hard to not hear the music blasting from inside.
Our noses were met with the smell of liquor, candy and sweat once we stepped inside, and our ears with the sound of music, laughter and people trying to converse over all the other noises.
It took us a while to find Wes. A few times we thought we'd spotted him, but then it ended up being one of his equally tall and blonde cousins. But, once we found our other friends we also found him.
We spent a few moments complimenting each other's outfits, and commenting on how cool we looked together. I even got a very genuine compliment from Nina on how I looked great as Christian, and of course she looked amazing too as Tai. She had gone as far as to dye her hair brown for it, but I assumed it was colored hair spray, and hopefully not anything permanent. The curls looked cute on her, like Matt pointed out.
Not very subtly, Nina grabbed his arm and pulled him close. "Since Travis is Tai's boyfriend in the film, I guess I'll have to borrow you as my boyfriend for tonight, too", she giggled.
Matt laughed too, and went along with the joke. He even went as far as to give her a kiss on the cheek. Before I'd have to witness them taking the joke even further, I instinctively turned away to look if there was any booze. It seemed like for now, most people were drinking soda, but my eye did catch something else that was just as pleasant. Near the French doors that connected to the veranda at the back of the house, there was a group of guys passing around some joints. Not being shy despite them being probably three years older and most of them a head taller, I trudged up to them and held out my hand. "Can I have one?"
The guy with the lighter eyed me up and down twice, before shrugging and handing me the burning cigarette he had previously been smoking from. "Just a few puffs, shortie. It's still mine, or you'd have to pay me for it if you want more." I shrugged too, figuring I'd rather settle with a few puffs than nothing at all. I didn't have any money on me.
The guy who had handed me the joint kept looking at me as I brought it up to my lips and took a long inhale, so I stared right back at him. He was good-looking, and somehow I kind of liked the fact that he looked at me with that look as if he was estimating me, waiting to see how I'd take it.
Still with my eyes on him, I blew the smoke out slowly.
"What's your name?" the guy asked.
"Lars," I said, "what's yours?" Just like he did before with me, I eyed him up and down for a second. Weather he was supposed to be wearing a costume or not, his clothes looked good on him anyways.
"Kyle. Now, how old are you?"
I took another puff while still looking Kyle straight in the eyes. "Seventeen. Got a problem with that?"
Somehow, my attitude seemed to amuse Kyle, because he grinned at me and took the cigarette back from my hand, although I hadn't showed any intentions to give it back yet. "Not regarding the weed," he said, and he leaned in closer so his mouth was almost directly next to my ear, "but I do regarding sleeping with you. I see the way you're looking at me, and it's not going to happen, boy. I might have, if you were a bit older. Now, go back to your friends or whatever and don't get in trouble." He pushed me back towards my friends by my head, the way an older brother would treat his younger sibling.

I was flustered and confused as I joined my friends again and took a sip from the diet Coke Violet offered me, and I wasn't sure if I could blame it on the marijuana, which I didn't get to get nearly enough of. I wasn't necessarily concerned with the fact that I indeed had felt an odd sense of attraction towards this stranger, nor that he apparently had showed some interest in me too, but more so with the fact that he said that he had seen the way I had looked at him, that he could read it off my face that his ways of acting had excited me.
What if people could read it off my face too that I liked Matt? Was it obvious that I got butterflies when I talked to him? Did he know that he made me nervous and gave me pleasant chills down my spine whenever he got too close to me?
"Did you know that guy?" Ted, who had apparently seen me talk to Kyle, asked.
"I do now", I said.
"What did you want from him?"
"You know, sex, drugs and rock n roll."
"Did you get any of it?"
"Only the drugs."

The party was fun, that much fun that I didn't even think about drinking anymore. Instead of alcohol, there was Halloween candy disappearing into my mouth every few minutes. The music was good, and we all sang- more so yelled- along to Thriller, beautifully flat and out of rhythm. The music in the living room got turned down after a while, and we played Halloween-related charades with our friends and some people I didn't know. Kyle was there too, looking stoned enough for me to believe the joint we had shared had not been his only one.
Nearing midnight, everyone went back on the dance floor, and as Thriller came on again, things got so wild that Wes accidentally spilled his drink on me. But it didn't kill my good mood. I was still whistling happily as I stumbled up the stairs to the bathroom to clean myself up a bit.
I wasn't the only one upstairs, not even from our clique. Matt and Nina were also there, and I reached the top of the stairs just in time to see Nina cage him against a wall and press her lips onto his, kissing him rather passionately.
The shock that hit me was like a hammer. It knocked me off my feet, making me slip and fall down a few steps of the stairs, not enough to hurt but enough to be out of their sight again as they likely continued making out. It also flipped a switch inside of my brain, which made it feel like just the way that you would flip a switch on a radio, my brain started functioning on a different frequency. The joy and carelessness got replaced by red hot panic, like a fever creeping up on me and suffocating me. It was heavy and full of grief and anger, and a feeling of feeling exactly like the worthless piece of trash I was.
My legs carried themselves towards the kitchen, where the bottles were. No silly little cans, no, the real stuff. The stuff you were supposed to mix with soda or pour in a shot glass first, but I now gulped down like it was lemonade. Without giving it a second thought, I threw the bottle I just emptied over my shoulder like it was an empty water bottle, causing it to shatter into a thousand little shards. I barely paid any mind to it. The only thing my mind was on was the exact thing I didn't want my mind to be on, the thing I was trying so hard to drown out and forget about already. The feelings of rejection, disgust and grief were still way too prominent in my head for my liking.
I gagged, and threw up in the sink with an ugly, angry sound. The taste of vomit was rinsed away with some beer, which in all honesty didn't even taste that good anymore. I also noticed how as time was passing by, my vision got blurry and the labels on the drinks got unreadable, until the blindness closed in and everything went black.
I passed out before I could feel how I fell into the pile of broken glass.