Once Upon A Time

a/n : This is a little late. I meant to publish this a few days ago but here it is. Chapter one of a story I wrote once, reimagined. Let me know what you think.

— — —

Jenna Ortega as Janessa Garcia

~ one ~
once upon a time... we spoke

Parties had never really been my thing and there was only one reason why I would even consider attending: my best friend, Natalie Liese, drank. A lot. Her inhibitions had a tendency to drop and her awareness for her surroundings was always very, very low. In short, I went because if I didn't, who would watch out for her safety and make sure she gets home in one piece, and without any drinks laced with the Date Rape drug? And tonight was no different.

I sat by, in the middle of the woods, on a log, having a bottle of water as I watched Natalie's surroundings while she downed her third bottle of alcohol. She danced - if you could call the movement of an electric eel as it swam, to be dancing - in the middle of a crowd of some of her likeminded friends, the cheerleaders. Of which, she was the head cheerleader. I'm not sure that our friendship could've survived if she hadn't taken charge that one year when the last head cheerleader got expelled — she hated anyone that didn't dress like her or watch the same things as her — and everything just seemed to fall down the drain. They were all lost little lambs, misguided and fighting for control.

Then my friend, with her strong head and even stronger opinions, stepped in and started to make decisions. What songs they would cheer to. What cheers were out-of-date and sending the wrong messages from the new and reformed group. Natalie had spent an entire weekend coming up with new cheers, I remember it very clearly because all the popping, locking, jumping into the air, or being thrown into the air was something she'd worked on with me. More often than not, it was I that got thrown into the air while my little brother filmed.

While this group had become tighter than ever, they still weren't the kind of people I trust to keep an eye on Natalie. She also had the tendency to be quite rash and made irrational decisions - at times - without really thinking them through. And, once again, more often than not, I got thrown into those misguided plans of hers and, misguided or not, I think when I leave high school, those are the memories I'll treasure. But still not great experiences in the moments.

As I watched the gyrating group of cheerleaders to some old Black Eyed Peas song, a guy waltzed into the group and slid an arm around Natalie's waist. I saw the grin on her face and immediately jumped up, only for my cardigan to get snagged on a piece of the log I'd been sitting on. I reached back to release it - which tore a small hole in my cardigan. My scowl deepened as I thought about having to ask my mom for assistance on fixing my clothes. Again.

When I turned around, Natalie and the guy were no longer apart of the group. They'd disappeared. I started rushing away from the bonfire that I'd been sitting in front of, viewing the people dancing over the glow of the flames and had to push myself through the closely knit students of my peers. I wasn't even nearly surprised how close everyone was standing. With how cold it was getting - it was early December and it was Canada which meant that this was the small break between each snowfalls, but it was still chilly.

"Excuse me, excuse me," I said as I pushed through the throng of people. With each 'excuse me', an edge of annoyance and impatience was added to the words. I ignored everyone that was scowling and telling me to, "Watch it," because I had a friend to find. Hopefully she was still in one piece... When I pushed through the last layer of people, I was facing the parking lot. My car - or rather, my mom's car - was now blocked in by the rest of the student body because Natalie had just insisted that we arrive before everyone else. Today wasn't the first, and it was certainly not the last time that I was think to myself, that if I had met Natalie today, I wasn't sure if she and I would be friends. But we had history. And it was that history that continued to propel me forward, now into the forest as I started calling for Natalie.