The Art of being Strangers

vii.

The music was loud, the colorful lights were now flashing like crazy, and voices were surrounding me. Everyone was dancing, including me and Marigold and Ansel. Not long after we started dancing, Esther found us and joined us. She and Marigold exchanged some words while still dancing. Ansel turned toward me, and we danced and laughed and talked and I swear I had the best time in a while. That, until Marigold and Esther finally talked me into drinking. Ansel told them to let me do whatever I wanted, but I told him not to worry about it. Marigold handed me some Vodka, and I drank it in a matter of seconds. Apparently, they found it funny. I laughed with them too.

Not long after my first drink of the night, I drank more. My thoughts were completely drowned by then. No Basil, no school, no worries. My only priority was drinking some more and having fun. Now I understood the hype about parties. I felt good.

Ansel made me sit down at some point, telling me I should stay down for a bit unless I wanted to pass out. I got annoyed and tried to get up, but Marigold pushed me back down. She gave me a glass of water and told me to drink it.

"Ah, so you do have water and soda, not only alcohol," I murmured.

"Jesus Christ, of course, we do. What party only has alcohol? Surely mine doesn't," Ansel laughed.

Hearing him say that made me feel somewhat dumb, but I didn't care about it enough to address it, so I just let it slide.

"Can I get up now?" I asked annoyed.

"Hell no. Now I understand why you insisted on not drinking. You're terrible with alcohol," Marigold muttered.

"Right," I replied.

Ansel suggested that he could stay with me until I got a bit sober, but I told him it was all right. I didn't want to feel like I was anyone's problem, so I tried to bring less attention to myself. I settled down on the couch Marigold and Ansel made me stay on, and I calmly watched them as they danced. I would sometimes sip some water out of the glass that was brought by Marigold.

I got bored quickly. I slowly got up, trying to see if my own feet could hold me, and when I realized I was feeling okay, I went to find my friends. Not long after I started searching, I found Esther. She was drinking. I spotted Marigold and Ansel too, but they were making out, so I didn't want to interrupt them.

"Ah, Creek! It seems that you're feeling better!" Esther grinned.

"Yeah, guess so," I shrugged.

Esther looked at me, still holding a glass of alcohol, but then she put it down on the table. I caught her eyes and saw that she had a sad look on her face. I didn't really want to ask her about it, but Esther started talking about it anyway, so now I was kind of obligated to stay and listen to her. Apparently drunk Esther was more emotional than I would've guessed.

"You know, my boyfriend—" she stopped and sighed. "Ex-boyfriend, Basil, randomly disappeared one day," she said slowly.

I was quite surprised to hear her talk about Basil, it was one of the subjects I least expected to hear from her. And I knew about Basil. Sure, I was not going to say anything about it. I was just going to listen to her talk about how much he missed him. I gave a small nod, letting her know that she can continue talking.

"I miss him very much. I love him. Loved. But now I hate him for it. I hate that he was so egoist to leave me. Leave us," she said looking into my eyes.