Sleep Magazine (Completed)

The Scandal: 3

"That didn't happen," Grace rolled her eyes at Celia. "You must have been dreaming."

About a dozen and a half people were crammed into Stephen's kitchen, sectioned off into three groups holding various conversations. Though the gathering in the small room had sounded loud and felt hot from the start, it had only grown louder and hotter over the hour as everyone worked their way through multiple rounds of drinks. 

As the conversations evolved into tall tales and reminiscings, the young people squeezed by one another to refill their drinks at the countertop and called out over each other's heads to crack a joke or chime in on an overheard anecdote. Ten or so people—mostly high school seniors, but some Grace's age as well—stood in a semi circle around the small coronite island listening to Celia's story.

Celia looked back over her shoulder at Grace as her hands plucked a few tall glasses from the cabinet and set them onto the counter.

"I used to hear you sneaking out to see Michael. I always heard you." She twisted the caps off of several liquor bottles and began pouring out various amounts into the glasses as she continued. "Always coming back in sometime after 3A.M. and I would look at my purple radio alarm clock and it would be three-something."

She glanced back at her audience, who were now watching her amusedly, giggling.

"It was always the witching hour and I would lie in bed terrified. Thinking of all sorts of terrifying scenarios. Then I started to pretend that I was a witch; not just pretend but actually try to convince myself that I was really a witch with real powers..."

She sprinkled a generous amount of cinnamon over the tops of her concoctions and spun against the counter to hand them off to her friends one by one.

"...so that the witching hour wouldn't terrify me anymore because I was the witch and I had the power at that time of night."

The group burst into laughter which made Celia smile widely. "I really did that!" she stated animatedly, feeling amused by her story.

Grace rolled her eyes again and gingerly picked two drinks from the counter as she walked away with wide, loud steps.

Celia was visibly proud to have entertained the group with her anecdote and turned back to the counter to prepare a second round of drinks. She opened the cabinet to rummage for more suitable drinking glasses and went through the steps of her recipe again as the conversation quickly evolved through the same old tokens of gossip that were always discussed. 

Until Madison brought up an old scandal that everyone had forgotten about for quite a while.

"Remember when word finally broke out that Molly and David had been sleeping together for two years? And no one ever knew for that long? I couldn't believe that," she said.

Celia spun around quickly with excited eyes to chime in on the topic, the cinnamon floating on the top of her drink splashing over the edge of the glass.

"You know I always thought that I saw them once. It was one of those Fourth of July parties on the river and I saw a glimpse of shadows, just a really quick glimpse of shadows walking into the woods. And I didn't really see their outlines clearly or anything but somehow I just knew it was them. It was really only a split second and I couldn't be sure if I saw one shadow or two but my first thought was that it was Molly and David. I could never figure out how I knew that. I never said anything to anyone because I never had a reason to say it. I tried to look around the party and notice if they were both gone but there were so many people there and it was so dark, but now I know that it really was them. I could never figure out how I knew that. What even made you think of that, Madison?"