Pursuit Of Happiness

Chapter One

    I was running my hands up and down my thighs, trying to focus solely on the feeling of my polyester leggings. And, truth be told, trying to discreetly wipe off my sweaty palms. Tessa, my beautiful, funny and adventurous best friend, was bouncing around in the drivers seat to her new favorite song. I don't think she noticed me and even if she did, she wouldn't have acknowledge it. She was well aware that I didn't want to attend this party. Tessa had child locked all of the doors. We could also label her as smart.
  
Reasons for not wanting to attend said party:

1. Tessa hadn't even bothered to mention it until 30 minutes ago.

2. Having to be Tessa's DD.

3. People.
  
   The only person I knew attending this "rager" of a party was Tessa herself and I'm pretty sure she didn't even mention bringing me. Unfortunately nights like this happen more often than not.
 
   "Come on Stevie! Cheer up. Anything could happen tonight!" Tessa had turned the music down to a reasonable volume and glanced at me from the corner of her eye. She sighed at my dramatic eye-roll.
 
"Tessa you say this every time."
 
"Well it's true every time Stevana."
 
    My arms came up in a defensive gesture. "Hey no legal name, okay? It's just... I always end up in the corner of the room on the couch, by myself." Tessa just shook her head at me.

  "It's gonna be a good night, okay? Just trust me." With that Tessa took a right turn and parked us at a generic middle class brick house. The beating music perked her up and by the time she came around to let me out of the car she was full on dancing. Once the door was quickly shut behind me, Tessa locked up the car, grabbed me by the wrist before I could escape, and dragged me through the front door.

   As per usual at these parties, all the furniture was pushed against the walls to clear room for a large dance floor, which was packed with people. We shimmied our way to the table overran with drinks, me a chilled wine cooler and Tessa a Long Island iced tea, and toasted to ourselves.

   "Meet up for check up at 10:30?" I nodded, forcing a smile and we kissed each other's cheeks.

   This was our party ritual. We get our drinks, toast to each other and come up with our game plan. Setting a time to meet up at that spot helped me not worry about her as much. If Tessa was ever late I would know something was wrong and if she was early, which had only happened once or twice, we needed to leave immediately. On the off chance she would want to leave early, I always lingered around an hour before meet up time. It gave me something to look forward to and focus on. I absolutely hate parties.

   Taking another sip of my drink, I scaned the room. It was an open floor plan. Like a big basement but on the first floor. Of course there were some pillars and a set of stairs and some doors, but i could pretty much see everyone. No one looked familiar.

   The couch was pretty much empty except for a guy on the opposite side. Which provided that the couch was "L" shaped, was fine with me. I took a seat and pulled out my phone. My new profile picture had five likes and a comment from my mom telling me I looked beautiful. A chuckle left me.

   My almost black hair came down to my waist and, because of the length, I kept it tied up. Messy bun being my go to. Tessa had ran some mascara through my short lashes in those thirty excruciating minutes and tried to put me in some ridiculous clothes. I had won in that argument. Thankfully it wasn't too warm outside so my black leggings comforted me along with my go to light weight cardigan and band tee.

   "Hey what's so funny?" The guy across the couch gestured toward me with a rolled blunt.

   "Huh?" His question took me by surprise. Usually the guys at these parties ignored me because I was dressed like a Middle Aged woman.