BANALITY : Draco Malfoy

20

Thursday was supposed to be a girl's night in until something convinced Ali and Amanda that it was their turn to host a get-together at the flat. They mentioned it to me before Graham this time, via a sticky note on the fridge. Niamh was passive-aggressive all Wednesday afternoon and evening because of the party. She hates having people over. She hates people in general.

"If she's so ticked off, she can bring a friend," Ali shakes her head.

Amanda shakes her head, "we should have asked first. Just like you should have asked before inviting John."

"You invited Paul!" Ali counters.

"Alicia Lincoln," Amanda snaps, though she smiles, "if I have to explain to you once more time that Paul is dating Nicola, who is best friends with Donna, who is the president of the Natura Society, I will lose it. If I want to have any hope of moving beyond secretary next year, I have to invite Donna, who's inviting Nicola, who's inviting Paul!"

"I thought she was the president of that radio station, the Invernecessities?" Ali asks.

Amanda shakes her head, "that's Deborah, not Donna, and she's coming too."

Our flat is going to be packed with people.

Niamh decides not to leave the flat because she doesn't trust anyone not to break into her room and mess with her things. Amanda, Ali, and I spend far too much time preparing. We clean the flat and prepare a mixtape for Ali's boombox, which really needs to be replaced with a CD player, though Ali insists the boombox has sentimental value. Each of us gets ready too, into pub clothes rather than something we'd wear to Vanish. It's BYOB, according to the texts that Ali and Amanda sent out. We only do one celebratory shot before they come. Another picture. It feels different though. I can feel myself smiling in the photo, not completely displeased. Our pictures from Halloween have already been brought in to be developed.

At some point, bodies start to pour in. Those guys from the night I got wasted at the pub begin to show up. Amanda greets them excitedly. The one she calls Mark, the one who made all the conversation with her, lingers around her but she doesn't pay him much mind. Soon enough, we've got two dozen people in the flat. Some of the faces are familiar but others aren't.

Niamh is even out and about. I move to the counter in the kitchen and join her, sipping on my rum and coke.

"None of you will have functional livers but the time you're thirty," she shakes her head.

"If we live that long," I joke back. I'm not even twenty yet. That age feels so lofty and far away to me. I came to Inverness for a chance to live a safe and long life, and yet one still feels so inaccessible to me.

"Do you think Amanda will get drunk enough to confess to Ali tonight?" Niamh asks.

"What?" I ask.

She rolls her eyes, "not you too. Andrew is not convinced either, but his gaydar doesn't work on women like mine does."

When I nod, she pauses. She blows a bit of hair out of her face, "you're being quiet."

"Didn't mean to be," I say.

"Is it because I'm a lesbian?" Niamh asks. She seems unperturbed.

"No," I shrug. "It's just a shock that you told me, is all."

"It's not a secret," she shrugs. "Besides, why do you think that none of the girls I met in my first year wanted to get a lease with me?"