Unraveled

Cutting Loose

The street was lined with cars. The neighbors never called the cops in Jase's neighborhood. His neighbors weren't often home since it was the rich part of town with a lot of the government workers. His parents owned a philanthropy organization or something like that. Jase didn't really talk about it and we didn't really ask questions. They had grown up in my dad's church, though, so they made the twenty-minute journey for each sermon.

I walked through the gates and up the driveway. The music was blasting from speakers around the pool in the backyard. There was a haze of smoke on the patio. Beer was already on the ground, making my shoes squelch when I walked.

I scanned the crowd to see if there was anyone I knew. A lot of them were from the rich school that Jase went to before he was expelled. I spotted Jase over by the keg, a swarm of girls around him as he filled up his cup.

As I stepped towards him, a pair of arms wrapped tightly around my stomach and a moment later, the smell of lavender reached my nose.

"You're late!" Sasha exclaimed as I turned around to look at her. "I've been waiting for you and I sent you a text, but you've just disappeared off the face of the earth." She reached up and pulled my lips down to hers.

"My dad's been treating me like his little church bitch lately," I told her as we pulled apart. "Nothing personal."

"I didn't figure," she said with a shrug. She took my hand in hers. "Doesn't matter now. You're here. Let's go have some fun!"

I let her pull me through the crowd and towards the house. The inside of the house was a little less crowded, but we still had to shimmy past people to get to the makeshift bar in the kitchen. How Jase actually knew so many people, I didn't know. Most of them I had never seen before but were probably friends of friends of friends.

I leaned against the counter as Sasha picked through the bottles on the counter before she selected the ones that she wanted. As she poured them into two different cups, my eyes scanned the room for Colson. I hadn't seen him outside and so far, I hadn't seen him in the house. Vaguely, I wondered if he was even there, but Sasha was shoving a drink into my hand and going on about the fight she was having with her co-captain. It didn't sound like a big issue to me. What difference did it make if the skirts had an inch-wide stripe or a three-quarter-inch stripe?

"I have to go take care of something," I told her, breaking her off in mid-sentence. I didn't know how much more I could take of it before I snapped.

She looked up at me. "Oh. Okay. Catch up with you later?"

I nodded. "Yeah, sure," I said before I pushed my way back through the crowd.

I made my way through the backyard and headed towards the pool house. I didn't know where Colson was, but I wasn't going to spend the night looking for him. He could find me whenever he wanted me.

I pushed open the pool house door and stepped into the haze. Deryk grinned at me; his eyes were already glazed over. We'd started hanging out a couple of weeks after my mom had run off. He wasn't someone I considered to be a good friend, but he was someone I could use. He had a good concoction of shit he gave me occasionally that could help me take my mind off what was going on at home.

At that time, my dad had been silent. He'd spent most of his time at the church with the elders while I stayed at home, making room in the fridge for all the pity meals the women's group brought by. As I'd put casserole after casserole into the fridge, I wondered if anyone had stopped to think that maybe it wasn't all my mom's fault.