▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ BELLY ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
At close to one in the morning, the streets are packed and we keep our arms linked so as not to lose one another. Shayla and Conrad head the group, with Taylor and Nicole next to them, and Cam by my side. Jeremiah and Steven walk a pace behind, Steven with one arm thrown over his friend, although with Jeremiah's pre-college growth spurt he's gotten a little too tall to do so comfortably anymore. A series of cocktail umbrellas are tucked into Jeremiah's curls, and as he laughs a pink one falls out and flutters to the ground. I smile, and our eyes lock. It stops me in my tracks, and with Cameron moving forward I trip over myself, almost dragging him down with me, and the moment's broken. Shayla points at a blue and green flickering light that shows a snake flickering inside fish and Conrad raises his arms in a celebratory cheer, the rest of us following.
"Let's fucking go!" Steven whoops, and Jere hollers in response.
We speed up, easily threading through the crowd until a singular beat distinguishes itself from the background hum of music in the streets. Shayla and Nicole make their way straight to coat check to drop their bags, Cam handing his camera off to take with them. Steven and Jeremiah beeline to the bar to order more shots, leaving Taylor, Cam, and I to take in the scene. The ground floor is mostly a bar, in spite of the loud music and throb of dancers, but glowing arrows decorated in stylised scales light the way down a dark staircase to the real club. Conrad stands just off from us, and just before I can pull him over he makes a smoking gesture to me and ducks out of the bar, so I turn back. Shayla returns, throwing her arms over Cam, as Taylor points out the arrows to the basement for Nicole. Steven and Jeremiah are heading back from the bar, the both of them holding an almost implausible amount of glasses up high, at their height clearly visible through the throng. As they sloppily attempt to distribute them without dropping them we laugh.
"Where's Conrad?" Nicole leans her head to mine to raise her voice above the music.
I pull back and mime the same smoking gesture she made before and she nods and rolls her eyes. She passes me a glass and we clink, linking our arms before we down them, laughing at the looks we make as we try to hold back our grimaces. We head towards the signs, setting our emptied glasses on tables as we pass by. The stair walls are lined with mirrors, reflecting back the lights and our reflections, amplifying the neon glow of the club lighting. Amorphous disco balls hang like droplets from the ceiling and the boys have to duck slightly to avoid hitting their heads. The stairs open up to another bar, with a few tables, and just beyond a recessed dance floor that looks a little like a roller rink, flashing lights in an oval around the DJ booth. The wall paint is coated in sparkles and the whole place glitters. Old posters show classic movies with Spanish titles. I pull Taylor back to check my lipstick and fiddle with her tangled necklaces so they sit properly. She smiles and kisses my forehead, laughing at the lip gloss smear it leaves behind. I leave it, and when Shayla sees it she laughs too. Cam snaps a couple pictures with his phone of Nicole in front of a rhinestone snake statue by the bars edge, and then Jeremiah and Steven insist on making him take pictures of them as they pose with it, pretending to have their arms bitten off. Nicole whirls me onto the floor, swaying to an awful pulsing beat. The lights change from strobes of pink and red to washes of blue and green that bathe the room a turquoise sea-colour, making the room glitter like a wonderful, tacky Poseidon's den.
Time slips by and the music, and crowd, starts to improve. An old pop song that was played to death back when Taylor and I first started high school comes on and we laugh, sing-screaming along to the words like we didn't groan and change the station when it came on. The others know the words too and soon we're all singing it together. Steven appears with more drinks, and Cam and I take a break, sitting in a metallic vinyl booth side by side as we sip at our rum and cokes. Another song's come on now, or maybe a remix of it. I don't recognise it, but Cam mouths along to the chorus absentmindedly his head on my shoulder. He pulls out his phone and snaps a photo of the two of us together while I'm looking out at our friends, and when I look at the screen he's decorating the space above our heads with a pale yellow heart. He sees me looking and smiles and tilts the screen so I can see it clearly. Neither of us are looking into the camera, and with his head nestled in my neck, my arm scrunched in his hair, the both of us smiling. I take the phone from him and draw a second, smaller heart next to his, and then hand it back. He leans slightly over me to take a photo of our friends as they thrash to the music, and I move his glass to stop him from knocking it over. Jere and Taylor are performing some ridiculous imitation of a ballroom dance, and Steven's spinning Shayla as she laughs. I see Nicole moving out of the crowd and nudge Cam to tell him I'm going to the bathroom. I find her as she reaches the bar and wrap my arm around her. She spent the evening teaching us card games, and I feel inexplicably affectionate towards her. She sees the lip print on my forehead, laughs and adds another, and then we're both laughing, almost doubled over at the bar. I hand her my glass, and she takes a drink, nodding her approval.
"Bathroom?" She yells over the music and I nod, taking her hand as she leads me through the crowd. The bathroom is similarly bizarre. The floor is tiled like a disco, and the walls are patterned with fish scales. The soap dispensers are caged in poised silver vipers, and each of the stall doors bears a mermaid. I touch up my make up and finish my drink while I wait, and then we wash our hands together. I wet the back of my neck with cool water from the tap and she hands me a paper towel to dry my hands with.
"Do you want to go back in?"
"I think I'm going to go for a smoke."
"Okay." She squeezes my hand. "Save me a dance."
"Promise."
The combined effects of the drinking and bizarre mirrored stairway makes my journey outside fairly challenging, and the cool air is a relief from the stagnant heat of the club. The tang of salt makes my skin itch for the ocean. I'm wearing a bikini under my dress, and I almost want to close my eyes and follow the smell right into the sea, before I refocus on my mission.
"Shit," I swear. Everything's in Taylor's bag.
"You okay?" A voice teases from behind me, and I whirl to see Conrad, a cigarette in his mouth and a can in his hand. It's a familiar image.
"Maybe." I give him my sweetest smile. "Can I borrow a cigarette?"
"What, are you gonna give it back?"
"One. Please."
He contemplates it, but I can see his resolve fading. I was smoking earlier tonight, and neither him nor Steven said anything about it, although it was clearly kind of hard for him. Finally, he throws his head back, groans, and gives in.
"Here," He pulls a cigarette out and lights it for me, and I grin at the victory.
"Thank you," I grin, and do a shuffle.
"Stop, never tell anyone about this, Okay?"
"Never."
"Never."
We laugh again and lean against the wall, watching the people go by. Next to him, I remember all those times at Cousins, waiting for him to notice me. Sitting in the living room, as he tuned his guitar, next to him at the beach, at Prom. But the tension that had wrapped itself around me, the jolt I'd feel everytime he really looked at me, I barely even remember it. It's easy. It's Conrad. He passes me his drink, and our hands brush as I go to take a sip and there's nothing. No jolt, no sparks, no dizzying. It's clumsy, and we laugh and he takes his drink back, finishing it off before stubbing his cigarette out in an ashtray.
"Go," I push him. "Go have fun, dance, you've been out here all night."
He gives me a two-fingered salute, and disappears inside.
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*·~-.¸📰❣️,.-~*
okay so I think i'm going to finish this! or at least try! i've actually really missed writing it and thank u so much to everyone who's still reading and kept checking in on the story while i was gone it means so much to me and i'm so glad you like it!!! <333
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YOU ARE READING
invisible string
Fanfica bellyjere au where shayla, cam, taylor, and belly plan a trip to europe after their first year at college, (shayla's second) and run into steven, conrad, jeremiah, and nicole while there. this is so awkward to write ok lov u bye stevenshayla b plo...
