This is Me Trying ⭑ Rafe Cameron

thirty three

THIRTY THREE
[33]
song: planet talex by radiohead

Rafe found Cassie again after about a half hour, she was sat on a couch petting who she assumed was the Jackman's yellow lab. It sat in front of her, it's chin propped up on her legs as she scratched it's ears.

He held his hand out like he was suggesting he'd help her stand from the couch. But she stood on her own, brushing the dog hair off her dress.

"Sorry." He dug his knuckles into his eyes as he huffed out the exhaustion from that conversation. "Colleague's of my dad's." He didn't look very pleased to have been talking to them either.

If Cassie was here under any other circumstance besides keeping him distracted, she would've been pissed he'd left her alone for that long. But she shrugged it off in hopes that it'd continue. She hadn't heard anything from Sarah yet.

"We can go." Rafe adds.

Cassie's eyebrows raised. "Already?"

He looks around and shrugs. "Is this fun for you?"

Cassie couldn't even pretend to lie. Given the fact that the only words she'd spoken in the last thirty minutes were to a dog. "Well," she looked around in hopes of finding something else to do. "No, but I don't want to leave yet."

Rafe eyed her suspiciously. "Why didn't you just ask Sarah to come with you?"

She noticed he had a different glass of alcohol than he'd had when he started that conversation. This one was empty too. She shrugged. "I don't know."

Rafe wasn't convinced, but he nodded anyway. "Let's go upstairs."

She felt like a lost puppy following Rafe through the crowd, mumbling a polite 'excuse me' every time she got separated  and had to shove her way back to him.

Rafe seemed to know exactly where he was going as they got to the top of the steps. He weaved his way through, now, people their own age, until he knocked on one of the many doors lining the hallway.

And this was so much worse. Walking into a large marble bathroom full of her own peers. There was a difference in their stares and hushed comments than the ones she received downstairs. These were personal, and not based off assumption.

It was mostly dark, except for the glow of purple neon lights from the bedroom the bathroom was connected to, and a few candles that burned to try and rid the room of the heavy smell of weed.

And somehow it was louder in here, music echoed off the bathroom walls in a way that made her shocked she didn't hear it from downstairs.

People almost cheered as Rafe walked in, two guys getting up off the counters they sat on to greet him excitedly. Cassie looking around awkwardly as they spoke. Three girls sat in the large white bathtub like it was a couch, passing a blunt between themselves as they propped their legs up against it.

She recognized one of them from earlier with Sarah, Hannah. She thought it would be means enough to exchange polite smiles. But apparently not, the girl kept her same bewildered expression as her eyes darted from Rafe, then back to Cassie.

"This your girl?"

Cassie realized Rafe's conversation had been opened up to her, and she returns her attention back to it. The two new guys Cassie didn't recognize were staring at her. Not as confused as the girls in the tub, but more like they were trying to adjust their eyes in the darkness to try and recognize her.