Effortless

Fifteen

Javier Cortez

I was trying my best to have fun at the party but Diane was being a bit of a nuisance. It wasn't like she was drunk because she refused to ever have a sip of alcohol. It was just that she kept bugging me about other things when all I cared to do was look for Elias.

I had seen him earlier when he and his friends arrived at the party. We had made eye contact but he broke it off after a couple of seconds. After that, the only thing I could think about was him.

"Javier!" Diane called me as she shook my arm. When she finally grabbed my attention, she sighed. "Why do you keep spacing out?"

Because you aren't my priority right now.

"I'm sorry, babe." I said as I leaned close to her ear because of the loud music.

I hated that I was so focused on Eli. I was always focused on him, literally. In class I'd watch him, at lunch I'd watch him, when I saw him in public I'd watch him. I was starting to sound like a stalker and a creep but that wasn't my goal. It was just that I was drawn to him for some inexplicable reason. It was really bad of me to want to pay attention to a person who presumably hated my guts rather than my own girlfriend.

So when I saw Benji Crowler leading him somewhere, it piqued my interest. When they moved too far away to where I couldn't see them, I gradually moved myself and Diane closer. Diane was just happy that I was finally dancing with her so she didn't realize what I was doing.

I was simply looking out for a friend. Not that I thought that Benji had ill intentions because he was actually a really chill guy. I just wanted to see where they were going, that was all.

I watched as Benji shooed off one kid who was sitting on the couch before he got there. The guy didn't look happy, but seeing as this was Benji's party he wouldn't protest.

I had noticed that Benji picked up a cup that was suspiciously on the floor next to the couch. That raised a ton of questions for me. Why would he pick up a random drink on the ground? Was he actually looking to drink from it? That would be disgusting.

The more I watched the more it seemed like Benji was about to give that to Eli. That was when I knew that I was for sure going over to them. Anybody with sight could see how wasted Elias was, so who in their right mind would think that it was okay to give him more? The only thing that should have been in that cup was water, but I had the feeling that it was definitely not water.

I tried to walk over there but Diane grabbed my wrist.

"Where are you going?" She asked as she pouted.

I sighed, I didn't have time for this. I pointed to Benji and Elias. "Over there. I'll be right back."

Diane did not look happy. She folded her arms and continued to pout like a child. "To Elias? Why?"

"I need to ask him something, let me go."

She looked at me, dumbfounded. It was like she couldn't possibly believe that I needed to do something that didn't involve her. I would only be gone a second, I would come back to her. She got like that every time Eli's name got brought up in conversation.

"If you walk away right now, I'll get a ride home from Poppy." She said coldly. Poppy was a friend of hers.

"Don't let Poppy leave you." I said before I broke free of her grasp and walked off.

I couldn't be bothered to care about Diane at that moment. She was irrelevant. It was terrible of me to say that of my girlfriend but it was how I felt. I loved her but she was sometimes too much with her extreme views and morals. We'd take breaks in our relationship because of how often we fought with each other. However, it was always private. We never made a big deal out of it so no one truly knew how often we broke up and got back together.