Casey walked into the house party, hesitant but feigning confidence. She didn’t see anyone that she knew well. Music was pounding out from the stack of speakers leaning against the wall. The song was unrecognisable, with the base turned up too high. Casey felt like she could breathe the music, rather than hear it. A few boys sat on their coolers with baseball caps pulled low over their faces. They were concentrating on the game of beer pong their friends were energetically playing a few feet away. A pair of hands grabbed her bum and Casey jumped.
“Hey baby, how ya doin’?” A shrill voice shouted over the noise. Casey smiled and turned to see Marisa.
“Hey, how’s it? Wow blue today?”
She touched Marisa’s bright blue shoulder length hair. Marisa placed her hands on Casey’s hips and started sliding her body up and down. Casey stepped back awkwardly. She hated it when Marisa acted like this. Her friend never seemed to know when it was too much. Marisa turned to look at the boys to see if she had got their attention. They were ignoring her, so she tossed her hair and shrugged, “Come on freak, let’s get out of here.”
Casey linked arms with her and walked outside. As they walked Marisa hooked her finger into the bottom of Casey’s green t-shirt, “What’s this?”
Casey shrugged, “You know me, simple girl at heart.”
Marisa sneered, “ I love how you can just wear anything and not care whether you look good or not.”
Casey frowned at the backhanded comment. She opened her mouth to defend herself but then noticed the moment Marisa spotted some guys a few metres away. She turned away to adjust her tightly laced corset style top. Once her ample breasts were nearly popping out of the top, Marisa turned back to the guys on the patio.
Someone had strung up some fairy lights in the garden and several chairs and tables were spread out across the lawn. There were a lot of people outside, some dancing and some standing around and talking. It was busy but outside Casey breathed a sigh of relief to be able to hear again.
Marisa ran up to a few guys and jumped on the back of one of them. She covered his eyes and wrapped her legs around him.
“Guess who?” she screamed. The guy groped her without apology, then asked, “Lynn is that you?”
Marisa jumped down, “Ugh Dylan you’re such a pig”
He laughed and smacked her on the ass, admiring the leopard skin mini skirt she wore. “You love it.”
Marisa pretended to pout, then laughed and leaned into him, taking a swing of his beer. “What does a lady need to do to get a drink around here?”
Dylan laughed, “Show me a lady and I’ll tell you.” His friends laughed loudly.
Marisa sneered, “Your ass must be pretty jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth!”
She flipped him the bird and walked off with his beer. Casey watched the interaction unfold from a far. She didn’t like the guys Marisa gravitated towards. They were unapologetic assholes and Marisa changed around them, always vying for their attention and acting overly sexual. It made Casey uncomfortable, especially knowing some of the bad things that had happened to Marisa when she was younger. She hadn’t had an easy life, so Casey always tried not to judge her tooharshly. But sometimes the way Marisa acted made her feel really uncomfortable.
Marisa eventually followed Casey over to a swinging chair and sat down next to her. “Ugh Dylan is such a dick.”
Casey nodded in agreement as she looked around the patio. Tonight was a weird mixture of seniors, freshly wasted on graduation fumes and some older guys who she vaguely recognised but wasn’t interested in meeting. She had seen a few girls inside that she knew, but they were busy dancing near the speakers and she didn’t want to go back inside yet. It felt too much like burrowing into a collapsing sound tunnel and the thought of it made her skin crawl.
Marisa snorted into her beer, “You know I sucked him off at new years.”
Marisa raised her eyebrows suggestively and Casey shrugged noncommittally. She dreaded where this conversation was going. Marissa was yet again trying to shock her virgin friend by oversharing over active sex life.
“Yeh the fucker tasted weird. No way I’m going near him again.”
Casey nodded, then attempted to change the subject, “Hey isn’t that Jay Mathews?” She leaned her head to one side, trying to peer through the crowd.
Marisa took a big chug of her beer, finished it and then threw the empty on the ground. She belched loudly. “Come on bitch, let’s get some more drinks.”
Casey waved her hands, “Nah, I’m going to take it easy tonight.”
Marisa jumped up and jostled the swing chair. “Laters,” she drawled as she made her way back to the group of guys milling around a cooler of drinks. Casey rocked the chair slowly, revelling in the calm that descended around her. She watched Marisa pull her top down low again and sit on some guy's lap.
“Hi”
Casey looked up to see Jay standing in front of her. His hair was messed up like he had just woken up and he wore a simple, faded plaid shirt. He held a soda can and his pale blue eyes were focused on her. She smiled at him shyly, “Hey, how’s it going?”
He smiled at her brightly, “Not bad. You enjoying the party?”
Casey rocked her head from side to side, indicating her indecision. “I think I need louder bass. It’s just not hitting the mark for me you know? I gotta have more bass”
Jay laughed. He flicked up his collar and gestured with his hands “I gotta fever and the only prescription is a lot more bass.”
She laughed, “Wow you do a decent Christopher Walkin."
He gestured to the swing seat and she nodded and made room for him. Jay sat down and they started slowly rocking the seat back and forth. She looked at him strangely, “We should have hung out more this year.”
Jay stared at her for a moment with a strange look on his face. Then a loud scream tore out across the party. Casey tensed in shock, then relaxed back into the seat when she saw it was just Marisa. She had been teasing some jock who was now attempting to do some kind of weight lift, with her body as the weights.
Casey looked away embarrassed.
Jay nodded in Marisa’s direction, “You guys come together?”
Casey shrugged, “Kind of. How about you? You here with Mary?”
Jay choked on his soda and then cleared his throat. “Uh no, we uh broke up.”
Casey frowned, “Oh sorry to hear that.”
He shrugged, “Not meant to be.” He cleared his throat again, “I uh, drove Pete and Adam. I’m their DD tonight.”
Casey lit up, “Oh that’s nice of you. I’m not drinking either. Lately I seem to get way too drunk or instantly sick, so I’m staying clear of the booze tonight.”
His gaze rested on her for a second then he scanned the party, “Cool, nice to hang out with someone who’s not slurring and monosilabic”
Casey grinned, “I dunno I can pull off a pretty mean Chad.”
Jay laughed and put on a Calafornian accent “Oh okay.”
She raised an eyebrow and copied him, “Okay?”
“What up?”
“Oh okay”
They both laughed. Marisa suddenly appeared, shouting loudly, “Hey losers!”
Marisa sat on Jay’s lap and wrapped her arm around his neck. Jay startled and awkwardly stood up. Marisa slid off of him with a pout, then she took his seat. She looked between the two of them. “Bless your little heart Jay, it’s never going to happen”
Jay looked away embarrassed and Marisa turned to Casey, “Hey Special K? Let’s go dance.” She pulled at her arm.
Casey looked apologetically up at Jay. She started to say something but he held out his hand and waved her words away, “It’s fine. I’ll talk to you later.”
Casey smiled, “Cool.”
Marisa groaned, “Ugh you are so lame, come on.” She dragged Casey into the house.
YOU ARE READING
The Reunion
ChickLitAfter a terrible breakup, Casey is getting through each day, one at a time. Organising the company's end of year retreat should be a piece of cake, but throw in an unexpected reunion with her long lost high school crush and a snowstorm that arrives...
