Downside Up

Chapter Two (Count On Me - Bruno Mars)

My summer was a mess to say that at least. Whatever someone might imagine at this point - it was worse.

The last day of school. The party down at the lake near my house. We all had lots of fun - high school was almost over and according to the law we would never ever have to attempt school again. Which was an amazing feeling.

I've never been one of the popular kids - if anything, I would avoid them, to stay out of trouble and away from the bullies. No one needs others to pick on them, neither did I.

Of course, this party was crowded by so-called „cool" kids. They danced and drank as much as they possibly could, some of them went a bit around the lake, to take their private drugs and others just remained making out with their partner since grade 9. I don't really know why I went there in the first place, but I'd guess it was because of Izzy. Throughout the years, we became pretty good friends or something like this. She lived next door and we had almost all classes together, which made us work together in group projects and talk a lot on our way home.

When the "end of the year" party came around, she didn't want to turn up there completely on her own, so I agreed to join her. Neither of us was too excited for the party, because other than other teenagers we prefer staying home and watching Netflix over getting drunk along with some random strangers.

But and there always seemed to be a „but", Izzy hoped, that her crush would finally ask her out or that she would maybe be brave enough to talk to him. That was her reason. I knew she'd probably get drunk, as she has before and I would have to carry her back home. That's why I came along. Because that's what friends do, right?

The whole thing bored me to death. The whole time I stayed on a bench near the path that went around the lake. The whole time I kept my eyes on Izzy to make sure, that she was safe. Is that weird?

All I drank was a bottle of water. When I reassured myself that there were no problems down at the party, I kept reading an eBook that I had on my phone. Call me weird, I don't have a problem with that. All I really wanted was to go home.

Around 11 pm, I spotted Izzy talking to him. She finally found enough courage - I really didn't want to know, if she was brave enough herself or if she had such a big amount of alcohol, that she didn't care anymore.

I noticed that she moved the bottle of beer, that she had in her hand, more frequently to her mouth. She started dancing to the club music awkwardly, but he didn't seem to notice or he just didn't want to dance with her. If so, I felt sorry for Izzy. She had waited for that moment for so long and now she seemed so lost. Maybe he didn't return her feelings.

I knew, that I myself wouldn't have wanted to dance with an obviously drunk person. But no one down there seemed to care, since they all had at least 2 bottles of beer. That's what I assumed.

Which made me even more scared, when Izzy's crush, who happens to be one of the main troublemakers, turned around to look directly in my face and started walking towards my bench. My anxiety shot up, my heart started beating rapidly and I tried to calm myself so that I wouldn't run away head over heals. Maybe he was walking towards one of his friends? Or he wanted to have a nice chat. Who knew? If he wanted to talk to me, running away wouldn't solve my problem - it would make it worse.

I tried to ignore him as long as I could. I understood Izzy - I had a huge crush on him in fifth grade and since then I realised me coming back to the thought of liking him. But I really didn't want to. He caused trouble. He was no good. And I had absolutely no chance with him. So why try? I'd rather stay safe than have my heart broken by him. Or anyone else.

When he stood right in front of me, I noticed the bottle in his hand. It was unopened. Had he brought a new one along with him? Or had he kept this one bottle the whole evening but didn't actually drink from it? I immediately facepalmed myself. Why would he?