When It All Started (KITEP One Shot)

What It Used to Be Like and What It Is

There's always been this one day that, whenever I happen to think about my past, always comes up. I can't say I'm proud of it, and it makes me completely irritated that I can't forget about it, but I guess that's just how some things in life work.

~Freshman Year~

"It isn't that bad, right Sandy?" Flora asked me as she was trying to apply gloss onto her already painted lips. She reached over and turned the speaker up with her free hand.

"I guess it's okay," I mumbled back, not really listening to what was playing. It was some upbeat song where the artist just sang the same words over and over and hoped it caught on.

"Flora, this music is absolutely tasteless," Janet declared from her corner of the room. She was sitting in one of Flora's white moon chairs, positioned tastefully around a glass table with three or four copies of Vogue fanned out on the top. I was starting to think that that was becoming her chair.

"Just because you're a musician doesn't mean you have to criticize everything else created," Flora pouted. She was now searching in her closet for the perfect shoes to match her tight mauve dress.

Janet started to say something, but I talked over her. "Don't wear anything too high. I'm not carrying you home tonight when Raymond gets you too drunk, and I'm not refusing any guy that offers. But in the rare case that one doesn't, you're stuck walking in whatever you came in, and god knows you won't walk barefoot." I could get away with saying this to Flora, I knew. She always got drunk at those types of parties and this one time we accidentally showed up to an all girls party, she had to walk home in her six inch Louboutin heels. It was not a fun night.

"Raymond's not gonna get me drunk," she giggled. "He respects me too much to do that."

I snorted. "The only thing that pig respects you for is your pretty face and dresses that he hopes you bend over just enough in." I'd known Raymond for as long as I could remember, not well, but enough to know that he wants something easy. And Flora Morgan can be classified as a lot of things, but easy is not one of them.

"Sandra does say a lot of," Janet searched for the right word while I shot a glare at her, "contradictory things, but I have to agree with this one. Raymond isn't your kind of guy."

Flora turned around with a look on her face like 'well, duh'. "Of course he's not! That doesn't mean he doesn't know how to have a good time, though."

"Time will tell. But right now, time's telling you to hurry up. We're already half an hour late to the party." Raymond had just started throwing those parties for literally anyone in the entire school that wanted to go. I didn't know what to think of them, but I went along with Flora anyways. Janet just happened to be dragged into that one; parties weren't really her thing.

*

"Flora!" Raymond called out as his eyes locked with hers. He started making his way over here with a beer already in his hand.

On first sight, it looked just as bad as I thought it would, maybe even worse. There were bodies everywhere and as far as I could see, none of them were left without some sort of drink, whether it be a beer or a red solo cup. The furniture was moved to the sides of the room, but that didn't stop people from doing what they wanted with it. Some of it was starting to make its way back to the center of the room and others looked to be in their original spot, just with bodies strewn across them. I wouldn't be surprised if at least three people threw up on them by the end of the night- or morning.

"Raymond!" Flora waited for Raymond to get to her before bringing him in for a hug and a kiss on the cheek like they were old friends. Weirdly enough, he didn't take it for granted.