Lost

Chapter.1.

"Welcome to Eastern!" a tall girl with many colorful tattoos greet me, my mother and Mason, my boyfriend. "My name is Alice, and I'm your roommate." She lets us in, her faded blue hair pinned into a tight bun on the top of her head, the dim light from inside the dorm making the piece of metal in her eyebrow glisten.

"You're not staying here!" My mother exclaims, she is very quick to speak her mind if she doesn't like something. "You can't stay with someone like her!"

I look over at Alice with an apologetic look. "I'm not moving dorms," I scold my mother.

"Charlotte Anne," My mother takes her perfectly manicured hand and rubs her temples. Mason looks at me and I take a deep breath.

"Mother, I think I will be fine, please let me get settled." I plead.

She looks at Mason, then me, then Alice.

"Fine." She huffs crossing her arms. "I'll be in the car." She walks out.

I hug Mason goodbye. "I love you," he says kissing me.

"I love you too." I say pulling apart. Mason leaves following my mother to the car. Once the door is shut I sit in the empty bed.

"So, your name is Charlotte?" She questions.

"Yes, but please call me Lottie." I stand up putting my clothes neatly into the drawers, my once perfect dresses now wrinkled. Alice gets off the brown loveseat that sits next to my bed, separating our beds from each other.

Looking up from her phone she asks, "do you want to go to a party?" I stare at her with utter disbelief. Me, Charlotte Anne Payne being asked to a party. Last time I was invited to go the a party it was a joke and I found out two days before that it was just to push me into the pool.

"Like what kind of party?" I start to pick at the skin around my nails. Is this a joke? What if this is payback for when my mother insulted her? My anxiety starts up, I start to sweat, my palms begin to get sweaty.

"It's just a frat mixer." She says removing the pins from her tight top knot. "I-I don't know." I stutter. "C'mon it'll be fun, It's college, classes haven't started yet. A little party never killed nobody." She turns on her flat iron. I think about it looking at my watch, it's 7:30, classes don't start until monday. I will have all of tomorrow to read for my literature classes.

"Fine," I huff.

"Great!" Alice smiles picking up her phone, "Jace will be here at 8."

I grab my curling iron to fix up my blonde curls, plugging it into the bathroom outlet.

"Who is Jace? And how do you know him?" I begin to bomb her with questions.

"He and I had a thing," she shrugs.

"A thing?" I question.

"Yeah, like a friend with benefits." She says, I start fixing my hair.

"Benefits?"

"Sex, Lottie, sex." She laughs applying her eyeliner around her emerald eyes. 

Oh.

"How long have you and your man been together?"

"His name is Mason and we have been together for 3 years." I smile, I miss him so much already. "We have been neighbors for most of our lives." I continue applying a straight line of liner across my lids.

"And you haven't had sex?" She questions.

"No, we both agreed to wait until marriage." I explain.

"Oh, that's nice." She trails off. An awkward silence fills the small, dimly lit room. I hope she doesn't think I'm prude. I study her, her faded blue hair that was once in  a tight bun on the top of her head is now sick straight and the piercings on her face, she had one in her left eyebrow and one in her nose that you could only see if the light hit it. My thoughts were interrupted by a bold knocking.

"That must be Jace." She stood up from her bed and answered the door with one swift motion, "hello." She smiled, welcoming him in. "This is Charlotte," Alice announces.

"Please call me, Lottie." I whisper.

"Charlotte, you're aware that we are going to a party and not a funeral, right?" His pink lips formed into a smirk, like Alice, he had piercings; his lip piercing fascinating the most. His black jeans were tight against his legs, a loose fitting white shirt covered his chest, you could see the outline of a few tattoos he had scattered along his chest, his brown curly hair styled messily atop his head. I look down at myself, long grey heavy wool skirt with a pink blouse, what's wrong with this? Mason doesn't have a problem with me wearing this. This is what I'm comfortable in. I am already going to the party, what else do they want from me?

"This is what I am comfortable in, Jack, is it?" I smile at my comeback. his piercing grey eyes almost burning as he looked me in the eye.

"It's Jace." He gritted his teeth.

"Yeah, same thing." I look at Alice and she has a nervous look across her face.

"We should get going," Alice finally speaks up.

"Yeah, we should." Jace turns around and exits the dorm. Alice locks and hands me the key so I can get in later tonight.

"Jace, could you give Lottie a ride sometime in the night back to the dorm?" Alice batts her eyes at him.

"If I'm not too hammered." Jace and Alice both laugh. As we pull up to the frat house I can hear the music and smell the mass amounts of alcohol. We enter the house, red plastic cups scattered everywhere. Somebody handed me a cup of red liquid that smelled sweet.

"You might not want to drink that." Alice mumbled in my ear, "it's alcohol." I find the closest table and set it on there. Why did I agree to this. I am miserable. It's too loud, I really don't belong here. We make our way to a table with a couch and a couple of chairs around it.

"Amanda,Truth or Dare?" I over hear, Truth or Dare at a college party. Why? I thought there would be more of what I see in movies.

"I dare you to take your underwear off and keep them off for the rest of the game." A olive skinned boy says. She does as she is told and she somehow got them off without taking her pants off. Some party trick. I roll my eyes.

"Alice! Jace!" A voice says within the Truth and Dare circle. "Who's the new girl?"

"This is Lottie, she's new this semester, she's my dorm mate."

"Well, sit down." Amanda shuffles over and pats the seat next to her. Jace sat on the floor in front of Alice while she sat on a chair across from the couch.

"Are you up to play truth or dare with us?" The olive skinned boy asked.

"Sure," I hesitate.

"Okay, truth or dare, Lottie?" Amanda asks.

"Truth." I whisper.

"Typical." I hear Jace comment.

"How far have you ever gone?" Amanda asked, the group snickered.

"All the way" My voice cracked. Some of them snicker and laugh, some are even whispering to themselves. Flashbacks from my highschool start flooding back. I start to feel dizzy. My mind takes me to my Uncles' house when I was 12 years old. Him touching me. Should I even count that? I look at the group, tears starting to sting my eyes. Jace was staring at me a sad look displayed on his hard features.

"I'll be right back," I whisper to Alice. I leave the group to find a bathroom, I ask a drunk couple where the bathroom is, "Upstairs."

"Thank you."  I rush upstairs looking and opening each door trying to find the damn restroom.