Childhood Games

~Chapter 9~

Alan

I felt her wet lips move against mine as she took her hands and played in my hair. Her body moved on top of mine as though she were dancing. The music was too loud to hear if she was moaning, but the vibrations against my lips helped me come to that conclusion, and I mean, I would've been excited if it weren't for the fact that we were in the couch area with many people watching.

Denali had gotten drunk faster that I could keep my eye on her. She kept running off with random friends that would show up, and every time they would return her to me, she'd be more drunk than the last time. This is how we ended up in this position. I didn't want to do this here. This was uncomfortable.

"Hey, Nal, let's go somewhere else, yeah?" I whispered in her ear. She started to whine when she looked up and her eyebrows furrowed.

"Whyyyy? We're fine right here, aren't we? Nobody cares," she said as she began kissing my neck.

"Yeah, I know. There's just too many people around, and I don't want them to get the wrong idea about what kind of person you and I are." I admitted. She stopped and gave a threatening look.

"Is that so? Or is it just the fact that you're afraid that bitch Naomi will see if she decides to walk past?"

Whoa. Where did that come from?

Though that wasn't the main reason, a tiny part of me was scared that would happen. Not for the insane reason Denali had thought, but for the fact that Naomi would be the first person to call us out on it. Better yet, she would probably make an entire show out of it. After pretending that she didn't know me, I basically wrote off her existence at this party, knowing it would make her absolutely pissed.

"That's not it, Denali," I assured her, but I could tell she wasn't believing it.

"It was always like that with you and her! You knew that I liked you for the longest time, but you rejected me every time because you always thought of her!" she screamed before running off into the crowd.

She had me there. In the past, Denali would always admit to me that she liked me, but because Naomi was first on my priorities in terms of people, I would have never wanted to hurt her. Denali became pretty bitter and took it out on Naomi harshly. Of course Naomi never faltered and didn't just stay still while being insulted. Denali was probably the first example of how cold Naomi truly could be.

But it was different now. Naomi was a problem to me, and Denali was who I chose to be with. The numbers had been reversed which is why I decided to go and look for her. I didn't want her drunk and rambling off her feelings.

Trying to look for one specific person at party with almost one-hundred or more people was damn-near impossible. I thought I had searched every place, but of course I didn't know for sure as this was not my home, and I had no idea where I was going. After searching high and low, I finally found Jacob dancing with some girl. He quickly saw me and said something in the girl's ear.

"Hey man! What's up?" he greeted when we finally got outside the house.

"Nothing. Hey, have you seen Denali anywhere? She went all emotional drunk on me."

"Nah. Haven't seen her. She'll show up though. Want to drink for me since I'm designated driver?" he asked.

I looked down at the bottle of Fireball he so graciously saved for this very moment of getting his best friend drunk. I chuckled and nodded while opening the bottle and chugging the burning liquid down my throat. It tasted like cinnamon and cough medicine. Enough of that I suppose.

"Dude, you just took like three shots of that in one go! That stuff's supposed to mess you up," he laughed.

"That's why you're designated driver," I retorted.

After a while of idle conversation and making fun of drunk people on the lawn, my body started to feel warm and my head felt airy. I looked over at Jacob and gave him, like, three high fives all while being a little louder than usual.

"There he goes," I heard Jacob say, but I didn't care. I felt great.

"Why'd Denali get mad at you anyways?" Jacob asked. I started chuckling.

"She's jealous of the friendship I had with Naomi when we were younger. She thinks I won't make out with her on the couch because I'm afraid I'll hurt Naomi again," I told.

"Again?" Jacob asked. I waved his comment away with my hand.

"Naomi is strong she can take it." I blabbered and looked into the bottle one more time before drinking more. "Hey, this is good," I slurred. Jacob slowly took the bottle away and placed it by his side. That was probably for the better.

"Speaking of Naomi, you guys seemed like best friends. What happened?" Jacob asked. I looked over at him, and I felt my face fall as blurred images came to mind from that night.

"A lot."

"It must've been bad if you hate her this much, and it's been that much amount of time."

I don't know if it was the alcohol, but I started taking what Jacob said and analyzed it the best I could for being drunk. Questions started popping up in my head wondering what it was that made me hate her or if I really did hate her at this point. And then I thought about our fruit fight and how much fun it was to hear her shriek and call me names.

Whoa. Did I think it was fun? I was gone.

I smiled, "You know, I think I'm done with fight-"

"Yo! Jake. Al. You gotta come check this out. There's this insanely hot girl dancing with Alex and he thinks he's gonna score!" our friend Emory interrupted. We followed him inside to where most of the people were dancing. Emory pointed to the campus playboy on the dance floor dancing with a girl in a black dress and eyes with a shade of brown that only her childhood friend would know the meaning of.

Her irises were a darker brown and that meant Naomi was out of it.

I rushed over to her without being to conspicuous and looked her straight in her eye. I didn't know why I was doing this. Hadn't I just told her that I wasn't responsible for her?

"Are you drunk?" I shouted while she moved and grinded against Alex. He was enjoying it too much for my comfortability.

And what happened next seemed to unrealistic to have happened.

"Allie," she smiled and ran to me. I looked over at Alex who smiled at me and walked over to the next girl.

So that answered my question.

My head was still feeling light, so I couldn't process her acting this way. Had she just said Allie? Was I imagining that? Allie was her nickname for me that no one knew about. How many drinks had she had for her to forget everything and call me that?

"Hey," she said furrowing her eyebrows, "I don't feel so good."

I had enough rationality to know that she couldn't throw up in the middle of a huge crowd, so I sloppily dragged her upstairs to one of the rooms and found a bathroom connected to it. She went inside and slammed the door. It was almost hard to stand, so I leaned against the wall while I waited for Naomi to be done with her business.

After about five minutes, she stumbled out the bathroom with her high heels in her hand and giggling. One look at her and you could tell she was gone. The problem was, I was so entranced by the sound of her laugh that I hadn't heard in years, that I started laughing along with her. It was just us two idiots who hated each other laughing in a room drunk, and I don't know why, but it felt good to laugh.

So good that I forgot who I was looking for.