Hey Angel - H.S

9

[Nicole]

    I fluff the ends of my dark hair once more before sighing at my reflection. Darcy invited me to go to a party with her tonight and I dumbly agreed to go.

    I've always hated clubs and huge parties; even in my college days I hated them. I don't see the fun in getting so plastered that you can't walk upright, or that you could be taken advantage of.

    "Nicole! Are you ready yet?" Darcy yells from my living room.

    I take a deep breath and step out of the bathroom and quickly make my way to her. She looks up and frowns with a raised eyebrow.

    "Don't you have something more. . . Fun?" She says slowly.

    "What's wrong with this?" I mutter, glancing down at my plain black shirt and skinny jeans.

    She shrugs and grabs her things from the counter as I put on my black flats. Darcy walks out the door first and I follow behind after locking the door.

A bad feeling twists in my stomach as I close the passenger door, but I push the thought away. I decide that I don't want to bring down Darcy's mood by my actions, so I buckle the seatbelt and lean back into the leather chair.

"I'm so pumped!" Darcy squeals as we shuffle along the paved sidewalk.

I nod and smile in response, but my bad gut feeling gets stronger the closer we get to the blasting music. When we reach the house, there were already drunk people roaming around the front yard. Two guys stop us, both holding red cups and reeking of alcohol as they slur a really bad pick up line.

My nose scrunch's up as my response to them and Darcy pushes past them towards the door. With my head down, I scurry away from the guys and catch up to Darcy inside. When I approach her, I notice that she already has a drink in her hand and assume I'm going to be driving home tonight.

"Nicole! Isn't this fun?" Darcy yells over the booming bass.

No, there's too many people and it's too hot, I think to myself, but instead, I tell her it was. Darcy smiles and takes my hand, leading me towards the kitchen. On the counters were various alcoholic beverages along with candies and chips; most of which has ended up on the ground rather than the bowls.

I turn and some guy runs into me and spills his drink down my front. He slurs an apology and tries to wipe my chest but I move away before he could. Once he stumbles away to the living room, Darcy shoves a cup of beer in my hand. The liquid sloshes over the rim and drips down my hand, leaving it sticky.

"Why are you all wet?" Darcy asks as we migrate back to the loud music.

"Some guy spilled his drink on me," I yell.

She nods as she chugs her drink and sways with the beat of the music. I look at the swishing liquid in my cup and take a sip, allowing the cool beer to soothe my already aching throat. Darcy shouts something incoherent and jumps around before squeezing past more people towards the kitchen.

I sigh, glancing around at everyone by me who are laughing and dancing. I spot a couch and squeeze through the crowd towards it. When I sit down, a drunk couple plops down beside me. As they begin to giggle and make out, I take a deep drink of the beer.

Darcy finds me and hands me another beer before running off into the crowd again. The louder the music gets, the more I drink from the cup to distract myself from being uncomfortable.

Soon after I finish off the beer, it starts to get stuffy. The couple beside me continue to brush up against my arm and the people dancing are getting too close to me. I break into a small sweat and stand up as the room starts to get dizzy.