Never Fall in Love with the Fisher Boys

31- Absolutely Not

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You have to,” Will told me as we sat in our last period of the day, which was business applications. It was the last day of school before winter break so our teacher just let us do whatever we wanted for the period although most of the students had already left the building, too eager to get out of school for two whole weeks.

“No I don’t have to,” I shook my head at him. “And I’m not going to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to,” I said to him. “I hate your stupid parties.”

“What’s so bad about them?” He asked me, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Do I need to make a list?” I wondered and he just looked at me expectantly, so I did. “Well, at the first party, I almost had a panic attack because that guy almost assaulted me. At the second one… you know,” You kissed me and made me think that we could be a thing before you kissed another girl. He knew what I was talking about and just nodded.

“That’s only two though,” He said. “Third time is a charm, you know.”

“I’m not going.”

“Maddie,” He sighed. “I really want you there.”

“You do not,” I said with a small laugh. “You want Aster there and the only way to get her there is if I invite her.”

“And it’s the New Year. What better way to celebrate the New Year than to go to a huge awesome party?” He wondered pleadingly.

“I’m not going,” I shook my head at him. “You’re going to have to ask her yourself.”

“Has anybody ever told you how impossible you are?” Will asked me with a dramatically sad sigh. “It won’t be that bad. It’ll be so much fun, it’ll be insane.”

Luckily, the bell rang then and I was able to escape Will’s constant pleading with me to go to his New Year party. It was going to be at the house but I planned on locking myself in my room through the whole thing and ignoring the party downstairs. That, or I could spend the night with Paige if she didn’t want to go to the party either but I was sure that she’d want to go.

I get to my locker after basically having to wrestle through the crowded hallways of people ready to get out of the school. A two week break sounded like heaven and it couldn’t have come sooner. I pulled my winter coat out of my locker and tossed it on over my blue Aztec-like sweater because it was in the negatives outside (Fahrenheit) although it wasn’t snowing, it was freezing outside and layers were crucial.

Once I had everything ready to go, I met Will and Carter near the back door of the school where we always met up to get to the car.

“So, what if Carter went? Then would you go?” Will asked me, obviously not forgetting about this whole party thing.

“Go where?” Carter wondered.

“To the New Year party,” I told him.

“Oh, man, really?” Carter laughed, looking at his brother.

“Shut up, it’s a good party,” Will defended, glaring at Carter.

Carter turned to me, holding my gloved hand in his. “You shouldn’t go if you don’t want to. It’s one of the worst parties of the year- or the best, depending on how you look at it. It seriously gets wild.”

“Carter. Shut up,” Will hissed but I just laughed. I wasn’t going to go with or without Carter’s testimony, so I wasn’t sure why Will got so frustrated at Carter.