Invisible

The Party

My brother parks the car in front of what I hope is Ethan's house. I send him a text telling him I'm here. After a few seconds, the front door opens, and he steps out. He is wearing a grey sleeveless shirt that has some band I've never heard of on the front. His surprisingly muscular arms are showing, and I find myself staring at them as he approaches the car. Neither one of us have any drinks like Kayla told us to bring. I couldn't risk stealing from my dad while he was home. Chris would have been fine with it, seeing as he goes to parties himself all the time. 

Ethan opens the back door and sits down. Chris speeds off towards Kayla's house.

The music coming from the party can be heard before we turn onto her street. Though it's dark, I can see that Ethan is pale. His hands are fidgeting in his lap. He is very obviously nervous. I put my hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, it'll be fun," I say quietly. He looks at me, tries to smile, and nods.

Chris parks again, and Ethan steps out first. I crawl across the seats and follow him out the door. We're about an hour late, so it's packed. There's a few people on the front lawn, all holding red Solo cups. The front door is wide open, and filled with people. 

We both make our way inside, and are almost immediately found by Kayla. I can tell she is already drunk. She stumbles over and slings her arms around both of us. The cup in her hand splashes a bit on my back.

"You came! I knew you would come! I knew it! Yes! I knew you would show up! Let me get you guys some drinks!" she starts pulling us down the hall. I look at Ethan and roll my eyes. He smirks.

We're pulled into the kitchen, where the entire counter is covered in hard liquors, Solo cups, and cans and bottles. She picks up a can of beer, pours half of it into one cup, and the rest into a separate one. She hands one cup to each of us. Ethan holds it up to his face, and pretends to take a sip. He sees that I've noticed he didn't take an actual sip, and winks at me. I can't help but let out a chuckle. She pulls herself up and sits on the counter, and stares at us. I still haven't taken a sip.

"Well come on! Drink it!" she urges us.

"I think we should stay sober, just to keep an eye on things," I explain.

"Connor, you love drinking!"

My face turns red. I really don't want to get drunk tonight. I always do something stupid when I'm drunk, and I don't want to scare Ethan away.

"I'm just not in the mood tonight, Kayla." I grab Ethan's cup and pour the drinks down the sink drain.

"You're going to be so boring if you don't drink! Promise me you won't sit on your ass the whole time. You two have to dance and play the games and shit!"

I look at Ethan. He seems kind of excited, so I nod, and she leads us to where the majority of the people are.

As we step into the family room, the smell of alcohol and maybe some other drugs is almost overwhelming. Everyone is sitting in a circle on the floor, laughing hysterically.

"Kayla! We saved you a spot! And your threesome buddies can play too!" I can't see who said it, but she rolls her eyes, grabs my wrist and starts pulling me to the Satanic ritual circle. I sit in between Jeff and Christian. Kayla bring Ethan to the other side of the circle and sits next to him. I can tell he is uncomfortable with this.

"So, we're playing a mix of spin the bottle and seven minutes in heaven. So the two people that bottle lands on spend seven minutes in that closet over there." Sara points to a coat closet near the doorway.

Everyone laughs and agrees. So Sara puts a firm grip on the bottle, and spins it hard. It shifts to the left and when it stops, it lands on Jake and Corinna. Laughing harder now, they stand up and stumble over to the closet. Sara starts the timer on her phone. Then she spins the bottle again. This time, it lands on Chelsea and Ava.

"Wait, what? You're not actually going to make me kiss her right? I mean, no offense Ava," Chelsea laughs.

"The rules say you have to kiss anyone the bottle lands on. You agreed to the rules. Now go wait in line by the door."

Both of them stand up reluctantly and wait by the door.

The alarm goes off, and everyone calls for Jake and Corinna to get out of the closet. When they sit down, I notice that Corinna's lipstick is smeared a bit by the edge of her mouth.

Sara keeps spinning the bottle, and people keep reluctantly walking into the closet.

Finally, it's the last spin of the night. She spins it as hard as she possibly can. When if finally stops, the smaller end is pointed at me. My eyes widen. I follow the other end of the bottle to see who I'm going to have to spend 7 minutes in a closet with. When I see the gray sleeveless shirt, almost black hair, and blue eyes at the other end, I have to hide the smile that wants to jump onto my face and never leave. A rush of excitement flows through my body. Even if we don't kiss, just being with him will be... great.

Everyone "ooooh"s, and we stand up. We don't have to wait long. As soon as we reach the door, the timer rings and Christian and David step out. They both roll their eyes.

"That was so stupid all we did was talk," David says.

Ethan and I step in, and close the door behind us.

There's barely enough room for the two of us standing. We're pressed up against the wall, yet still only inches from each other. He won't look at my face.

"Hey, you know we could just talk right?" I ask him.

He looks up. "Isn't that, like, cheating?"

I laugh a little. "It's kind of cheating but we can cheat. Unless," I take a step closer, so we are almost pressed up against each other. . "Unless you do want to play by the rules."

He whispers: "Fuck it," to himself.

"So are we playing by the rules?" I whisper, and put my hand on his face. He nods. I lift his face to mine, and close my eyes.