Virtual Attraction [COMPLETE]

8| The Party I.

After I'd agreed to go to the party, I went home to change and 'look cute' as Adam had recommended. I'd watched a few makeup tutorials on makeup, hoping to spruce myself up a bit. I knew the environment of high school parties, I'd been to many of them with Brooke, Payton and Khloe. 

High school parties were always a contest between who could dress the best, who looked the prettiest, who had the most guys hanging off them. If I didn't want to feel out of place, I had to at least try to look good. I dug through my old wardrobe, past the piles of overalls and plaid shirts, eventually finding a decent dress to wear.

It was a velvety red dress, tight, but not too tight—not anywhere near what my mother would wear. Standing in the mirror, I noted how it hugged my body and made my legs look long. The reflection in the mirror was surreal, as though the person staring back at me wasn't me, but someone who I'd known a long time ago. I wondered if I missed her—me.

My phone went off, and before I even looked down, I saw that it was Adam asking which floor I lived on. For a half of half of half a millisecond, I felt a twinge of excitement. Maybe this party would actually be fun. As long as we stuck by each other during the party, I might not completely hate it. In fact, I might even have fun.

I texted back: I'm on the fourteenth floor.

A minute later, I opened the door of my apartment to Adam. He waiting outside the door grinning.

He looked me up and down, before saying, "I knew you'd clean up well."

Heat rushed to my cheeks as I stepped into the hallway. "Thanks."

My breathing shallowed as the two of us began heading towards the elevator. With each step, the gravity of the fact that I was about to attend the first high school party since all the drama of the past year and a half. There would be teens and booze everywhere, everything would be loud and overwhelming—especially since I was going alone.

I considered turning back around, telling Adam that I couldn't go, that it was all too much for me. But before I could spin around, he nudged my elbow assuringly, and I remembered that I wouldn't be alone. Adam would be with me.

Before the elevator reached the bottom he turned to me, "You look nervous." He studied me, "Really nervous."

"Thanks," I replied dryly, clearly ungrateful for the back-handed comment.

"Sorry," he said chuckling. "But you could lighten up a bit, you know. You're not giving a speech or anything, you don't have to run the country."

"It's just a party. No attachments."

I nodded, unconvinced. Parties were anything but free-spirited.

We left Maspeth and Adam gestured to a long, dark truck at the edge of the parking lot. As we neared the vehicle, I noticed a flash of blonde hair in the passenger seat and immediately my stomach dropped.

He'd brought another person. I'd thought it would just be us—two friends—heading to a party, on what remarkably resembled something of a date. I chastised myself, remembering that Adam was a self-professed socialite. Of course he would be bringing other people.

When we got to the front doors of the car, he opened the driver's seat and called towards the girl on the other seat. It was Victoria—the Victoria Mae, the most popular girl at MDP since the school had become co-ed. She was wearing tight-fitted denim jeans, a low-cut purple shirt and a loose, white braided cardigan over top. It was like she'd just stepped off a Guess runway.

"Wow," she said, popping her gum obnoxiously as she stared at me. "You really went all out for this thing."

Suddenly, I felt self-conscious about the tight-fitted red dress I'd chosen to wear and tried to pull it down a little.