The Delinquent

Chapter 1: The Invitation

"Come on Alex, you have to come! It's senior year for crying out loud! For once in your life, just listen to me and have some fun!" Mary pleaded through the phone, causing a heavy sigh from Alexandria.

"Mary, I don't know..." She trailed off to her best friend. They had been joined at the hip since they could walk.

"Please come to the party! You'll have a great time, and I promise I'll stay with you the whole time! Please, please, pretty please," Mary begged once more, and when Alexandria groaned, she knew she had won.

"Fine, but I don't even have anything to wear," Alexandria, Alex, grumbled hoping that it was reason enough not to go. Parties just weren't her thing. She had yet to find drunk teenagers grinding on one another and making complete fools of themselves while trashing someone's parents' house, fun. If Mary wasn't her best friend, then she wouldn't have even considered going to the party. Though, it was Mary who got her invited in the first place.

Mary had always been the so-called popular one out of the two. She was the one all of the boys swooned over and all of the girls were jealous of. With her five-foot-eight height, long, straight blonde hair, and legs to die for, it was no wonder she got invited to the biggest party of the year.

"Don't be ridiculous, you can wear something of mine," Mary dismissed Alex's last hope of ever getting out of going the party, "And I'm also going to do your makeup and hair before we go."

Alex sighed, knowing there was no way she was going to win this battle. "Fine."

Alexandria was what she considered average. She was five-foot-seven, with long, wavy brown hair, green eyes, and was barely tan for someone who lived in Australia. No matter how much she was in the sun, she never got the same shade of golden Mary seemed to have year round. Both of their parents used to call them salt and pepper, because of just how different they looked.

"Yay!" Mary squealed, and Alex smiled; happy to have made someone happy.

"When's the party again?" she asked, sitting up on her twin-sized bed, holding her cellphone with her left hand as she ran her fingers through her hair with her right.

"It's tomorrow at ten," Mary replied after a short pause to find the right text message, "So, I'll drive you over to my house right after school, and we can get ready together?"

"Okay." Alex glanced at the stack of papers her teachers had assigned for homework, "Hey, Mary, I'm sorry but I've got to go do my homework. I'll look like a zombie tomorrow if I don't start now."

"Have fun my little nerd," Mary sang into the phone, and it even got a small laugh from Alex before she hung up. Alex shook her head at her cellphone before reaching over grabbing her headphones along with all of her homework she had that was due tomorrow.

~~~

Two hours and three albums later, Alex was exhausted. A pounding headache was beginning to form, and her hand cramped from all of the writing, but she wasn't complaining because she was finally finished. She took her headphones out, and the silence seemed almost deafening after blasting music for so long.

Across town, the music wasn't stopping anytime soon in Luke's garage as he landed blow after blow on the haggard punching bag swinging wildly from the ceiling, his feet skipping across the hard ground keeping in time with the speaker's beat.

But, none of this was on Alex's mind as she climbed into bed and turned off her bedside lamp. As she faded into the darkness, the only thought on her mind was the inevitable party she would have to be dragged to. Somewhere deep inside her, a place she wouldn't admit even to herself she had, she was excited.