Summer

Blaring music, bright lights, booming bass. Bodies tried to squeeze their way into the already jointed living room which had been turned into a makeshift dance floor, with all the plush purple velvet couches stack precariously on top of one another against the vintage wallpapered walls. People tried to pick their way through the maze of beer cans, pools of vomit and druken partygoers collapsed on the floor in the hallway, through to the kitchen where boys were chugging cans of beer as their friends urged them on while the girls sipped at luminous alcopops and gossiped over bags of doritos. Upstairs there was the unmistakable sound of breaking glass as people tripped over priceless vases and oriental carpets in a desperate effort to flee from the endless flow of water that streamed from the crack under the closed bathroom door that was locked from the inside. The bedrooms were mainly empty, many people having helped themselves to a new change of outfit or some spare shoes or make up, and at least two of the seven wardrobes in the large house were cracked and broken with the doors barely hanging off of their hinges.

Summer emerged from the her bedroom where she had spent the last two hours taking a nap as her boyfriend Drew had watched over her protectively, lying beside her sleeping form on the bed. He had been flicking through the sports channels on her bedrooms flat screen to make sure no druken party boys tried to break in and take advantage of her while she slept off the few beers she had had before her parents came home. She had rolled her large navy-blue eyes at him before allowing it, trying to hide her total exasperation at his overprotectiveness. Admittedly cute when they first started dating, the macho act soon got old. Especially given his girlish tendancies such as the high pitched scream he emmited every time a horror movie made him jump, mortifying Summer in the cinema all too frequently.

Summer left the confines of her bedroom, glad the effects of the beer she had drank earlier had worn off. She hated being woozy and unbalanced and not being able to think straight. She especially hated sober people with nothing better to be doing trying to mind her, even here in her own home. Speaking of...

She surveyed the scene around her, her brow furrowing slightly. How the hell had her friends made this much of a mess? She had left eight, nine, ten at a push of her friends from school downstairs earlier on in the night. They had been drinking beer, watching crappy tv and playing on Summers old childhood trampoline when she decided she was sick of Drew insisting she lean on him "for support in her unstable condition" and went upstairs to sleep it off. But this..this was a whole other level. She took a tentative step forward and nearly slipped on the huge stream of water gushing down the hallway. Her eyes narrowed in on the bulging bathroom door, finally noticing the utter disaster zone that was her house. She flew down the stairs, her long brown hair flying out behind her, eyes flashing. She stopped short at the bottom of the grand staircase, blocking out the mess surrounding her and trying to find her friends. She became dizzy as she realised how hard that would be in the mass of people crowding into her home. She searched the faces of those around her, finding some familiar ones, such as the annoying girl from her Biology class that always back answered the teacher, and her Mom's best friends daughter who she was pretty sure lived in a house that was a two hour drive from Summer's place. All the rest of the faces were unfamiliar to her, and therefore had no right to be there. God she was going to kill her friends. How had they let this happen? They knew Summer's house was too big and well soundproofed for her or Drew to hear anything from this far downstairs, and why would they bother inviting people she was pretty sure they had never talked to in their lives? Her head spun. She needed them all out of here. Now. Picking up the empty keg of beer that was blocking the table in front of her, she climbed up onto it and shouted for everyones attention. And at that precise moment the front door flew open with a bang heard even above the thumping bass and her murderous parents took in the scene, including their daughter standing on the hall table holding a keg of beer, surrounded by a load of drunk teenagers in their completely trashed home. She closed her eyes, and wished with her entire being she could be somewhere, anywhere else. Someone else, in fact. Someone besides Summer.