The Absence of Truth | S. Stilinski

XXIV. | drowning

XXIV. | drowning

                AFTER THAT, I let loose. My head fuzzed as I moved around the party, laughing with people I'd never met and drinking too many cups of punch. Stiles stayed on my heels the entire time, whether it was to laugh at something I said or steer me away from handsy teenage boys I couldn't tell. Nevertheless, he stayed. We found Danny and other players on the lacrosse team around the punch table. They let us join in their festivities, pretended that I was one of the players, and drank punch in honor of something. Spring break? Maybe. I was too faded to care.

A few hours in, I was swaying on my feet and feeling loose. My toes had started to hurt ages ago, so I'd abandoned my heels in a wayward corner in the house. Now, I bounced around to techno music, three inches shorter than usual. I was giggling too, letting myself lean back and laugh like I hadn't laughed in years. It felt good. Really good.

Stiles and I caught up with Scott on the pool deck when we were bored with talking to each other. He was holding a cup of pink punch himself and swaying on his own feet slightly. I was confused. Wolves weren't supposed to get drunk. In fact, I was pretty sure Stiles had told me it was impossible.

"What's up with you?" I asked Scott, reaching up to grab his shoulder. Out of my shoes, I was much shorter than him.

He looked down at me and shrugged his shoulders. "Full moon, I guess."

Oh, right. My eyes strayed up to the sky above us, where I could see the vast expanse of stars. That was something I hadn't gotten used to in Beacon Hills. Where I'd lived before had been so polluted by lights of nearby cities, that the stars were something I'd never gotten to comfortable with. Now, I smiled at the sky.

As well as the stars, I could see the brightness of the full moon. It was large and looming, now carrying a message of warning rather than beauty. In the back of my mind, I wondered where Jackson was. He'd been spotted hours ago, but now he was gone, probably in the crowd surrounding the speakers for the music.

The three of us continued walking around the pool, careful not to step too close to the edge. Scott and Stiles talked about something - Allison maybe - but it was too hard for me to pay attention. Instead, I focused on the pool ledge. 

The water sparkled brightly and glinted into my eyes. I squinted as I looked closer, then my attention was pulled away when I heard a voice calling my name from somewhere nearby. My head swiveled over to a secluded part of the backyard, where no one but one man stood in the shadow of a large oak tree. A glance behind me revealed that both Stiles and Scott had wandered away, still talking about Allison probably, leaving me to my own devices. While I was turned, I heard my name called again, this time unmistakably from the man standing alone in the yard.

A chill ran down my spine, but I steeled myself, blaming it on the chill in the air. "Hello?" I called out, stepping down off of the wooden pool deck and into the lush yard before stumbling on my impaired feet.

"Have you been drinking?" The man asked me, face shadowed in darkness. His voice was low and much too grown to belong to a teenager.

I couldn't see him entirely, but for some reason I felt embarrassed. Almost like I was in trouble. "Not much," I heard myself saying. "I'm sorry."

Sorry? Why was I sorry?

The man moved closer, walking with the content confidence of a person who was used to being in charge. Whenever his face got close to the light of the party, something else fell and created a shadow, just so I couldn't see him fully. He sauntered over, black slacks skimming the tops of his black dress shoes. Light from behind me illuminated the rest of his outfit. A blue button up shirt was tucked into his black slacks, but it was unbuttoned at the top, revealing the white fabric of an under shirt. My head cocked to the side as he moved ever so closer, confusion washing through me as my eyes followed the length of his arms to see that the shirt sleeves had been rolled up, almost as if the man was done with his day at work.