Never Have I Ever

Chapter 1

"Can you keep up?" asks Chelsea O'Callahan, taking a shot from the table which is already littered with discarded glasses.

"You wish," I reply, pushing my chair out and standing up, holding the table while pretending my head spins as for some reason, I believe I need to stop before I start something I'll regret. "I have a really low tolerance. Nice meeting you. I'm gonna find my friends now."

"Can I meet them?"

"Sure," I answer, not bothering to wonder why she cares what kind of crowd I hang with, or who my friends are; strangers like her don't usually care about that kind of thing, so she shouldn't.

I go out onto the dance floor, trying to avoid getting knocked over by drunks and stoners trying to impress equally idiotic girlfriends and boyfriends. I despise parties - every aspect of them, but especially those operated by over-the-top popular kids like Chris Winters: the expectations, the people, the dancing, the music, the drinking, the drugs, the atmosphere. Celia dragged me in here like I had no choice of my pastimes; she told me to get in here before I lose access to her skills.

"Celia, can you get the others?"

She nods and plunges into the heaving crowd to find the rest of our little group, the six of us. Celia traverses crowds like I do illegal music websites, with grace, style, and an unnerving knowledge of the craft. I wish I could have the social skills she does, but it's a small price to pay for the ability to intimidate people into submission, just by height, as I tower over the average male, let alone females.

"This is Sam Belcourt and Mason Thomas," says Chelsea as I turn back around to take in the sight of her friends. I'm surprised, disappointed and jealous at the same time.

Sam towers over Chelsea by half a foot, with hair the hue of caramel, tumbling in small waves to his shoulders framing eyes of running honey. Skin tanned to the point of wondering, and a fairly solid build, he looks like someone you wouldn't want to mess with. Until you look into his eyes and see the hurt, the pain, the memories. They cloud over once he sees me looking, changing to a darker color even as I watch. Even with the pained eyes, my vision is drawn to the scar across his cheek, ripped in an almost uniformly straight line, like a knife slash.

Mason, in contrast, has Hispanic notes to his complexion, with hair the color of coffee arranged in spikes around his head. His eyes are the color of molten topaz, with the same inner turmoil as his friend. The solid, stocky build results in him in being two inches shorter than me, and approximately average height. As he watches me look into his eyes and study them, his too cloud over, becoming unreadable. Is it something they've practiced? The only other thing I really note about his appearance is the bar through his eyebrow and the book in his satchel.

Chelsea O'Callahan stands between them, with both guys towering over her. Her strawberry blonde hair hangs in artisanally windswept waves down a little past her shoulders, framing a rounded face and slate grey eyes. Her eyes are less confusing as the others, sparkling with the alcohol but with an underlying stare of guilt. I wonder what she's done. I study her eyes to see if there's a reaction like there is in the others, and she glares right back, not bothering to hide the look she shoots me.

"I've got the others," says Celia from behind me. I spin around and take in the rest of my group, having arrived behind me.

"You guys wanna hang out later?" asks Sam nonchalantly, and a silent almost-threat sits in his voice. For some reason, I feel as if we've signed a contract by meeting them. That we have no choice but to hang out and go along with whatever's going on. My group looks at each other, and I meet everyone's eyes. Everyone other than Thomas Highsmith is completely blank. Almost imperceptibly, he nods.