Westwood School

Paranoia

Rowen

I looked at her blankly. Paranoia?

Matto frowned, "I don't think I am familiar with that game..."

She tossed her pretty head and laughed, "Then what party games do y'all play? Like come on, everyone plays this when they are little, it ruined many a friendship."

Caspian manages to lean over and fake whisper in her ear, "I rather us play suck and blow.."

I watch in horror as Magnolia doesn't hesitate to push his face back roughly, despite how banged up it is. And I watch in even more horror as she replies.

"No, but you can feel to suck and blow my dick."

I start choking on my drink. I don't think I have ever seen Caspian more shocked in our entire friendship. In response, she just smiles sweetly at him. That girl has some balls... hah well, I mean Caspian would know...

"Or we can play never-have-I-ever or 20 questions or..." she trails off.

"I am intrigued by this paranoia game. How do you play it? And then we can play those other games," Laurent says, possibly the soberest of anyone there. I am faintly sure Matteo didn't have anything to drink, but I smelled some... Interesting substances coming from outside earlier.

I watched as Magnolia squealed excitedly and pulled us onto the ground with her, so we are seated in a circle.

"OK so, this is how you play. We sit in a circle and we rotate clockwise-" She motions with her hands, "and whisper questions silently in each other's ears. Generally, the questions can be like, who's the smartest in the circle?" or "who's most likely to run away?" etc. The person who gets asked the question has to answer with the name of someone in the circle. The answer can't be the person who asked or the person responding can't say themselves. Afterward, you flip a coin," She pulls one out of the waistband of her shorts flashing those thighs as she does so, "and if it's heads, you say what the question was to the group, and if it's tails, you don't say it, ever."

I glance between the other boys and smirk. This game seems innocent enough.

I see Caspian is deep in thought, and then moves to be on the right of Magnolia. She ignores him but doesn't stop him. I am sitting to the right of Caspian, then Matteo, then Laurent, then Magnolia.

"OK! I shall start!" She announces, before thinking for a second and leaning over to Laurent. I study his facial expressions as she whispers in his ear. He glances back in shock at her.

"Come, on, answer!" She says laughing. He looks around the room, and his eyes catch mine and he smirks.

"Rowen."

My heart beat as she flipped the coin. Tails. Now I get why this game is horrible.

"Ok, keep going!" She exclaims. I watch in horror as the game continues. Matteo answers with Caspian's name, and it tails again. He seems unfazed, but I know not knowing is going to drive him crazy. Matteo leans over to ask me, "Who seems like the biggest trouble maker?"

I look around the room and answer with Caspian as well. We flip the coin. Heads. Matteo announces the question and the whole group laughs.

"Rowen, you wound me," Caspian said dramatically. Magnolia rolls her eyes exasperated.

"Come on y'all! Ask more exciting questions!" and with that, she runs her hands through her hair. Oh my God, that hair.

Suddenly I realize that the whole room is staring at me awkwardly. Oh, shoot it's my turn.

"Who's the best musician?" I ask Caspian. Normally, that would be a dumb question, but in this little circle of me and the boys in the band, and Magnolia, who seems very musically inclined, it could be problematic.

Caspian looked at me and rolled his eyes, "Magnolia."

I watched as her little head picked up at that. I enjoyed watching her play with her hair nervously as I flipped the coin. Tails.

"Ugh!" she said falling back dramatically.

"Ok, my turn!" Caspian announced excitedly.

I watched as he whispered something into Magnolia's ear. She stared at him blankly.

"I don't know what that means," She said, her face bright red. Oh my God, what did Caspian ask her? He better not have said anything too horrible.

"Really? OK pause the game- You don't know what the fall fête is?" shock in his voice. She shakes her head slowly. OK well at least he was probably just asking her who she would want to take her to the dance, that's not too bad, but I must say, I'm intrigued.

"It's- its the dance we have next weekend to open up the school year. It's quite fun, it's much more of a party than a formal dance," Caspian explains. She stands up and points at us.

"You didn't tell me there was a dance! What do I wear!!" she whined. Uh... yeah, we probably should have told her.

"Don't worry about it, seriously. It's fun, but it's nothing compared to the after-parties," Matteo said, looking up at her.

"We will get to play some songs this year at it- but the rest will be a DJ," Caspian tries to help explain, but she just throws a glare at him.

"But how dressy is it? I need to know to get a dress!" She says, sitting down with a harumph.

"I mean... you look nice in that?" I offer. Laurent holds in a laugh.

Magnolia just sighed, "Ya know what, I'll just ask my roommate. I can't wait to see the actual school tomorrow."

I let out an audible sigh as we all go back to our spots on the couch as she clicks through the movies. Laurent, to my surprise, stands up and excuses himself from the room.

"What do you wanna watch?" I ask her, as she frowns and flips through movies on the TV.

"Almost Famous."

I look at her sideways, once again, unable to hide my surprise.

"I haven't seen that movie, is it good?" Caspian asks. Before anyone answers, Matteo gets a phone call and exits the room. Magnolia shushes Caspian and turns the movie on. We watch the movie, Caspian gets frustrated halfway through and gets up to leave. I watch her as she watches the movie.

"What?" She whispers to me, despite us being the only ones here.

I shrug, "I just really like this movie, I don't know I just really like the vibe of the '70s," I say, half embarrassed.

She moves to sit closer to me, "me too.'' We continue to watch but I watch her get sleepier and sleepier until she falls asleep. 

She mumbles, half asleep, "Y'all ask boring paranoia questions, a good one is like- you'd get someone pregnant on accident. One time I was playing and multiple people in the circle had," she laughed to herself and then leaned on me. Before I could say anything she buries her face into my chest and flips up a finger to my lips.

"Shhhhhhhhhh its Nola's nap time," she says and then falls asleep. This girl is like a drunk person when she's tired.

What I didn't expect was for her to fall asleep on me. I just accept the inevitable, and lay there, letting her sleep on top of me. Pretty soon, sleep claims me as well. 

AWWWWWW look how cute. Paranoia is more fun in real life until it gets mean. Thanks for reading! maybe comment or vote... Idk I feel dumb asking for that lol. anyway, I hope ya like it! <3