The Primaries

10

The party was too much and too boring all at once. Noah didn't seem to be enjoying himself either, he just sat on his phone. Hailey seemed to be having the time of her life, although I hadn't seen her in about an hour. Chloe was nearby bickering with Mason.

Nearly the whole school showed up tonight. From the freshmen to the seniors, they were here to party their asses off; some sneaking into rooms with significant others while the rest danced and gathered around the snack table to stuff their faces. It soon became apparent that they had all heard about the Kyle situation when I noticed that I was still being stared at and the whispers hadn't stopped, even though a whole week had passed. I miss when my life was just quiet and simple.

"You look cute when you're thinking" Noah says, snapping me out of my thoughts. He broke his promise to Hailey about staying sober and had more than a few drinks tonight, but I haven't noticed too much of a change in him other than the fact that he hasn't stopped complimenting me in the past half hour. It made it impossible for me to stop blushing.

"YOU GUYS ARE THE CUTEST!" Hailey says. She plops on the couch right next to us and I can smell all the alcohol on her from a mile away. She's drunk.

"I think you've had enough, honey" I say, grabbing her drink and throwing it away.

This has been my job for as long as I can remember. I was the mom of the group since we all met and Hailey always reminds me to stop her before she goes too far.

"BUT THE PARTY JUST STARTED"

"The party started a while ago, just stay here with us."

"You're no fun. I miss Corinna" She pouts.

Noah laughs and brings his cup to his lips.

"Nope. You're done too." I say, grabbing his cup and tossing it along with Hailey's.

"No fair" He says

I sit with Hailey until she passes out and leave her with Chloe and Mason. They were the only ones left not drinking and Chloe would never let Hailey out of her sight, especially not in this condition. Noah was sobering up and wanted to walk around and explore the final party a bit before we head home.

He held my hand as we wandered around the house. Several different people greeted him, it was almost as if he knew half the school, but I was invisible to them. Any time someone made a comment about what Kyle had said, I squeezed his hand to calm him down because the situation made him visibly angry.

After nearly an hour of accidentally walking into "taken" rooms, stepping all over mysterious liquids on the floor, and numerous comments from our drunk peers, we settled on sitting by the pool in the backyard.

We dipped our feet in and he wrapped his arm around me. We sat comfortably swaying to the music, which was echoing from all the way inside. Noah gently placed a hand on my cheek and leaned in as close as he could to my face, our lips just inches apart.

Suddenly we see a huge group of people head right to where we were sitting. Noah backs away and looks up at them.

"Be careful with this one boys, I heard this is the second boy on the team she's fucking with this month" A familiar voice says.

Of course, it was Veronica. Behind her was practically all of Noah's friends, along with Kyle and Cole.

"It's true. She was all over me not even two weeks ago." Kyle adds.

"You know that's not true." I say, taking my feet out of the pool and walking towards him, Noah following shortly behind.

"You're brave for coming into my house after showing me how desperate you can be." Kyle says