The day of Jason's party comes swifter than Penny would have liked.
According to the digital clock lying on her desktop, it is 7:49 P.M. Nearly ten minutes before the party is timed to start, and Penny is still dressed like she's about to have a movie marathon before power-napping, nose buried in her books. At this point, most invitees would be on their way to Jason's house or at the very least, rushing to get ready.
Apparently, Penny pretended to not get the memo, thinking it would be better to squeeze in some last minute studying before hopping in a cab to go party in an oversized hoodie and cotton-lined grey sweatpants. In her defense, she has not gone to a party since she was in fourth grade. She never did like following dress codes, especially ones for college parties.
Minutes later, and the numbers go up, glaring at her like a wild animal.
8:23 P.M.
And Penny has still not made any effort to move from her comfortable chair. She glances at her phone, void of any messages as of late. The pink-haired girl sighs in exasperation, knowing it's only a matter of time before Mimi calls her, no doubt to ask Penny where she is.
Just as the thought crosses her mind, the phone in her hand vibrates, bouncing restlessly on the desk.
In the back of her mind, Penny considers letting the call go to voicemail. That way, she could avoid any of her friend's prying and complaints, but the righteous part of her head answers the person on the other line after only a few rings.
"Where are you?" The first thing she hears is the blaring, auto tuned music playing in the background, the pounding beat making her head spin like a carousel. Her ears also don't miss how Mimi's words slur over one another. She wrinkles her nose in thought; is she already drunk?
It is barely past eight, and her friend is already wasted. Penny also considers lying, opting to tell Mimi that she was on her way and was stuck in traffic. Then, she remembers she doesn't have a license to drive yet. And, she already told Mimi.
She sighs, deciding to be honest. "At home," she replies, flipping through her notebook of assigned arithmetic problems she hasn't finished. Better to be honest than sorry.
"What?!" Penny winces at her phone's screeching feedback, and regrets putting her friend on speaker phone. She swears that someday her friend's incredulous shrieks may become the root cause of the damage done to her eardrums.
"You're not backing out on us, are you?" Her voice is accusatory, probably due to the intoxication of alcohol in her system. At her harsh tone, Penny flips a page so viciously, she almost rips the corner. Now, it bends at an odd angle.
"I just don't feel comfortable lying to my grandparents." It is a half-truth. She didn't want to use her grandparents as an excuse, but Penny just did not want nor find the need to attend.
"But Jason himself invited you," Mimi protests, "You can't not go."
It's not like I asked him to invite me, Penny rolls her eyes at Mimi's attempt at arguing, but Penny holds her tongue from saying something she'll regret. Most likely, her friend would forget this conversation by morning and have a killer hangover. Not a great way to spend a Friday night.
"Just hang up, Mimi," Penny hears Nessie's nasally voice overpowering the explicit music blasting from the house's loudspeakers. "If she doesn't want to come, then it's her loss." As soon as Penny registers Nessie's last sentence, the call ends in suit, and the silence of her bedroom is disrupted by the vibrations her cell phone is sending off.
If someone were to ask Penny what led her to change her mind, Penny wouldn't be able to give them a straight answer because she isn't sure herself. Maybe it was the contempt in her friends' voices. Maybe it was the idea that a guy like Jason would be interested in a girl like her.
But whatever the reason was, one second, Penny was leaning in her spinning chair, lamenting over her so-called friends and the countless other assignments lying uncompleted in a large pile on her desk. The next second, Penny jumps to her feet, nearly knocking her desk chair backwards and throws her closet doors open.
Tongue sticking out, the pink-haired freshman zips through the disorganized batches of clothes hanging on the racks. Shifting through her closet's multi-colored hangers, Penny settles on a simple white dress hidden behind her raincoat and shoves it inside her backpack, not caring if it crumples. Walking over to her vanity, she also tosses in some half-empty tubes of lip gloss and powder brushes, those being the only cosmetics she is limited to.
Flipping off the light switch in her room, Penny slips on some plain black flats and tiptoes past her grandparents' room, quietly traveling down the staircase and through the house. The lights are still off, and Penny struggles to make her way to the doorway through the dark without bumping into anything lest she wake either one of her grandparents.
In her head, she plays scenarios as to what she would say if she were to get caught, and none of them ended well. Even while living with her mother, Penny was never brave enough to dare attempt to sneak out of the house. She never had to, but what Penny doesn't know is that this night would mark the first of many times she will have to sneak out of her grandparents' sights.
When her fingers make contact with the metal clasp on the door, she unlocks it, flinching when the lock makes a loud click. The pink-haired girl scans behind her, and breathes easier when no silhouettes are visible. As she tugs on the door handle, Penny grumbles, questioning under her breath as to how people always make it look so easy in the movies.
Just as the door creaks open, Penny's ears twitch at the sound of a flip switch. Before she knows it, she is blinded by the ceiling lights. Caught off guard, she shrieks and tries to cover her face. When she blinks to let her eyes adjust, her jaded eyes lock with her grandfather, who is decked in his sleep attire and fluffy slippers. In his hands is a mug, presumably filled with that fruity-flavored tea he's been obsessing over lately.
"Penny?" Her grandfather asks, rubbing at his bleary eyes and setting his mug on the kitchen tabletop. "Are you alright? It's quite late." Quite late is pushing it. By how ridiculous she feels and probably looks, Penny doesn't put it past him if he suspected she was a robber.
Penny's mind races, hurrying to find an excuse to explain her midnight escape and why she is bringing her backpack along. "I-I'm heading to the library," she stutters. "I texted some friends, and they wanted to meet there to study more. I didn't want to disturb you and grandmother."
"Bit late, ain't it?" He chuckles and plops himself on a kitchen stool, sending her a skeptical look. As he sips his tea, Penny thinks her real intentions would be exposed right then and there.
"I'm happy you found some friends," her grandpa finally says, smiling softly. One could imagine the relief Penny wanted to express, but she holds it back.
"I'll see you in the morning?" Penny queries, hoping to end the conversation as quickly as possible. Unbeknownst to her, her foot anxiously taps against the floorboards.
Her grandpa nods. "Don't push yourself too hard. Have fun," he says with a twinkle in his eyes. Springing to his feet, he disappears up the stairs, a light skip to his steps. Once she is sure he went to his room, Penny hurries out lest he returns or worse with her grandmother in tow. From experience, she knows her grandmother is not as lenient as her husband.
From the outside, she locks the door with her own copy of the house key and sprints a few blocks till she reaches a crossway. Even at night, the city streets are far from empty, cars whizzing by, and according to the GPS on Penny's phone, Jason's house is a far distance from her own. With no friends to hitchhike, Penny debates walking to the nearest bus stop and paying for a lift. But her troubles are hindered when a cab comes into view. Before it could speed off onto the main road, Penny grabs the driver's attention with a whistle and a frantic wave of her arms.
"Where to, Miss?" The cab driver asks as she throws her backpack in, the front pummeling the window opposite of her, and situates herself, draping her hood over her head.
In her heart, Penny knows it isn't too late to change her mind. With only one sentence, she could have the driver take her home. "The Adams Estate," she says, slamming the taxi door shut.
***
Hope y'all enjoy the slightly longer chapter update than usual hehe
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Teen FictionSalisbury was not Penny's mother's first choice of universities. And if Penny was honest, she was not her mother's prime candidate for a "perfect," daughter either. As the black sheep in her success-oriented family, Penny was ostracized in her famil...
