Vocalization

Life's a Party

My skirt was twirling around me swiftly as I wore a wide grin on my face. I had my hand in Eli's as we danced to the rhythmic electric guitar of Gimme Some Lovin'. J watched, cheering and grinning happily. I had tied my hair up into a ponytail with my ribbon. It had to look weird for someone who drove by on the street and just happened to peek in through the window. Eli in his leather jacket, t-shirt and army necklace and myself, dressed in a mauve, maid-style dress with a white, puff-sleeved blouse and a ribbon in my hair, dancing a jive. I just didn't fit in. But I didn't care anymore. Somehow, I felt comfortable doing whatever, as long as I was with them. Alone, I was a mess. But as soon as even one of them was with me, I could be myself. I had noticed that now. As the fade-out began, Eli twirled me one last time and we stepped apart, breathing exhaustedly. I pressed my arms onto my calves, resting my upper body weight on them. Looking up, I caught a glimpse of Layne smiling at me. I smiled back, huffing lightly. Then I looked at Eli. Our eyes met. He looked just as exhausted as me. We fell into each other's arms for a quick hug, laughing trough our tiredness. "How are you even this exhausted?", he asked me challengingly afterwards. I saw where this was going and rolled my eyes "I thought you were an acrobatic." "I was a cheerleader, true", I admitted. "But cheerleading and jive aren't exactly the same thing." I caught my breath pretty quickly, whereas he still needed a minute. Perhaps he was right. "Besides, that was three years ago. Over three years. I finished school at seventeen. And with that, I left the Royals." "Royals? Is that your cheerleading team?", Eli asked. "Yes", I answered. "Well, it was." "I bet ya, Eve was the captain", J got himself into the conversation. "Or at least at the very top of the pyramid", Layne added. I smiled. "Well, I was at the top", I agreed, "but that much was obvious. I mean, look at how short I am. There's nowhere else I would be. But I was never the captain." "Dude, why not?", J said disappointedly. "I bet you're really talented." I blushed. "I wasn't really fit to be captain", I then explained, a little sad about my own ways. "In fact, I shouldn't be leading anything. You know that I'm manipulable." "Oh, yeah you are", I heard Earl's voice from down the hallway. He came towards the living area with a few decorative objects in his hands. "Otherwise you wouldn't even be here." We all laughed as I had to give it to him that he was right. It had only taken a few nice words from them to get me to move in with them, even though I had acted quite distanced from them. Perhaps they all knew that it had been just a façade. Heck, they had to have known. They had planned that hug assault. How had I have taken so long to find this out?! I should know them by now. They knew me better than I knew myself at times.

"Hey guys, how's it going?", I heard Geoff's voice. I hadn't even noticed him come in, but I was glad he was back. When all of us had noticed the criminal lack of shelves in this house, he had taken it upon himself to drive to Home Depot and buy some boards and nails or a pre-made shelf-building kit. It was really practical that there was a second set of stairs next to the living area, as this meant we had one on both sides of the house. This made getting around, or, in this case, transporting things much easier. We greeted Geoff with a mixed set of hellos and then got to our actual work, which was getting things like cutlery and other household objects in place... and Layne's video game consoles. I stuck to the downer sections of the kitchen cabinets, placing cups and plates and flatware in them. Eli assisted me. It was basically the only thing us shorties could do really well. Geoff and Earl took care of the higher ones. Meanwhile, Layne was wiring his consoles while J was talking to him, enthusing about whatever thing he was just talking about. I really couldn't tell anymore, he got excited about anything. That is, of course, as long as he didn't hate it. Then, we all scattered our places, with or without a shelf-building kit, depending on if we needed it. I stayed downstairs with Layne to build a shelf for his videogames, because we had decided to keep them downstairs so we had them handy, along with things like CDs and DVDs. You know, things we would commonly use as a group. Eli had even dusted off a VHS recorder, which meant we could watch good old video cassettes.