The Surfer Girl

Untitled Part 13

Jay drove the three of us to a secluded bungalow on the East side of the island, about a 20 minute drive from where we had lunch. 

I looked at the huge crowd of people going in and out. oh sure Chandler. Follow the older guy your friend is into and let him drag you to the set of a music video rave. Perfect. And I'm missing time with my dad. What an idiot.

"Aye channy, this way!" He called, motioning me to go to the far side of the house. There were a few people I recognized from Jamie's party a few weeks ago walking around. More surprising to me there were a lot of local kids including ones from my high school and old soccer team. Great, just great. 

I saw several video cameras being pointed at different people, which I had gotten used to over the course of the last month. I tried to look like I was having a good time but not so much as to be noticed. I just wanted to get in, meet my 'surprise guy' which was obviously Alex, and get the hell out. 

I said hi to a few people here and there, and was relieved when I saw to sort of familiar faces. 
"Hey Matt, hey Minho!" I called, making them both turn. They welcomed me with smiles and we talked for a while. 

"Wait, so where's your friends?" 

"Good question. They disappeared somewhere and I'm not in the mood to find them." 

"Found 'em." Matthew said, pointing a finger behind me. Jay had his arm slung over Amelia and they were talking to some of Jamie's friends, not noticing I was there. 

I walked back over and nudged Amelia and she gave me a light smile, going back to the conversation. 

If there was one thing I couldn't stand about Amelia, it was that. Like I said before, she's the kind of girl any sane guy would fawn over. And she knew it. She always brushed them off and would assure me "you'll always come first girly, don't worry about these stupid boys." 

There was only one other time she had done this, and that was way back in middle school. She had met a sweet guy who was everything she wanted and all of the sudden I didn't exist. Thankfully I still had tate to hang out with, but it was weird having her practically ghost me. When he finally got the popularity he wanted, he basically ghosted Amelia, and tried to stick with his popular friends. That didn't work out in his favor and he was swiftly socially exiled, and things went back to normal, well mostly normal between the two of us. It became sort of an unspoken rule that no guy would ever ever become more important than our friendship. For her, that meant when it was the two of us, tate was out of the picture. He was okay with it, understanding even. But I hated how her idea of keeping our friendship top priority pushed tate further down the list. 

The more I watched Amelia, I looked at her face, her body, her eyes. She has a soft grin plastered on her face and a light blush on her cheeks that became redder when Jay looked at her. She leaned into him, her curves perfectly fitting in with Jay's muscular form. And her eyes: The more she looked at him, the more they glowed. It was like we were in the 6th grade all over again. And all over again, I had essentially vanished. 

"Ah, here he comes. Ohhhhhh, ummm, Chandler why don't we get something to drink?" Amelia asked, snapping me out of my trance. 

"Huh? I just drank like a liter of water, I'm not thirsty. What do you mean?" I looked to see Alex with a girl practically hanging off him. 

"Come on Chan, let's go over-" 

"Dude, knock it off, I'm fine." I said in a rather angry tone. The circle of friends opened to make room for the pair and one of the girls in the group asked who Alex had with him. 

"Oh this is Eva, my date for tonight." I could feel Jay and Amelia's eyes on me and I turned to see them both giving me apologetic looks. As the girl made her way around the circle she stuck out her hand for me to shake.