Unforeseen | H.S.

Chapter 6

College kids have always been notorious for throwing big parties that scream trouble. In Harry's eyes, almost everyone around him has, at least once, left these parties regreting something; losing their virginity to the wrong person or getting a broken nose for somebody who wasn't worth fighting over. He was never one to cause problems, though; being smart enough to not let silly fist fights threaten the law degree he had arduously worked for. But it was fun to just watch football players with not fully formed frontal lobes bruise each other.

The aggressive scene unfolding before Harry was much like what was going through his head.

He didn't know what ignited the brawl. All he could catch in his drunken state was two guys glaring at each other angrily before the shorter one threw the first punch with a "snarl" that came out pathetically high-pitched. Everything went downhill from there. A small crowd gathered to cheer the livid beasts while their friends tried to break it off. Harry imagined himself as the larger guy with bulged veins and pretended that he was beating the shit out of the asshole Elise took home for the night.

"What are you doing?" He asked the first girl in sight, feigning amusement with a raised brow and curled lips.

She was standing a couple of feet away from what Harry assumed to be her group of friends, a big phone sitting vertically in her small hand. A quick glance at the owner of the masculine voice was enough to draw her attention away from the chaos.

"Just taking a video," Harry's face, contorted in confusion, encouraged the next words out of her. "Don't judge. I'm drunk and that shit seems interesting."

Her eyes momentarily flicked back to what she had been recording on her phone. Harry eyed her for a few seconds as he thought about a hundred things at once. A loud, angry voice in his head was trying to convince him that what he was going to do was right; that there was nothing holding him back from flirting with a random girl at a house party or dragging her to an empty room.

Everything happend in a flash. Only an hour ago Harry walked through the mass of intoxicated college students in search of simple fun; cheap beer and having a laugh with the few people he knew. He had been planning to call Elise too. Eversince Elise practically fled from Miguel's home on that taco night, Harry hadn't heard of her. His calls would go straight to voice mail -which he never left one- and his messeges would be ignored. He stupidly blamed her busy schedule and San Francisco shows for it, assuring himself that she would get back in touch with him as soon as she's back in LA. According to Miguel, who had developed a habit of sending memes to Harry, the Ardennas returned around noon.

It had been twenty minutes to midnight when Harry became sick of checking his phone only to see no notifications from her. He used the need for fresh air as an excuse to step in the backyard and dial her number.

"Hello?" It was Charlie. He almost shouted the single word from the other end of the phone.

"Hey, man. It's Harry. Can I talk to Elise?"

"Uh ... She left. We were all hanging out at the club and El disappeared off with some dude. She left her phone ... was in a hurry, if you know what I mean."

Echos of Charlie's suggestive tone when saying those last words made Harry grimace. He had come to the kitchen looking for solace in the bitter taste of hard liquor, frantic eyes scanning faces for one that could help him forget.

"'M sure a girl like you can find more interesting shit at this party." The way Harry's voice deepened as he regarded her confirmed which face he chose.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

It took the pair no more than two minutes before they started making out. Harry kissed her like it was what he had to do, not what he wanted; as if she was a solution, not a person. He moved his lips with no conscious effort, relying completely on muscle memory while his thoughts wandered to places he was desperate to escape from. If the poor girl was just a little more sober, she could feel how far away was the man that had her in his arms. Harry couldn't put his heart in it. He had stopped feeling guilty about using people a long time ago. Right when he realized he was often seen as nothing but an object of pleasure himself, he no longer hid his similar view of those around him.