trigger warning: implied toxic relationship(s), physically abusive behaviour & mild racism

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When Issa sees his boyfriend puke in a plant pot in front of him, he knows he's made a mistake agreeing to come.

Marcel looks like a complete stoner, bent over at a ninety-degree angle, hand on his stomach. Issa glances away at the rest of the party and tried not to retch as he continues holding onto the hand of the vomiting Italian in front of him.

In contrast to his current appearance of a hot mess, Marcel wasn't that bad looking. Wearing a pair of surf shorts, a Motorpsycho T-Shirt and Sandals, his sepia hair was tied back into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck. A tiny braid flops over his face, complimentary of a squad of Roesborough cheerleaders who had donned skirts that just barely covered what needed to be covered for the afternoon. Of course, they weren't the only one who had thought of wearing something feminine. He pulled the hem of his dress further down.

Issa doesn't even want to be here, at this stupid, god-forsaken party. We're not even celebrating anything, what's the f*cking point? He had told himself earlier as he checked if he'd grown into any of his brother's trousers. Instead, he had settled for his usual feminine, gaining him the disapproval of Marcel and everyone else at the party.

"This is why I said it was a bad idea to drink beer on an empty stomach, Marcel." Issa clenches Marcel's hand, but the Italian slaps it away. "Even a couple of cocktail sausages could of helped."

Marcel keeps on puking and Issa rolls his eyes.

"I'll go get you some food, alright. Stay here, don't go drunk-walking anywhere."

Issa lets go of Marcel's hand and walks out into the garden, dodging the rugby players attacking each other with crappy plastic water guns. Chairs upon chairs of teens are sitting in the cool shadow of the house, silently scrolling through their social media apps on their phones, barely even giving Issa a glance as he passes by them.

"Issa?" Issa turns around to the sight of his half-naked school acquaitance. "Tao?" He embraces him, red plastic cup in-hand. "Of all people I expected to see here, you were definitely not one of them."

Tao frowns, pulling up his boardshorts. "Really? You know I'm the life of the party, right?"

Tao steps back as Issa crosses his arms. "You sure about that?" He teases, only to be playfully shoved by Tao. "No offence."

Tao shrugs, "None taken." Tao's eyes drift around the garden, "You seen...uh...Valentina anywhere?" "As in tranfered-to-Roesborough Valentina? No, sorry." Issa shakes his head, "I haven't." "You sure?" Tao's eyes still search for her, "She said she was coming." Issa bumps Tao on the shoulder, "Why are you so interested if she's here or not?" Tao scratches the back of his neck, dropping his eyes to the ground and stays silent as his cheeks go red.

Well shit. Issa turns his back to Tao and faces the food table. He scoops up a slice of pepperoni pizza onto a flimsy paper plate and pours some tropical squash into one of the plastic red cups. He gives the sad-looking meal a once over. Not exactly the most filling food course you could ever guzzle upon, but I'm sure Marcel won't mind.

"You know you can tell me anything." Issa turns around to face Tao again, "I mean, you're the first person I told about my...thing?"

Tao has travelled towards the very back of the garden to greet Valentina. She towers above him and Issa almost laughs at Tao's clear discomfort.

Headache-inducing music blasts through the whole house as Issa slides the glass patio doors open. It sounds like someone's singing karaoke... and singing it terribly. Issa grimaces as his ears feel like they're bleeding from the combination of atrocious singing and music that the whole street could probably hear. Maybe the houses across the park could hear it too. He pitied all of the poor neighbours as he stepped over a pile of empty stained pizza boxes into the main room and,

Marcel is on top of the table, microphone in hand, dancing around and yelling the lyrics to some obnoxious Britney Spears' song at the top of his song. Issa lets out a sigh. Tonight is going to be a long night.

If pulling down a sober Marcel from the top of a plastic folding table was like pulling a tantrum-prone teenager off their phone, Issa's struggle to control a drunk Marcel was equivalent to talking Donald Trump off his Twitter account. The Italian's feet were practically glued to the table as Issa tried to yank him down onto solid ground.

"Nooo...babe!" Marcel shrieks like a young child at Issa, who freezes up in his position. Shit. Issa shakes his head at Marcel frantically, he is not being outed today.

Marcel ignores him as his mood shifts yet again, "Come up here, Issy! We can do karaoke! W-What song do you wanna do? Shakira? Beyonce? There's loads of songs on this machine, y'know..." His eyes trail elsewhere across the room as he addresses Issa, who can hear mutters of 'They're dating?'.

Issa drops Marcel's hand and Marcel continues dancing around on the plastic table, karaoke microphone in hand. Issa pushes through the crowd of partying, mostly drunk people to the front door, fiddling with the zipper of his neon green raincoat that he wore purely to cover his dress. Issa eyes the door and makes a beeline for it. He opens up the door and begins to speed walk down the pebble driveway. It's time to go. It's time to go. It's time to f*cking g-

Someone shoves Issa from behind and he topples downwards. Instead of looking who pushed him, Issa tries to save himself from falling face-first. The edge of pavement shoots out from under him.                                                                                                 

Someone pushes Issa again. He falls right onto the driveway, stones digging into his chin and palms. A foot comes from the pavement and suddenly all Issa can taste is blood and Converse trainer rubber. 

"You're the f*cking queer f*g that thought he could shag my boyfriend, right?" Heather mocks the squeaks in Issa's voice from earlier.

Issa winces as struggles to stand back up, blood running down from his left knee and nose.

"Boyfriend?" Issa looks past Heather towards the house, "Marcel is your boyfriend?"

"Don't fake it, d*ckwad," Heather steps forward as Issa steps back. "I know you knew."

"I didn't know, Heather." Heather continues to step towards him as the blood reaches his ankle. "I didn't, swear."

"What you swearing on, huh?" Heather's hoop earrings are going wild in the air. "God? He don't want your ass, f*ggot." Issa sees red, "I'm gonna kick your head in!" He shoves Heather backwards and rolls his raincoat's sleeves up over his elbows.

"Issa!" Tao appears out of nowhere and pulls Issa backwards, away from Heather. Away from her face, which he so desperately wants to spit on. He settles for spitting into the pebbled driveway instead. "She's not worth it. Walk it off and go home." Tao's eyes shine and Issa remembers why he used to pine for him. "Fine." Issa spits onto the ground once more for good luck as Heather rises to a crouch, "I'm done." "Good." Tao nods, pulling his beanie back on, "Come on, I'll walk you to the end of the street." 

Heather laughs behind them, hands on her hips, 

"That's right, go act like a p*ssy with your yellow friend over there!" 

And just like that, Issa is upon her.

Issa pulls Heather to her feet, almost tearing the fabric of her shoulder-cut blouse. He hears the slight rasp of material ripping as Heather breaks free from his group, albeit only for a second, before Issa shoves her back onto the ground again. His fist beats black and blue into Heather's right eye and her legs flail aimlessly just underneath Issa. Another flurry of slurs later and Heather's got the upper hand, grabbing at clumps of short dreads and trying to smash the back of his head into the driveway. Issa gathers his strength together and head-butts her. Heather topples to the ground with a bloody nose and a black eye.                                                                                                                          

Issa takes a second to notice the large crowd of people surrounding them, phones out, flash on. He spits blood onto the ground and watches Heather get swarmed by her gang of Roesborough cheerleaders.                                                                                                                                    

"If you come for me again, Heather." Issa wipes his bloody nose on his arm. "I won't take it so easy on your sorry arse." 

"Issa, you really didn't need to d-" Issa barges past Tao and heads down the slight hill to the bus stop. The glass panes of the bus stop shelter are shattered, its pieces strewn on the ground. 

The eerie peace is disrupted by an ever-deafening crowd of cars that have suddenly started honking down the road. Issa squints and sees a cyclist pedalling against a neon-yellow background, kindly provided by another road user. 

Poor drivers.  Issa shakes his head, turning his attention to an elderly lady slowly but surely crossing the road at a green road signal pelican crossing  just before the bus stop. They have to deal with this sort of sh*tty cyclists on our roads. They should cycle faster. 

As if on queue, the cyclist appears to pick up speed. The cars continue to trawl behind them though. Strange. Issa notices the car signals on the pelican changing from green to red. They're trying to beat the traffic lights! Crazy son of a b*tch. 

Too late. The lighs turn from amber to red and the cyclist digs their feet into the ground to slow down, just barely missing the senior pedestrian. Good. At least someone was looking at the road. 

Apparently someone else wasn't. The yellow car hits the cyclist from behind and they fall to the ground, just barely on the pavement. The cyclist who has clearly taken a hard topple rolls away from the road, only for their lovely, dinky little bike to be run over by the yellow car, who's driver has completely dismissed the collision. 

I should go help them. Issa thinks, wiping at his nose and knee. He gathers up the courage to go over and help the cyclist, until the cyclist turns their head towards Issa and his stomach drops. 'They' are a he. He is a boy. Boy is Ki. Ki just messed up Issa's day even more.  

God, the universe does f*cking hate me, doesn't it?  Issa looks towards the skies. "You any help, Kiwi?"  

Ki's eyes drift towards him, "Well sh*t, Issa. Don't you look messed up?"