I gently ran my pale hand over the smooth dark green binding. My stomach twisted and I felt almost anxious as I opened up to the first page. My eyes wearily grazed over the words as I began to read about the poor service she’d received at the post office seven years ago. I let out a small laugh. Here I was thinking that I’d find some creepy tales regarding her odd obsessions with the occult, yet it seemed like a fairly ordinary journal.
A sudden loud knock on my door startled me and ripped my thoughts away from the book.
“Gwendolyn! You’d better be getting ready for Amelia’s party in there!” Lacey’s stern voice boomed through the thin white door at me.
God mother fucking dammit!
“Umm... I haven’t started yet. I wanted to see what you were wearing first.” I lied and tried to make it sound like I hadn’t completely forgotten... Even though I had.
“Girl, I know you’re lying. You forgot didn’t you!?” She barged into the room with a ‘you’ve been busted’ look on her face. “Come on, I’ve got a cute color-coordinated outfit idea for us.” I groaned as she grabbed my hand and pulled my exhausted body off of the bed.
She rummaged through my closet and pulled out my black skater-style dress with straps crisscrossing over the exposed back, cap sleeves, and a flowy skirt. “Put this on and meet me in the bathroom.” She ordered and walked out of the room.
I sighed, slipped on the dress, threw my hair up in a messy bun, and headed downstairs. Lacey was already in the bathroom, wearing a sexy short crimson dress that hugged her voluptuous curves perfectly. It had one long sleeve and left her other shoulder completely bare. She was applying black lipstick to match my dress and handed me crimson lipstick to match hers, completing our coordinated look.
“Make way bitches, I’m coming in.” William’s face squeezed into the mirror above ours, and the three of us frantically perfected our makeup together.
Normally I wouldn’t really care if I looked like a total banshee or not, but my dark circles were so bad that I figured I might as well add some extra concealer out of consideration for others. I certainly wouldn’t want to make someone wish to stab their eyes out, so they didn’t have to gaze at the hideous sight of me...
A quick knock on the door suddenly interrupted our beautifying frenzy.
“That’s probably Darrell...” Lacey said while applying her smokey eye shadow.
“I’ll get it. I’m done anyway.” I put the concealer stick down and walked out of the fruity hairspray-scented bathroom.
I opened the door to see Darrell’s perfect charming smile. The man had godlike good looks, high cheekbones, square jaw, big dark brown eyes, the works. “Hey Gwendolyn, is everyone ready to go?” He asked with a friendly twinkle in his eyes.
“I think they might need another minute, but they should be done soon.” I smiled at him. I had always been glad that Lacey found someone who was so genuinely kind-hearted and gentlemanly. We’d been best friends since elementary school and I was rather protective of her.
“There she is!” Darrell suddenly exclaimed with a grin as Lacey ran over to him.
He caught her in his strong arms and swung her around, causing her to giggle. They shared a passionate kiss and smiled nose to nose as she ran her hand over his short twisted black curls. His skin tone was a few shades darker than hers, giving them a beautiful ever so slight contrast next to each other. The royal blue shirt he had complemented Lacey’s crimson dress wonderfully and it looked like they belonged on a poster advertising the perfect couple.
“William, hurry up! We’re leaving!” Lacey suddenly shouted down the hall.
“Hold on bitches, I’m still working on my wings!” William shouted back from the bathroom as he perfected his eyeliner.
“Well you’re holding us all up, you snail!” Lacey laughed.
William quickly leaned out of the bathroom doorway and used his long thin arm to catapult a small makeup brush at her, while screeching like a bird.
Once everyone was finally ready, we frantically scrambled together through the heavy rain across the driveway over to Darrell’s light grey Nissan. He kept his car so immaculately clean that I felt uncomfortable getting in with my now semi-muddy shoes, but he, being the gentleman that he is, insisted that it was fine. I sat in the back with William, thanked Darrell for the ride, and tried to keep my sleepy eyes open as we headed off to the party.
“Gwendolyn... Gwenny love... we’re here..” I heard William’s sassy-sounding voice above me as he lightly tapped my face.
My groggy eyes slowly opened. I realized that my head was in his lap and that I must have fallen asleep on the way over. I sat up and sleepily blinked at him. My nap had probably only lasted for about ten minutes, but I did feel a little bit better.
We got out and held hands as we swiftly walked up through the rainy puddles to the very large elegantly designed house. I could already hear the music from outside and saw lots of crazy shenanigans happening through the windows. The house, like most houses in Sycamore Valley, was old but well kept. Amelia was the keyboardist for a rather popular local djent band, and she rented the place with her bandmates so that they could coordinate better practice times together.
We walked through the large double doors and found that the place was packed like a can of sardines. The 90′s goth music was deafeningly loud inside, and the smells of tobacco and weed smoke wafted through the air, burning my nose. I ungracefully weaved through the crowd and wondered if she’d considered the possibility of rain when she’d invited this many people. It seemed like no one wanted to be out back on the large patio, so we were all crammed inside together.
I managed to find some spiked fruit punch and slunk into a corner in the large main room where I awkwardly stood, sipping my drink, and putting on my best ‘I’m here to have fun, but please don’t actually talk to me’ face. I took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm my crowd anxiety. I didn’t like events like this, plus, I was so overly tired that the thought of socializing made me want to crawl under a table and pass out.
William was off doing who knows what and Lacey was dancing with Darrell among the sweaty crowd. I still had yet to even see Amelia. The endless sea of bodies made it impossible to spot her short frame. I frowned as my drink suddenly ran dry, so I slowly weaved my way into the kitchen where I found a few people doing Jell-O shots.
“Hi, I’m James.” A cute brown-haired guy greeted me as I grabbed a shot. His beautiful ocean blue eyes suggestively glanced up and down my body.
“Oh, um.. hi, my name’s Gwendolyn. I’m just in here to get some more alcohol.” I said shyly with a slight smile and turned to go back into the other room.
He laughed and gently grabbed my upper arm with his large hand. “Well, there’s plenty in here. Would you like to join me?” He flashed a charming grin my way, causing me to blush.
“Umm... okay I guess.” I agreed. I didn’t really have anything better to do other than awkwardly stand in the corner after all... plus he was quite cute.
Comments (0)
See all