“I’ll be right back, I’m gonna go find Ryan,” Shane announced to her group of friends, struggling to raise her voice above the loud music that was pounding around her. The music playing at her boyfriend of six months' 18th birthday party was annoyingly loud for a party, but the teenage wannabe DJ, rapper friend of whoever planned the party did not care as he was dancing drunkenly with a girl looking to skank it up with him. Shane's group of friends acknowledged that they heard her briefly with nods or waves of their hands dismissing her almost instantly as the music blasted over the aux pushing the room to shake. Although the loud music was just a generic Spotify playlist more than likely named “party tunes” the crowd of teens seemed not to care and danced on through the night. 

At almost midnight the party had now been going on for more than 4 hours with all Shane’s friends either drunk or close to it. Shane tried to ignore the acts of other couples making out and grinding on each other as she never felt that this act of PDA was cool to do at parties. Meanwhile, Ryan had some time during the night got pulled away by some friends to play a round of beer pong, and never made his way back. The smell of alcohol was powerful and almost sickening at first, but after a few hours, the overpowering smell seemed too dull to just an accent to the chaos. Shane broke herself out of her thoughts and turned to head into the hallway across the main room the main party was hosted to search for her boyfriend.

“I’ll help you find Ryan, it's too loud in here and it's making me feel kinda sick.” One of Shane’s closest friends, Cypress, stated, breaking away from the group and following her down the hall. The only other person not consenting to underage drinking along with shane was Cypress, who uncharacteristically offered to drink if shane did before they arrived. They both declined at the start of the night and had a silent pact to be the seemingly only sober ones there as shane predicted that they would have to kick people out and do most of the cleaning up. 

Their footsteps echoed in the hallways and stairwell of Ryan Reed’s large house. Everything seemed so out of place from what Cypress was used to. Paintings that were gifted to the Reed family from high-class snobs that attended their country club hung up in the halls and many expensive objects tucked into glass cases made Ryans’s home seem more like a museum than a place of residence. Cypress knew that the Reeds were wealthy, but he did not realize that they were straight out of a movie rich. 

“Are you sure you aren't just dating this guy for his money? Every time I try to talk to him he just gives me a dirty look and once he asks if I got my outfit from Dollar tree.” Cypress asked, “The dollar tree doesn't even sell clothes” he concluded,  trying, but failing to keep the rude tone out of his voice. Shane had found after knowing Cypress a few months that he tended to ask questions like this pretty often without any real negative intentions, but she’d gotten used to it. 

“Maybe he wouldn't ask that if you bothered to brush your hair more than twice a week,” Shane responded. Cypress to many was a very attractive person with lots of dark brown curls topping his head that looked more of a reddish bronze color in natural light, the only problem is he did not care that much to present himself, therefore, others didn't take him very seriously. Cypress just shrugged as they continued down the seemingly endless hallways toward the bedrooms. The music from the large ballroom-like area behind them faded behind the walls and finally, the set of friends for the first time since the begging of the evening felt relaxed. The ballroom sweat clung to both of the friends walking, making Shane gag a few times thinking about how she would need to spend an eternity in the shower scrubbing while cypress tried to ignore the weird stickiness of his right shoe on the Burch Flores. A few drunk teens lurked in the hallways, some making out, basically having sex right in front of the two friends, while others talked or helped the drunkest of friends to a quiet place to sober up. 

“I don’t understand people’s constant need to have sex at this age or any age really. Why’s everyone so horny? Not to mention they're so loud about it! Keep that shit to yourself” Cypress grimaced. Shane just shrugged, ignoring Cypress, and passed the time checking all the rooms calling out in each one as Cypress hung slightly behind slightly uncomfortable at the fact of exploring Ryan’s house on warranted. Ten minutes pass and they make it up to the third floor where a person had not been seen in the past few minutes. After shane looked in one of the hundreds of bathrooms she looked up to a door after a second she heard a noise.  

Smiling she started towards the door. “I think I hear them in one of the guest rooms'” Shane broke the silence between the two, walking over to the white and gold-painted doors. Cypress watched as she turned the knob and gave the large door a slight push. It was unlocked. Shane froze as the door was wide enough to peer in, her heartbeat almost stopping as she tried to comprehend the situation. Cypress assumed he was a drunken mess and backed up a little to let Shane deal with the situation. 

“Oh god. RYAN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” Shane tried to yell, but she seemed to struggle to get the words out, this made Cypress a little anxious as he stepped forward once again placing a hand on Shane's shoulder. 

Looking over her into the room cypress still confused asked the question that he immediately regretted “What’s wrong?” Cypress pushed her to the side and looked into the room ready to fight, as that was his immediate reaction to most situations, especially those involving drunks, only to see two teenage boys half-naked on the queen size bed. Ryan was bent over Shane Laudermen, who was a complete dick to everyone, and no one would have ever expected Ryan to be on his knees in front of him. Ryan’s mouth was still agape when he jumped to his feet following Shane out of the room before Cypress could punch him square in the jaw. 

Laudermen jumped to his feet grabbing his pants tossed across the room as a fuming Cypress watched. Laudermen, who used to be a nice friend to Cypress, had turned his back and bullied Cypress for not only coming out as asexual but also for supporting his best friend coming out as a lesbian. Laudermen, in the eyes of many, was just a dick, but no one saw him in such a horrible light as Cypress did. Cypress couldn't think of what to do with him other than beat the shit out of this asshole.

“Shane, come back!” Ryan yelled while pulling his jeans back on and rushing down the stairs after her. She couldn't even wrap her head around what had just happened. Tears filled her eyes as her footsteps echoed in the hallway once more, this time louder and faster than before. She needed to get out. She wanted to leave and never look Ryan Reed in the eyes again. Far behind her at this point, Ryan had given up chasing her and decided to go back to Laudermen for comfort, but halfway back to the bedroom he was met with a hard punch in the nose. 

“You disgust me” Cypress hissed in his spitting in Ryan’s face before delivering one last knee in the nuts for good measure, then steering in Shane’s direction. Ryan staggered back to his room without another word. On top of all the rushed conflict, Ryan had endured, Lauderman was nowhere to be found. “Great” Ryan considered closing the door to have a pity party but ended up joining the party moments after.

Shane threw open the back door and walked out and around to the front of the house, avoiding interacting with anyone at the party. Cypress followed close behind and dialed their friend Emily’s number, who would be able to give them a ride home since they had arrived in Ryan’s car.

“WHAT?!” Emily yelled into the phone. No one had said anything yet, this was just her usual greeting.

“Can you please come to pick us up? We’re at Ryan’s house. Something… bad things happened.” Cypress sighed. From his tone, Emily knew this situation was more than them just needing a ride and didn’t ask any questions.

“Alright.. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thanks.”