22 #2
“Hopefully soon enough a vodka lemonade, and he’s at the bar with Harley.” They both glance in the direction of where the pair stood.
“Who is she meant to be?” MJ questions.
“That’s what I said,” I laugh and at the same time Arden says, “Beyonce.”
We both turned to him in surprise, “How the hell do you know that?”
He gives us both a look that suggests we should know the answer to that, “Daniel has been my best friend for twenty years.” The two of us come to the realisation at the same time at what he is implying.
As the party wears on, MJ and Arden have taken to the dance floor while I linger in the corner of the room watching them like a creep.
They are dancing in a way that should have the police called on them for public indecency.
Arden’s hand trails down her body, coming to rest on her bum as he gives it a squeeze.
They grind on each other, her hips swaying and his body answering hers instinctively.
She never takes her eyes off him, utterly absorbed in their act.
But him… he isn’t looking at her. His eyes are fixated on me and just before he captures her lips into a heated kiss, he smirks and gives me a knowing wink.
She is essentially climbing him for all to see and once again, I feel that familiar shade of green rising, contained only by the effort not to react.
The bastard is provoking me, on purpose.
It strikes me that I have spent way too long at this party sober, desperately wishing to exonerate the hateful thoughts circling in my mind.
Which makes me wonder where Dan and Harley are.
I push off the wall I’d been leaning on and scan the place.
I’m not sure where Dan has run off to but I at least find Harley where they said they’d be, still at the bar.
She is locked in conversation with someone else, and as I near, I realise exactly who.
Scarlett.
I barely recognise her in her outfit: green leaves dangling on her, a tight green corset to accentuate her figure, a mass of red curls cascading down her back.
Clearly a wig, her hair isn’t that long or that red.
She’s even matched it with green boots which makes her taller, a little closer to my height.
For a girl I’ve barely had to interact with in years, she has a strange habit of showing up wherever I go lately.
“This must be your friend.” I keep my head held high, the bitterness that had been threatening to come out earlier seems to have fought its way out. They both turn around at the sound of my voice, and the light on their faces is snuffed out.
What pleasant reactions, the people around me these days keep me humble. Truly.
“Annabel, this is Scarlett. My friend,” Harley says, for some reason she says the last bit like it took physical force to get the word out.
“We’ve met,” Scarlett gets in before I do, her eyes narrow at me, there is clearly no love lost on both our ends.
Part of why she hated me was because when we attended Thorncomb at the same time, we knew one another a lot more than implied.
I mean everyone did at TCA, it was entirely impossible not to.
In her case, she used to sell drugs at school that I craved so I built a rapport with her.
However, I stole from her a lot of the time, thinking she wouldn’t notice but she did.
When she found out, it didn’t particularly end well.
So, I told on her about the drugs which got her kicked out of the school for the rest of the semester.
Luke managed to pull enough strings to get her back in.
I had no excuse except that I was a depressed and angry teen.
I was irrational. But ever since, she has hated me.
Despite money and class, I find it pointless to talk down to others because they have less.
That sort of thing should speak for itself.
However, tonight I let the arrogance I know I can channel take over, “We have, and what was it you called me again?” I ask, making a show of thinking about it, my finger tapping against my lip, “That’s right, obnoxious and pathetic. ”
Her voice, just as throaty as I remember, “That’s because you are.”
“Perhaps it takes one to know one,” I spit back, laced with as much venom that I can muster. I can’t even place why I am so angry. I must be taking out my hurt over Arden on someone else and now I am picking a fight with a girl I have once seen beat up two grown men.
She takes a menacing step towards me, “Do you want to find out?”
There isn’t much of a height difference between us, but I still tower over her by an inch or two, and it pisses her off and you can tell. Then I do what I always do, ruin a good thing. I push her.
There are moments in life when you do something terrible and regret it almost immediately, it happened once when my mother baked a tray of cupcakes and I ate them all which left me sick the whole weekend. I didn't regret the cakes, they tasted great but I regretted the outcome.
This is what is happening here. I don’t regret pushing Scarlett but what I do regret is how she yanks my hair back and holds me in a tight grip pulling out that blade of hers.
God, I had forgotten how crazy she was. And strong.
It’s like I blacked out in that brief moment, I hadn't even noticed when the music stopped playing. An arm wraps around my waist to pull me away from her as others did with her, my voice hoarse from all the yelling. Somehow that is going to be my biggest regret of the night. Turning my head, I put a face to the arm in question, it is Arden’s.
MJ takes charge of escorting Scarlett out of the party, having to do something she doesn’t do often, be stern and serious. No one likes it when MJ is angry, it makes things terribly inconvenient, she can hold a grudge.
Harley anger radiates off her in waves, “What is fucking wrong with you? Why can't you ever be normal for once!”
“She started it.”
“Are you twelve?” She says, her tone dripping with disgust, like she’s lost all respect for me the second I uttered the words.
“This is why you don't let the riff-raff in,” Devon adds, taking the chance to throw in a snarky comment, not even noticing when she had got here.
“Shut up!” Harley and I snap in unison, our anger mirroring one another.
We face each other again, and she sounds resigned, her shoulders slumping as she says, “I finally found someone in this place who doesn’t treat me like an outsider because of where I came from, and here you go ruining it.
Stop meddling in my life.” Her final words hang in the air as she follows in the same direction MJ and Scarlett disappear to.
The worst part about it all is that I’d gone through it still entirely sober.
Clearly, the worst thing you can mistake me for is being sane or stable.
I grab a bottle of vodka from the table next to me and storm off in the opposite direction, too wrapped up in myself to notice I am being followed until I hear footsteps behind me.
By then, I have found the most secluded place I can, free from prying eyes that I can and promptly laid face-down on the floor.