Chapter 33
Mia
‘You’re sure I look okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘And no one can see my ass?’
Hands on my shoulders, Alice turns me around to inspect the back of my costume.
‘They’d have to really want to see it. And they should want to see it because it’s fantastic, Mia, have you been doing squats?’
When I tug on the hem of the fabric that has been carefully wrapped and pinned around my body, she shrieks and slaps my hands away.
‘Do not mess with my creation! We don’t have time to put this on you again if you yank it off.’
‘Chill, Mia, you look amazing.’ Jenna speaks up from her spot on my bed without looking at me. She’s far too invested in painting her toenails the same iridescent silver shade as mine and Alice’s. ‘Totally hot. I definitely would.’
‘And she’s very picky.’ Alice gives me a look to reinforce the compliment.
I press my hands to my exposed collarbones, panicking when I don’t feel my bracelet before remembering Alice insisted I take it off because it didn’t fit the aesthetic.
‘Hot or not,’ I say. ‘I feel extremely naked.’
Preparing myself, I turn towards the mirror to see the result of Alice’s work.
I’m wearing nothing but my underwear, a strapless bra, a towel and a pair of slides, and the reason I feel extremely naked is because I am extremely naked, at least for me.
Still, I got off lightly compared to Jenna, who is bundled up in what looks like Saran wrap and if I didn’t know she had flesh-toned underwear underneath, I would truly think she was about to head out and flash the entire student body.
Alice is somewhere in the middle, wrapped in an iridescent fabric with plastic bubbles stuck all over her body.
Supposedly, we are the three stages of taking a shower.
In reality, I don’t know if the concept is as easy to grasp as Alice thinks, but at least we’ve met the requirements for the party.
These outfits are definitely not clothes.
‘Once Bryn arrives in his rubber duck costume, it will make a lot more sense,’ she promises, and I try not to look too bitter about losing the game of rock, paper, scissors that culminated in Bryn walking away with the most coverage of all.
‘And remind me how Michael got out of this?’ I ask, examining the back of my outfit one more time.
‘Because Michael and all the rest of the knobbers on the football team will turn up in their football kit which is flagrant flouting of the rules,’ Jenna scowls. ‘Kits are still clothes. The whole point of a costume party is to dress as someone you aren’t.’
Alice adds, ‘Nothing like a good fancy dress party to shed any lingering inhibitions left over from freshers’ fortnight.’
I take another look in the mirror and try to feel good about what I see. My parents would drop down dead if they saw me dressed like this. Then they would come back to life to kill me so they could punish me for all eternity.
‘And we’re ready,’ Alice declares, searching my desk for the purse she spent an hour covering in loofahs. ‘We should take a photo.’
She pulls a digital camera out of the purse as Jenna prises herself off the bed and bounds across the room to squeeze the three of us into the perfect single-frame selfie.
‘Tonight is going to be class,’ she says as she wipes a speck of mascara away from underneath my eye. ‘You’re going to have the best time, I promise. Are you meeting Oliver there or is he coming here?’
‘Meeting him there. He has to set up with the band.’
‘Maybe he’ll electrocute himself accidentally,’ Alice suggests, earning a warning look from Jenna. ‘Just a mild electric shock,’ she amends, chastened. ‘I wasn’t wishing him dead or anything.’
‘I might’ve been,’ Jenna says. ‘But it wouldn’t hold up in court.’
My friends aren’t shy when it comes to their feelings about me and Oliver but it’s only because they don’t see him the same way I do.
He’s not their type, that much is obvious.
Jenna has mentioned exes across the spectrum, but it kind of seems as though she’s locked in on an endless flirtation with Michael, who is admittedly his physical antithesis.
And Alice? Who even knows what she’s into?
She never talks about it and I would never push.
But things with me and Oliver could not be better.
As someone who has suffered through a million unrequited crushes, it suddenly feels like I’ve been let in on some secret the rest of the world was keeping from me.
There was a guy, technically my boyfriend, in my senior year of high school.
But truthfully, I don’t think we were ever that into each other.
He was a nice guy but losing my virginity was a task to be completed, I didn’t expect it to be good and it wasn’t.
In fact, the deeply stupid and thankfully one-off close call with Ethan was one thousand times hotter than anything we ever did.
But dating the person you like and knowing they like you too?
Insanity. If they could bottle this feeling, no one in the world would need an SSRI.
I’m so happy and horny I’m practically ready to explode.
My poor vibrator cannot cope with this level of demand.
Tonight, I’ve decided, will be the night.
I have new lingerie, I have condoms, I even have the morning-after pill, provided by the student health centre, just in case.
I am more than prepared. I am also impossibly nervous.
It might not be my first time, but I’m more anxious now than I ever was then.
Because it means something, because I like Oliver so much, and because I need to get laid so badly, I almost hooked up with Ethan.
‘You ready?’ Alice asks, adjusting her bubbles.
‘So ready,’ I confirm, following her and Jenna out of my room.
The ref is unrecognizable, all the tables and benches cleared away and swathes of silver fabric draped from the walls to create a fantasy bubble ready to be burst by a few hundred students.
Music bumps out of huge speakers set up throughout the room and there is already a sea of bodies, swaying and grinding to the beat in the semi-darkness.
I can just about make out a few familiar faces, some kids from my history of English class, regulars at Members, Anders, talking to the blonde Texan I met at orientation.
Credit to the Hemden crew, folks know how to get creative here.
There are dresses made from bubble wrap, electrical tape, paper towels, and one guy has made a toga out of what looks like a Twister mat.
I can only wonder where he’s hidden the spinner.
‘Do you want something to drink?’ Alice yells over the music. ‘Coke? Lemonade?’
‘I’ll come with you to the bar.’ I have to shout to make myself heard, but she nods, taking mine and Jenna’s hands in hers as we slip through the crowd, linked together.
I don’t see Oliver anywhere but we didn’t lock down a particular time or place to meet, so there’s no need to freak out.
It took a minute to get used to the idea of not making plans in advance and being flexible with my expectations but I’m there now.
At first, I felt like I was going crazy not being able to text people my every waking thought, but I’ve already stopped automatically reaching for my phone every time I have three seconds of downtime.
Filtering through the party alongside my friends, I do my best to forget I’m wearing nothing but a towel and take in my first Hemden University bop.
So far, so high school dance, only with legal alcohol, and considerably more flesh on display.
But then I went to a very conservative high school.
If your skirt didn’t pass the fingertip test, even in senior year, you were sent home to change.
Not that my folks would’ve allowed me out of the house in the first place in a skirt that short.
If they could see me now, my dad would have a seizure.
Thinking about my folks is a sure-fire way to kill the mood so I decide I simply will not.
‘We should load up, avoid this shitshow for as long as humanly possible,’ Jenna advises when we make it to the front of the line. ‘I’m thinking bottles, easy to hold, can’t fob us off with short measures. Alice?’
‘Solid plan, three of whatever’s on offer, please.’
Once upon a time, the thought of someone ordering three drinks at a time for themselves might’ve freaked me out. Now it’s just another Saturday. Double-fisting is the standard at Members on the weekend and thank God Alice told me what that means here before I said it out loud to anyone else.
‘Can I try that?’ I ask when Jenna passes Alice her first hard seltzer.
She pauses, the drink almost against her lips.
‘This?’
I nod. ‘I just want to taste it.’
‘You can, but please remember what curiosity did to the cat.’ She hands over one of the untouched bottles with an air of caution. ‘This is not the sort of place where you want to get shit-faced for the first time.’
‘Mostly because a lot of people here will be getting shit-faced for the first time,’ Jenna says when she rejoins us, carrying three bottles of her own. ‘I thought you didn’t drink?’
‘It’s not some big moral stance. I tried it at a couple of parties when I was younger and didn’t love it. But that was so long ago, maybe things have changed. Don’t worry, I’m not planning to get wasted.’
‘You’re perfectly entitled to get wasted if you want to, you’re twenty years old,’ she reminds me. ‘But don’t do it just because everyone else is.’
‘Jenna Hitchens,’ I say with surprise. ‘Are you giving me an inspirational speech?’
She grunts as she scans the crowd. ‘Hardly. If no one at this party has any weed, I’m going straight home.’
Bringing the bottle to my lips, I tip it back and take a sip. It tastes kind of like lemonade, but so sugary I can feel the liquid coating my teeth. I swallow and there’s a medicinal aftertaste I don’t love at all. It’s an effort to keep it down as I hand the bottle back to Alice.
‘What do we think?’ she asks, eyes dancing.
‘If I am gonna to start drinking, it won’t be that,’ I reply, screwing up my face. ‘It’s so sweet. How can you drink three of them?’
‘With a lot of practice and sheer determination.’ She taps her bottle against my soda then smacks a kiss to my forehead. ‘Come on, you big lush, I want to dance.’
She’s not alone. There’s a DJ on a stage at the front of the room, playing one of my favourite songs, and when Alice makes a beeline for the dance floor, Jenna and I follow.
Coloured lights swirl from the ceiling and we’re lost in a sea of bodies, hot skin pressed against hot skin, arms slung around each other’s necks, back to back with strangers, no such thing as personal space.
I let my mind roam back to the first night at Members, the crowded dance floor and endless strangers and remember how alien it felt.
Now I’m part of it, lost in the music, arms and legs and lips, laughing, smiling, eyes closed.
I don’t need to see to know where I am. I’m home.
I’ve never been so happy in my life.