Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

Love: Meet me in Finn Richards’ bedroom at midnight.

Love: No more lying.

I wait and I wait, my mind running faster than my dad’s race cars ever could. Is he ever going to answer?

Am I too late?

Until finally, my phone pings with a reply.

A promise.

Zac: I’ll be there.

Aveena

Parties always seem like a good idea… until you actually get to the party. It’s always the same story, in my case, anyway. Getting ready, driving over to the rich-kid house, climbing out of the car, and…

Instantly missing your bed.

The urge to go home usually hits in the first hour for me. It turns out watching people getting shitfaced while sober isn’t all that fun. This is especially true when the smell of alcohol makes you queasy. Just one whiff of alcohol and my stomach’s doing cartwheels with last night’s dinner.

But tonight will be different.

Tonight, I’ll smile, store my social anxiety away, be a good best friend to Dia. I won’t even get awkward or miserable.

At least, not before the cake.

Dia and I rolled up to Finn’s palace a bit before eleven. I was secretly afraid the birthday girl would ditch me as soon as we stepped foot through the door, and while she has been getting birthday wishes left and right, she hasn’t left my side once.

Not even for her “boyfriend.”

Finn didn’t seem to mind. Just kissed the breath out of her in front of everyone, wished her a happy birthday, then retreated to the kitchen to destroy Theo and Axel at beer pong. No sign of Xavier anywhere. And I’ve been looking.

It’s almost like Dia gave Finn a heads-up that we’d be sticking together tonight. She did promise she was going to be a better friend from now on.

Looks like she meant it.

The clock reads 11:30 when I notice a sea of students rallying around Finn’s kitchen island. There’s yelling, laughing, chanting, but I can’t make out what they’re saying over the booming chorus of “Hot Girl Bummer” by blackbear.

“What’s going on?” Dia takes notice of the frenzy and rises to her tiptoes, trying to see above the crowd, but it’s too thick. We’ve got Finn’s birthday flyers to thank for that. Pretty sure the entire senior class turned up to the party.

“No idea,” I say.

“Let’s go check it out.” Dia clasps my arm, dragging me along as she shoulders her way through the mass of drunk seniors. A bunch of shoving later, we make it to the circle’s center.

Four guys from the basketball team are lined up before Finn’s kitchen island while an unidentified girl lies flat on the counter in a V-neck top that stops just below her ribs.

Three shots are sca

ttered over her naked stomach with the last one nuzzled between her breasts. The crowd erupts in cheers as the first boy licks salt right off her skin, downs one of the shots, then eats the lime right out of the girl’s mouth.

Then comes the second and third boy.

But it’s when the fourth guy licks the salt in the navel of her breasts, takes the body shot, withdraws the lime from her mouth with his hand, and goes straight for the kiss that the crowd goes wild. The girl shoves the guy away with a laugh, sitting up on the counter, and I damn near go into respiratory arrest right then.

I couldn’t see the party girl’s face before.

But I can now.