Inspite of dabbing more layers of highlighter than I've with my clothes on a chilly night, I'm still conscious of the tear stains. Hopefully, I'll master this art over the years, but for now a forced smile will have to do. Thankfully, everyone here seems to be at least two beers down, and in a complete opposite turn from my earlier fashion, I intend on keeping it low tonight.

"I don't think Brandon's coming, he's got some stuff to work on," Harry murmurs over the disc music blaring through the crowd, and yet it registers loud and clear. I just nod in response, toning the wariness down by notches.

The fact that Brandon has kept his mouth sealed is something I can't possibly gulp with the spritzer in my hand. So naturally, when Harry texted me about this party, asking if I wanted to go, my eyes did a double flip. I sat on it for quite a while, ultimately ready to refuse until he mentioned Brandon's probably come along. I figured if he was going to blab it out today, so I might as well be there to try and do some damage control– something I hadn't been so good at before.

"Really? I guess it's just you and me then," I toy around with the red plastic cup in my palms, somewhat nauseated from the reek of the drink in there. Withdrawal as it seems, had been catching up on me in the past few weeks, but to give into the need feels worse.

"Seems so," he says, the boyish grin intact on his face, while I resist the urge to pull that grey beanie down his head and ruffle around the curls underneath. Fingers entangled, the sparks are overhead. I caught onto the line from one of his songs back in the concert at the park. We've gotten somewhat close since then, but I can't say that for the moment when I can see every curve of the veins popping on his neck. It would really only take a second and my seasoned brand of hazy decisions meets inherent insanity to close the distance, but that's until I spot a familiar red head among the swaying crowd, and with an arm clung onto his. Black waves cascading down her back, she's dressed in a jogger and a tank top, and yet looks more charming than I could ever be. I instinctively look down at my shimmer black strap dress, my whole self suddenly seeming like a ruse, on the verge of falling apart.

"Hey, you're okay?" Harry slightly shakes my shoulders, looking both, a little worried and amused. He's gotten used to me fading out, something I myself have been struggling with. I'm very well aware that I am a handful, but also of the fact that no one's stuck around long enough to figure why. No one until this enigmatic musician, who's got mystery written all over those black orbs. "It's getting stuffy in here, and I have access to a quite place up the stairs."

"I wouldn't mind some silence," I mutter, setting my cup down on the counter and following him past the drunkards, the users, and the ones who've got foil packets peeking out of their pockets. Our fingers brush against each other every time I feel like I'm losing my step, and need a reminder that there's more than just a dark abyss ahead. I spot Archie and the girl who's familiar but not quite placeable, settled on a couch, speaking amongst themselves, lost in their own little world. She must be special because I don't remember a time when we were half an hour into one of these free liquor parties, and still capable of forming coherent words. I'm also surprised how we have both found ourselves at one of these typical cheerleader parties, and with the obnoxious daddy's princess being the host this time.

Rachel Stinson's mansion seems a cut out of the one in Cinderella, what with the tunnelling stairs, the carpeted floor and an antique showpiece in every direction you dart your eyes around. It's literally a maze in and out, and I figured so when it took me a fucking hour and a beer on the way to find my way to the address of the lost land. And I'm convinced, I will have already forgotten it by tomorrow morning.

I have no clue of where Harry is guiding me to, and I get a queasy feeling when we are walking towards a room with 'RS' painted in gold on the daisy white door. Thankfully, Harry's leather boots take a detour and towards the narrow end of the corridor, leading to an open space. It's almost like a balcony, but the size of my room. His fingers subtly slip away from mine as he walks over to the edge and sits himself down on the marble floor. I do the same, just with a little more clumsily with the spritzer acting on my dazed mind.

"So, I presume you've been here before?" I can't help asking, and he doesn't seem to mind as the small smile on his face remains settled.

"Brandon knows Rachel, so I have had to accompany him a few times inspite of my wishes. That's how I got invited to this party, as one of Brandon's guests who didn't have any plans on a Friday night," he shrugged. "The last time we were here, I saw the sunlight coming in from this place, and I just wondered how beautiful would it be to admire the night sky out here."

"It is," I force myself to tear my gaze away from that adorable glint in his eyes, and onto the indigo drape above our heads, brushed with specks of white. Specks of hope, of something better waiting for you out there. "Tell me something about yourself," I murmur as the noise downstairs gradually convulses into the silence.

"Like what?"

"Something that makes you you. Something apart from the pretty things."

A shaky sigh makes its way out of his throat, the smirk vanishing off and his lips quivering in the slightest. "I told you that I don't have a large family back in England. Just my mother, my aunt and my little brother, and it's been like that since as long as I can remember."

I nod inadvertently, recollecting how he once mentioned about growing up with a single parent too. None of us shared the stories of the big why, but we still understood the pain and that actually came to be one of the first of the many things that connected our otherwise yin and Yang worlds. "I saw how the Dads of the other kids in my school were, observed it all from a distance. Always coming to games, cheering them on, picking them up for an ice cream on the way home. Little things, but I would be lying if I said I didn't feel the urge to be in those kids' shoes. Even for a day, if that were possible."

I just listen. There are no words, simply reflection on the feelings I discovered I had been suppressing all along. I find I have stirred a little closer to him in the while, and it feels as right as the crescent moon splaying its light.

"I missed out on that experience while growing up, but I didn't want the same to be for my brother. It wasn't the same of course, but I knew I had to make sure he had a face to look at when he felt beaten up or just euphoric after a great game, from the field. Resolving his fights, checking on his assignments, his shady friends, it all came naturally as a big brother, but more so as someone who had to protect him.

And if that meant being his shadow, I was ready for it, but he wasn't. He didn't like me around his friends, always stepping up and taking it over when they had a little dispute or misunderstanding, and as clever as the little brat is, he began sneaking out and fooling both, me and mom. Once, when I was busy with a small gig with the band, he snuck off to this party with this friends. They were all nice, but the older kids there weren't, and his group got into a feud with them, it turned really ugly."

"What happened?" My voice comes out hoarse; curiosity gripping me, but the answer seeming scary at the same time.

He gulps, pulling his beanie down and scathing past the mass of curls on his head. "I-I got a call from the local police, saying he was in jail. Apparently, one of the guys he got a fight with, was an officer's son, just as must pathetic and a lying scum of earth, who didn't mind keeping a fourteen year old in the cell for a week. The grudge was evident since his son didn't have a fucking scrape on his face, and my brother was locked up in a bleeding condition. It was horrid for him, and all the while, during those seven long days, I couldn't help but feel so helpless and just a useless piece of shit. I could cheer all I wanted when he scored a goal, but I couldn't get off my ass and do something when he was framed and tortured everyday our there, until my mom arranged for a good attorney."

A tear slips off his eyes, but he is quick to mop it off with the sleeve of his bomber jacket. Gathering courage off of my drunkenness, I carefully hold onto his arm, my head resting on his shoulder. It isn't nearly difficult to hear his thundering heartbeats as he stiffens initially, but soon those calloused fingers once again find their way to mine. "Since then, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't let anything happen to him, no matter what. That nobody would dare harm him, and if they even tried to, I would make them pay." He is  shivering, and it isn't the cold air wrapping us both. "He's my little brother... I have to be there for him."

"I know you do."

***

Driving up to the pharmacist turns into a trip up state when I crank up the radio and The Fray's latest single comes on. It's the only sliver of hope on another Friday night, which is just a reminder of everything that's been torn to shreds, and how I am responsible for half of that shit. With Kylie, you could never tell if the words were true or if she's just playing you, and I suppose she inherits the same from her father. Mr. Meyers used a nice little white lie to get information out of me, when he had no plans on returning the favour back.

So now, not only am I an established fool among us four, but also the proven snitch who no one can trust anymore. Another addition to the manipulation, the lying, and many more such  qualities that make Archie Schiller the absolute piece of shit he is. I'd actually love for the earth to open up and swallow me whole, but that emotion takes somewhat of a back seat when I spot a familiar pair of doe eyes on the street, beneath the flickering lamppost.

She is quick to spot me as well, and there's a semblance of relief on her otherwise surprised face, as she steps off the pavement. I roll the windows of my car down and her forest green scarf comes flying about past the crank. "You called for a cab?"

She doesn't exactly smile, but shakes her head in amusement. "I was looking for one, so you're not completely wrong."

"Where to?"

"Staten Island. I accidentally left my house keys behind with a friend, and she's at this party over there, so going over is pretty much the only option." She sighs, her face furrowing at the bare thought it seems.

I can't blame her, though. Cramped up among sweaty drunkards, having to scream just to make a conversation, it's something I really don't look forward to anymore. The last few months, specifically in existence to conjoin my distraction I believe, eventually led to the filtering out some of the bad as well alongside all the good. "I could give you a ride there."

"Really? You're going to the party too?" She looks at me– more precisely judges me for the black sweatpants and ash grey T-shirt I have been wearing since past many mornings.

"I wasn't planning on, but now I've got company," I answer without a thought, and yet somehow my heartbeat is more erratic than the time coach made us do some hundred laps on a sunny day.

"Um, okay, I don't mind. Thanks, I mean," she does little to hide the pink hue developing on her cheeks as she steps inside and straps on the seat belt. Her eyes immediately divert to the brown package on the dashboard and the strip with 'warming' printed in bold peeking out of the same. It definitely looks like she has questions, but doesn't pry.

I'm not sure if I should follow the code or subtly try and bring up what I saw in the cemetery that day, and so most of the car ride goes by in silence. Until I spot something on her left foot that I can't possibly keep mum about. "Stitch marks that make a scull outline? I'm sorry, but you've got to explain that," I can't help chuckling, and much to my surprise, she does too.

It happened a few years ago when I had just learnt how to ride the new triumph sports bike. I got a little swayed and skidded on uneven gravel, hurt my elbows and knees along with the wide ego that claimed I could handle the monster at all. Nothing serious, except my feet were caught in a partially open manhole cover and hence the stitches," she shrugs.

Meanwhile, I find my mouth gaping open, unable to associate the image with this girl in a corduroy coat sitting beside me. "That's, that's so cool. Wow, I could never have imagined you doing something so crazy."

"Yeah, I haven't always been a prude, as hard as that is to comprehend."

Always saying the wrong thing— another addition to the priced list. "Well, I am into bikes too. I haven't rode around much lately, but the thrill, the adrenaline, I can't ever forget or get sick of it."

"I wish I could agree. It just doesn't seem as easy now, and my parents didn't want me anywhere near that death machine after the incident."

My hands grip the steering wheel to whitening and a question inevitably asks itself. Would my parents have called it the same? I don't think Dad would have been exactly fond of my decision to spend a couple thousand dollars just so that I could take my girlfriend on a cross country bike ride. "Well, if you ever feel like getting back to it, I have a death machine of my own. I think I'd be a good teacher."

She doesn't say anything, but a ghost of a smile lingers on her lips, and it says enough. We soon enter Staten Island and I'm completely lost, until Monica gives me detailed directions to the place. "This seems it," she says, as we both look at the wrought iron gates protecting the mansion behind and the dead end on the other side of the road.

"Whose party is it again?" I reluctantly pull in the drive way, overlooking the lawn and the water fountain in the middle. Money loaded is the most obvious trait, but that wouldn't narrow it down in a university where BMWs line up the parking lot.

"I have no idea," Monica says, pulling out her cellphone from one of the pockets of her coat and dialling her friend, I presume. Her candy red sneakers tap on the misplaced beige matting of my car, until she pulls the door open and steps out. "Looks like I will have to find her inside."

The anxiety is more than visible in her wide eyes and the way she's cradling the sapphire pendant around her neck. "Yeah, looks like we will have to find her," I pull the keys out of the ignition and shut the door behind me after pulling along my high school sweatshirt from the seats behind. I don't want to let everyone know I'm down in the dumps, and there were some ugly grease stains on my T-shirt pointing to a shameful nursing of lo mein on a daily heartbroken basis. 

Pulling it down my head, I fall in step with Monica towards the cobblestone path leading to the mansion. "Thanks for doing this," she nervously murmurs and I nod, much like our interaction that night in my house. Except this time when she looks at me, I can't blame the silly smirk on my face on all the alcohol in my system.

The mansion, of ancient British architecture, looks like a place where recitals would be held, but when the doors open,  loud electric jazz renders us both numb. At a point while skimming through the crowd, we clutch on to each other and I keep from thinking about how natural it all seems.

We settle on a couch by the fireplace that doesn't reek of beer or bodily fluids, and as soon as I take a breath of relief, my wandering gaze lands on her. The same black dress she wore on our first real date that didn't have the whole gang tagging along- just Emma and I, pretending to be sophisticated for dinner at a posh Italian place. Well, until we got the cheesecake packed and ate it on the roof of her car, fetting over who got the bigger piece.

Before I'm thrown head first into reality, she's long gone with some tattooed guy, and I find that the space beside me is empty. It could just be that Monica found her friend and she occupied her, but there's also another thought, one that by a huge margin crashes before any other; that something's not okay.

I immerse myself into the throng of students, all the while trying to contact her through her socials. It seems like a deadlocked search until I find someone toying with her phone, that I recognise by the baby pink case with a splotch of paint on one of the corners. Someone wouldn't suffice, since it's the drama package herself, flicking her blond tresses and tapping her louboutin heels. Rachel Stinson.

I haven't had many interactions with her, but enough to know she's not one you would want to deal with, in an emergency. I obviously have no fucking choice, though. "Hey, where'd you get that phone?"

She looks at me, rather scans me and grimaces without a thought. "Why? What's with you, redhead?"

"That's my friend's cell," I do not hesitate grappling the phone off her hands, opening it to a ton of unseen messages from me. "Have you seen her? Dark long hair, corduroy coat, red sneakers?"

"No, and I'm glad I haven't. I, for one, wouldn't want to be caught dead in that combination," She mockingly laughs, swirling the white wine in her glass but never taking a sip, as a guy pulls her by her arm. He drags her to the same secluded spot by the fireplace, shoving the glass off her reach and forcing himself onto her instead. She's trying to maintain the poise, politely pushing him off and keeping him from pulling at the hem of her pencil skirt. Except he isn't bothered  and reaches for her top instead.

Her face flushes white. Something I think I've only seen once when she fell off the top of a human pyramid during a cheerleader routine. I'd almost taken a step when she herself tugs him by the draw strings of his hoodie, flirtatiousness awash on her coy smirk and batting lashes, either reality or a pretence she'd be presented a Tony for.

The guy and Rachel, both stumble back into disappearance, a mere fog amongst the mob and I'm left thoroughly confused with what even happened. It's on my mind all the while that I try to find Monica, and finally come across those red shoes on the other side of the Victorian glass windows in the living room, placed on top of each other, slight dirt brushing onto clean white canvas every time displaced in worry. It's cold outside, worse than earlier somehow, but I can tell that's not why she's shaking, sitting on the damp grass by the wall.

"Hey, you're okay?" I pick up her scarf, splayed on the similar hued ground, cautiously wrapping it around her.

"Can y-you get me some water?" She barely mumbles, and as much as I'm afraid to leave her alone, I rush back inside to grab some while getting ugly stares from the ones already waiting by the filter. "Here," I hand the red plastic cup over to her, turning a nervous wreck as she struggles to even swallow. "Just close your eyes and focus on breathing," I'm sure she knows it by hand, but it's all I got from when I used to help Emma through her bouts of anxiety.

She nods and does the same, soon taking control of her volatile breathing. She's also repeating something, but I don't get a hold of it until the winds subside. "Hailey, Hailey, Hailey."

The name on the headstone. I'd forgotten all about it, but now it only raises more and more questions. Once she seems better, I help her off the ground and luckily, her friend catches her outside itself to hand the keys over. "Thanks again. For helping me out there," she looks at me with raised eyebrows, silently questioning how I managed to get a handle on the situation when looking a certified mess myself.

"Don't mention it. I-I have some experience with a friend, who's suffered from anxiety." Just saying it out loud gives way to a twisted feeling in my stomach.

We're soon out of there, and while looking behind at the mansion in the rear view mirror of my car, I swear to never find myself at one of Rachel Stinson's parties again. Wish I'd heard of never say never.