“Let’s show him what he’s missing,” Mary smirks, grabbing my hand and raising me to my feet. “Come on.” I chug the rest of my drink, and let the buzz consume me. Resting it down on a table, I let Mary lead me. She drags me towards where Emery is as my cheeks go red. “I love this song!” She starts to dance, right in front of Emery and the girl as they make out, and I can’t help but laugh. They had no idea what was going on, so as I feel the alcohol’s effects course through my veins, I let the music take me.

“I’ve got a hangover, wo-oh!” I sing loudly, and Mary joins in. We go all out, dancing, singing, and laughing, right in front of oblivious Emery. People around us watch, some laughing at our little joke, others looking annoyed. “I’ve been drinking too much for sure!”

Gently, I nudge Emery’s leg with my black heel. His eyes open, and as he kisses the girl, I can tell he’s shocked. Feeling silly, I stick my tongue out at him and grab Mary’s hand.

“Let’s have some real fun!” Emery watches as I drag Mary towards the dance floor. I knew he would have expected us to just sit back, be shy, and want to go home, but he was wrong. We dance carefully in our heels, singing loudly like the rest of the crowd. The multi-coloured neon floor illuminates our bodies as we swerve in the crowd of moving people.

“Look!” Mary eyes dart towards the right, as if to be subtle about looking. So I twirl in a circle, and catch Emery, all by himself, leaning against the black railing, watching me. Smug, I decide it’s time to be adventurous.

Mary moves her eyes to my left, and I follow them, knowing what she’s gesturing at. The twenty minutes we’ve been dancing, a guy, who doesn’t look much older than us, has been checking us out. I meet his eyes, and smirk.

He smiles back, and as I glance back towards Emery, I know it’s time to show him that the other night meant nothing to me either. Even though it sort of did. But he doesn’t need to know that.

I dance over to the guy, still singing and trying to ignore the urge to constantly pull down the hem of my dress. I grab his tie than hangs over his dark green shirt, and pull him towards me until our faces are inches away. Trying not to be obvious, I glance over at Emery. It’s easy to see his white knuckles that clutch the railing tightly in anger.

Turning back to the nameless guy, I let go of his tie and push him away with my right hand. Grinning, I turn back to see Mary who’s dancing with who appears to be nameless guy’s nameless friend. Shrugging, I continue to dance until the song ends. Mary and I float back to each other, when I notice Emery’s gone from his watching place.

“Can we buy you two pretty ladies drinks?” The nameless guys stand beside us, and Mary shrugs and replies with a simple sure. We head over to the bar, where the guy I had been dancing with holds up two fingers to the bartender.

“So I’ve never seen you two here before,” Mary’s guy says, leaning against the bar. He takes one of the drinks he ordered for Mary and him. “Are you new?”

I take my own blue drink when it comes, and drink half of it before replying. “We live an hour away, so we don’t come here often,” Mary nods in agreement as we sip our drinks. If we were drinking, we didn’t have to talk much, and if we didn’t have to talk much, the guys wouldn’t find out that we’re underage.

When we’re finished, I set my empty glass on the bar. “Let’s dance?” Mary nods in agreement setting down her empty drink, and takes her guy’s hand. I grab mine, and look grin at him. He isn’t bad looking. Short, dark hair, light brown eyes and a muscular build. Simple, yet amazing.

Time flies by as we dance to the loud, pulsing music. I forget all about silly little Emery, and focus on having fun. I’m sipping my blue drink when Mary stops dancing and digs through her dress with her free hand. Moments later, she pulls out her phone. Her eyes grow wide as the screen illuminates her face.

“We have to go!” She mouths to me, and I move closer so we can talk. “My Dad phoned me thirteen times! We’ve been gone much longer than a two hour movie at the nine o’clock showing, River. It’s 12:34!”

My mouth falls open, as I realize how screwed we are. As soon as we got home we would be dead. But how would we get home if we can’t find Emery in here? Friday night has turned into early Saturday morning, and the amount of people had tripled without me realizing it. You can’t move an inch without touching someone you didn’t know.

“What’s wrong?” Asks Mary’s guy. She sticks out her bottom lip, making a puppy dog face.

“We have to go catch our ride,” she yells into the guy’s ear. He looked extremely drunk, along with my guy. They had been running back and forth to the bar the whole time we’ve been on the neon dance floor. We wave a small goodbye, and run towards where we last saw Emery, over an hour ago, leaning against the railing.

He’s not there obviously, but we look around anyways, nervous, scared and anxious. He was our ride home. Without him and our clothes, we would be in much more heaps of trouble than we already were.

“Hey there gorgeous,” some sleazy looking drunk guy stumbles over to Mary and I, almost collapsing on us. “Want to dance?”

When I realize he’s talking to me, I nervously shake my head. “No thank you.” I look around him, desperately searching for an out of place guy with a head of black hair, pale skin, and lip piercings. How could someone like Emery be so hard to find?

“What about you?” He takes a step closer to Mary, who looks absolutely repulsed. He starts to stumble, and instead of catching him, Mary moves over, doing everything she can not to touch him. He grabs the railing, and straightens himself up.

“No,” Mary snaps, as the guy’s eyes squint in a glare.

“Then how about we unzip that dress of yours…” he trails off as his grimy hands reach towards her.

“Ew!” she screams, as he’s right about to touch her. On instinct, she throws her blue drink at his head. In a matter of seconds, his head and shoulders are covered in the blue liquid.

“You little bitch!” He bellows, and Mary runs away frightened. I shrug and follow in suit, trying to catch her as I weave through the crowd. Running in heels wasn’t easy like the movies showed you, but I manage to catch her and pull her to a stop.

“Nice,” I laugh, high-fiving her. She giggles, but stops to look to her left. I follow her gaze for another time this night, and it lands on Emery just like it had before. He’s leaning against the bar, sipping a drink, and talking to a tall, thin brunette in a tight black dress. Anger swirls inside of me as I realize that he lied about only having one drink.

Furious, I stomp towards him in my heels, and Mary follows closely behind. “What the hell?” I scream at Emery over the music. At first, he looks disinterested, but when his eyes land on me, he looks extremely annoyed. The brunette rolls her eyes, and sips her drink, thinking that she’s better than Mary and I.

“You need to take us home,” I snap angrily. “We’re already late, and you’ve been drinking!”

Emery sighs, but doesn’t respond. Instead, the brunette does. “Look, kiddies,” she scoffs, setting her drink down and turning to us. She’s at least a head taller than me in her heels, so she places her hands on her hips while she bends down to my level. “You may have fooled everyone else, but it’s clear that you’re too young to be here.” Once she’s straightened back up, she grabs onto Emery’s arm. “Emery is taking me home, so go, run along.” With her free hand she waves us off like we’re toddlers. As if that would make me leave.

Rolling my eyes, I swat her hand away from me. “Look here, bitch,” I hear Mary giggle behind me at my profanity, but the drunken feeling I had was giving me a surging amount of confidence. “You really want to go with a criminal who’s on probation?” I wasn’t feeling very nice at all, so when her eyes grow wide in shock, I smirk. She let’s go of Emery’s arm, and takes a small step away just to show how really shallow she is. “Yeah, he’s working on my family’s farm so he doesn’t go to jail. Now run along.” I mock, as her red lips curl in disgust.

“Whatever,” she snaps, walking away. Emery reaches to grab her arm, but he’s too late.

“What the fuck, River!” He screams at me. If it wasn’t for the loud music, all eyes would be on us. He takes a step towards me until we’re in each other’s faces. “Why do you have to be such a bitch?”

Rolling my eyes, I ignore the rude comment. “Mary and I are tired of getting hit on by drunken sleazy guys. It’s already too late for us to be still at the movies, and Mary’s dad has called her thirteen times! Let’s go home, Emery!” I know I’m whining, but I can’t help it. I don’t want to make my parents nor Mary’s angrier than they already were.

“You know what?” Emery smiles as he throws his arms out around him. I know better to believe it’s a genuine smile. “No. Find your own ride home, you dumb bitch.” With that, he walks away, leaving Mary and I without a ride home.

“We only have one option,” Mary cries, wiping the tears from her eyes before they spill over. “I have to call my dad.” My whole body begins to shake uncontrollably, only instead of having a breakdown, it’s because I’m terrified. Facing angry Emery was one thing, but facing Mary’s dad, the preacher, was something completely different.