Our school body isn't very creative when it comes to parties after a game. After a football game, the party's on the football field, after a volleyball game the party's on the football field, after a basketball game the party's on the football field. This probably has something to with the fact that teenagers whose sole purpose is to get drunk don't really like to concern themselves with the logistics.

Anika's predictions were accurate. It seems like more than half of our three thousand strong student population is here. And if any more people show up we won't fit on the field. The floodlights are on and the glare of white light fills the field. A few trucks are parked on the edge of the field and one daring vehicle has maneuvered its way onto the end-zone. The administration isn't going to be too happy when they find out but that's a problem for Monday. With keg stands and stacks of drinks with varying alcohol percentages. A crowd flocks around the trucks like moths drawn to low-lit lanterns.

Music thumps from the sound systems of each of the trucks creating an interesting blend of trap and pop music.

"What do we do now?" I ask when Anika pays the Uber driver. Unlike me, she didn't have to commit grand theft auto to get us here. She just called an Uber.

"I don't know," She whispers. Her hand slips into mine and she drags me off the sidewalk and past the fence onto the green. "But when in Rome..."

We walk over to a table packed with cans of fizzy soda and iced vodka. I watch in self-righteous disdain as she grabs one and clicks up the tab. I have to maintain my moral high ground somehow.

"You won't take one? Even the soda?"

"Your drink is less likely to get spiked if you don't have one," I say in response.

"Whatever." She says it with a grimace either from distaste at my rejoinder or the taste of her drink. I can't tell.

"Didn't you tell your dad you weren't going to drink?'' I ask.

"Yup. But I'm giving in to peer pressure tonight."

I roll my eyes and scan the field. Looking over the groups of people who've decided to spend their Friday evening in tight, skimpy clothing on open ground, in breezy weather. I can't judge them too much on that front though. I'm stuffed into one of Anika's denim mini skirts and a flannel t-shirt against my wishes of course. I didn't put up much of a fight though. I kind of like wearing something more risque than my usual get-up even though the cold whips me at every turn.

Anika props herself onto the tailgate of the truck behind us. "Don't look now but there's a pyramid of drunk cheerleaders about to topple over at three O'clock."

I turn almost immediately in the direction she's staring.

She slaps my arm, "I said don't look."

"Oww," I say rubbing the spot on my arm. "You know I'm no good at subtlety."

"Oh there it goes," She says looking back at the pyramid.

In her line of sight is a group of cheerleaders giggling and laughing as they tried to assemble a pyramid. They're egged on by a growing crowd of boys. One of them leans across the shoulder of another precariously. Then the whole pyramid collapses and they tumble. Literally, head over heels. I scan the resulting pileup and I'm surprised to feel a shade of relief when I don't find Leah among them. Not that I care but she did promise to cool it with the alcohol. And from my personal experience starting a drunk pep rally is most definitely not cooling it.

Instead, I see her with the rest of the basketball team and their groupies. They're the loudest. Taking up the center of the field and holding court around one of the pick-up trucks. And Leah is at its epicenter, on somebody's lap. Clearly not drunk but holding a drink. She's the girl in black jeans and a crop top that just shows off her mid-section.

And the lap of course belongs to Darnell, because who else would she be draped over?

For the next few minutes, we sit in silence. With me wondering when the real party would start.

"Anika," I whisper.

"Mmmm? What?" Her own eyes were focused on a spot somewhere behind me.

"Those two," I say. "Cheerleader with the long legs and the boy she's sitting on?"

"Yeah," She says. "He's the valedictorian, right? Smart boy. Helps me with biology."

I didn't know they took the same classes. Then I remembered their last names Washington and Singh.

I roll my eyes, "Yup that's him. Are those two like a thing? Or...."

Why did I want to know? I wasn't sure. Maybe after years of ignoring the rest of my peers I wanted to get back into the game and actually give a damn about what they did with their lives?

"As in dating?" She takes another sip of her fast depleting vodka. "No. Not dating. They're just the touchy-feely type but not dating."

"Oh okay." Just friends then. But I've been fooled by that line before.

"My theory is she's just toying with him?"

"She's toying with him?" I ask. I'd like to attribute the jealousy I felt when I heard her say it to me feeling protective over an old friend. Of course, I'd care if she was only playing with him. The same way I'd care about all my friends getting hurt. No big deal. And yet...

"Yup, leading him on, stringing him along, taking him down the garden path." She says and now I know the vodka is hitting her because she's talking with her hands. "Whatever you like to call it."

"No, she wouldn't do that."

She scoffs, "You don't know her like I do, kid."

I don't know what I was about to say after that. Whether I was about to ask her what she meant or tell her to drop the kid thing. I don't get to find out because I'm interrupted.

"Anika, babe. Hey!" I don't recognize the voice or the person heading towards me but Anika does. Because she squeals and leaps off the tailgate and into the arms of said unrecognizable voice and person.

Kite Forrester, her debate co-captain and the one person Anika dislikes more than anyone else.

Which is weird because that's no way to treat someone you don't like, in my book that is.

"Hey, Kite." She says with the widest grin I've seen on her face all day.

"Are you ready?" He asks placing his hands on her shoulders and shaking her slightly.

Now let me add a bit of context to this.

2018, Our fall debate. Forrester, a conservative and secretly a flat-earther (I have no proof of this but you can just tell with the guy) was for uniforms in public schools versus Singh, who was very much a liberal. Although she wasn't legally allowed to vote.

It was the most hotly debated argument in our school histo—

Okay, it really wasn't. I fell asleep because it was a debate, not a basketball game. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that they weren't friends. They fought for the same parts in the school play last year. And no they did not get the part of waiter 2 in Grease. They fought over a parking spot at school, they didn't get that either.

But more importantly, more critically Kite was the one who introduced Joshua and Aaliyah. Now I don't know the extent of his involvement but it certainly cemented their mutual dislike when Joshua broke up with Anika and started dating Aaliyah.

Then I saw it and it all made sense. Kites red eyes and bouncy demeanor where he was usually cold and misanthropic to everyone he couldn't put in a box. He was blazed. High as a, well, high as a kite.

He pulls out a clear, sealed bag of colorful pills from his back pocket and dangles it in front of Anika.

She reaches for it but he yanks it out of her grasp.

"Not now you idiot." He says nodding to me. The first time he's acknowledged me in the past five minutes.

"You're the one who's waving it around in full view of the public."

I'm just going to go ahead and say this but I think this is their first time and it's clear they aren't very good at this.

Anika turns to me and I cross my arms: "You cannot be serious." I say. "You are not doing drugs."

"These aren't drugs, okay." She says trying to get me to lower my voice. "It's just a pill. Not even that strong."

"I beg to differ," Kite starts.

"Shut up, Kite," Anika says. "Listen to me, Hazel."

"No, no, and no," I say. I grab her arm and drag her to the most secluded spot in my view, a few yards away.

"Is that why you invited me? So I could cover for you with your Dad and you could get to do whatever that is with Kite Forrester ?"

That's the part that throws me, Kite Forrester, who when he hears his name being tossed out takes it upon himself to wave at us.

"Okay, you're being dramatic." She says. "I invited you because I thought you'd have fun. You don't need to get emotional about it."

That's my breaking point. The whole passive-aggressive bullshit. Her turning everything on its head. I'm not being emotional. I'm stating facts, it's not my fault she can't handle it.

"No, I would never have fun here. You know that." I say my voice sounds hoarse. I brush my hands over my mouth reeling at the insanity of this moment. "You would know that if you were my actual friend. You wouldn't invite to parties I'd hate being at or call me at night to come pick you up and then go off with randoms."

"Oh my God. You're mad because I invited you to a party." She laughs, but neither of us has said anything funny. "And I am your friend. Probably your only friend and it's no wonder why."

"You call yourself a friend?" I say.

"Your only friend."

"That's bullshit. You know why? A real friend would actually give a damn about the things I cared about." I take a shallow breath before continuing. "A friend wouldn't only show to our basketball games because her boyfriend was starting."

"You don't even play. You're the freaking mascot. It's a stupid glorified position that should have gone extinct years ago."

The last line stuns us into silence and I think we're both shocked at her capacity to be that cruel.

"Shut up." My voice breaks and I hate myself for showing even a hint of weakness.

All she does is shrug in response.

I hate myself for storming off, it makes me feel even more infantile. Like a scolded child. But I push aside those thoughts not wanting to contribute to my own invalidation any further.

I'm halfway to the bleachers when I realize I don't even know where I'm going and more importantly how I'm going to get there. Anika may have been using me to get here but it went both ways. She was going to pay for the Uber ride back home and because I'd been working along the lines of that assumption I hadn't brought any money with me. Breaking the fundamental rules anyone would develop after watching one too many episodes of true-crime series.

1. Never leave the house without emergency funds.

And

2. Don't go out at night without a plan B.

I'd disregarded both of those in one fell swoop. But it was still seven and I had a few hours left before I could break into full-scale panic mode. Not a pretty thing to behold.

As I walk over to the bleachers away from the music and throng of teenagers I find myself being torn between anger at myself and Anika and the need to apologize to her. To make up and have her be my ride home again. That wasn't the only thing though. Outside of my relationship with Anika, I didn't have many other friends. A fight with her would put my social circle, population of 1, into total disarray. I'd come too far to go back to eating lunch alone.

The seats although mostly empty are open to the field and it would feel too exposed if I actually sat down there. Instead, I head behind the bleachers where the light although it's low it isn't too far away from the activity of the party, visible only if you walk past it.

As I walk I go over a silent mantra.

Don't cry.

Don't cry.

I will not let myself cry. And it proves just as effective as the last time.

I'm crouching under them looking for a place that's comfortable enough to sit when I hear a crunch. The sound shocks me so much so that I jump and whack my head against the low-lying bleachers.

"Oww, oww oww." I shine my flashlight from my phone in the direction of the crunching sound and locate the culprit. "Oh, it's you."

Sheepishly, they raise their hands and say: "I'm sorry."