ARI

I filled a blue solo cup to the brim and drank the strong alcohol which burned my throat. I don't know how alcohol is supposed to taste but that was really, really bad. I fell into a coughing fit, the alcohol almost coming back up. I glanced back at the top of the stairs and watched as Alex flirted with a stupid bitch. She flipped her hair and threw her head back in laughter, gently pushing his shoulder.

Not realizing everyone could hear me, I mocked the girl's laughter, making my voice super high pitched. Both of them looked my way. I scoffed and narrowed my eyes at Alex and took a swig of my cup. I don't care that he's talking with a girl. Pshh. He can talk to a hundred girls for all I care. At least that's what I told myself when I filled my cup up, drank it, and then filled it up again two more times. I shouldn't be surprised right? He did say he had a girlfriend. Is that her?

The sixth time, I was pouring the liquid into my cup but missed and it spilled on the floor making me fall into a laughing fit.

Through my blurred vision, I saw two Alex's staring at me with a concerned face. I pointed at him and chortled. "There's two of you!" I showed him two fingers and then brought them to my face to see if I really held up two fingers. I was holding up three.

"ARI!" Anna called me when I was about to take another sip of my drink. I wobbled and my cup fell to the floor the liquid splashing on my jeans. "Ari! What are you doing!" Anna scolded.

My lower lip quivered when she stomped over to me and picked up my cup from the floor. "I'm sorry." I lowered my head in shame.

"Why are you drinking? I thought you didn't drink?!" She brought back a couple of paper towels and mopped up the liquid.

Tears slid down my cheek because of the overpowered feeling of guilt that I felt. "I-I." I sniffled and wiped my face.

"What's the big deal? So what if she drank, it's not the end of the world."

Everyone, including me, looked over at Alex who stood in front of me, glaring down at Anna.

"What?" Anna asked. She slowly got up from her position and looked at me. I was still wiping at my stupid tears that I couldn't seem to stop.

"I said, leave her alone." His voice dropped an octave and I swear, the drunk me moaned.

I ran to Alex, throwing my arms around him and cried very drunkenly.

Alex who held out his arms to balance himself, stood stiff as a stick, never relaxing his form.

"Alex, she yelled at me!" I cried to him, pointing an accusing finger at Anna.

Alex was still frozen until his lips started to move. "Um, I-" He frowned again.

Jen who was still a little drunk, pulled me off Alex and dragged me to the dance floor.

Being drunk gave me a lot of mixed feelings. I was brave, sad and mad at the same time and apparently a 6 year old kid.

Jen grabbed my arm and twirled me around and around until I felt dizzy and frankly a little sick but I surpassed the feeling and then twirled her around.

For the next two hours, Jen and I were glued to the hip as we danced, drank some more, crashed into furniture and basically falling more times than I could count.

Alex's eyes never left me for the whole party and somewhere in the back of my head, I knew I was supposed to kick his ass because of the warning I gave him which is why every time I looked at him, I gave him a comical glare, stuck out my tongue, pointed to my eyes and then back to his and flipped my hair before turning back to Jen and falling to the floor again.

The music was turned off 10 minutes ago and half the party left while the other half just hung around, talking.

Something in my pocket kept tickling me and I took out my phone to see a picture of my mom. "Mom!" I yelled out in excitement.

Her picture went away and was replaced by a couple of numbers. 2:34 the numbers said and under that, it said I had 5 missed calls from my mother.

I shrieked and threw my phone on the floor. "Oh my god!" I grabbed my head as I felt the world spin.

Ashley, who was standing next me, grabbed my arm and sat me down on the couch which happened to be next to Alex, who was looking very alert. She then went to pick up my phone and looked at the screen.

"Did you not tell your mom that you're staying over?"

I shook my head and giggled. "No, wa-was I surpossed to?" I slurred.

My phone started to vibrate again and Anna grabbed it from Ashley with a worried expression.

"I'm tired." Jen stated. Nate had a hold of her arm but she jerked it away. She sat on the floor and leaned on my legs. I played with her hair, not having a care in the world.

"Somebody needs to sober her up and fast. I don't need her human mother coming back into pack property." Alex said with anger.

I grabbed his cheeks and pinched them. "Why are you so grumpy all the time!" I inflated my cheeks. "I'm Alex, Mr. Grumpy Grumps!"

Alex slapped my hands away making me pout. I tried grabbing his cheeks again but he held onto my wrists. I tried getting out of his grip but I couldn't.

"Someone needs to talk to her mom, she won't be able to." Alex told Anna gripping my wrists tighter so I would stop struggling.

I whimpered from the pain and Alex's eyes softened, loosening his grip a little. I gave him a toothy smile making him laugh.

I gasped dramatically. His laugh was so beautiful and he was doing it because of me. I squealed in happiness and jumped up and down. Jen, who was still leaning on me, bumped her head on my knees but she didn't wake up. Nate grabbed her head and steadied her and when I stopped he placed her back, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

"What do I tell her?! How do I tell her? I'm pretty sure she knows how her daughter sounds!" Anna was pacing when Ashley grabbed the phone back.

"I have an idea! But everyone needs to be quiet."

Everyone who was left over from the party, gathered around us watching as Ashley pressed on my home screen.

Nate's head popped up from the ground. I finally noticed him making me gasp in excitement. "HI, NATE!"

Nate smiled and leaned against the sofa sitting next to Jen on the floor. He held her head and then placed it back on his shoulder. "Awww that's s-" Alex's hand slammed onto my mouth cutting me off.

"Mhmm! Mmmm!" I don't even know what I was trying to say, I was just making that noise.

Nate chuckled and watched as Ashley put the phone on speaker.

"Ariana Mason Peterson! Where the flingin' flagen have you been!" My mother's loud, upset voice screeched over the speaker.

Some people smothered their laughter when my mother said, "Flingin' flagen." Others laughed at my middle name.

I, on the other hand, was frozen with fear.

"Sorry mom, I had my phone on silent." Ashley was whispering into the phone, trying to silence the people around her.

"Why are you whispering? Have you been drinking?!"

"No, I'm whispering because, um, Jen's parents are sleeping and everyone is trying to, um, clean up the house." Ashley pumped her fist in the air, celebrating her victory.

"Oh, well that's nice of you. Do you think you can stay over tonight, I have to get up early and go to a teachers conference, on a freaken Sunday! Bastards won't let me have a day off." My mom grumbled.

"Yeah, I can stay, wait, let me ask." Ashley put her hand on the speaker and did a small dance. She cleared her throat and took off her hand from the speaker. "Yeah I can." She answered simply.

"Okay that's great! Did you have any problems controlling yourself tonight?"

Everyone looked at me and I started to struggle again. "Yes!" I screamed but it came out muffled because of Alex's hand.

"What do you mean?" Ashley asked my mom, narrowing her eyes at me. I narrowed my eyes at her in return and stuck out my tongue and instead licked the inside of Alex's hand. He looked at me and I gave him an innocent look. I didn't miss the way his eyes looked a little darker with something I couldn't describe.

"You know!" My mom whispered into the phone.

Ashley sighed and looked defeated. "Um, no I guess. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?" 

My mom said good night and hung up the phone.

Ashley and Anna sighed in relief.

I lolled my head back on the couch feeling tired. Alex's face was so close to mine that when I rolled my head to the right to look at him, our noses brushed together.

He looked at me weirdly but I didn't care anymore. It was getting harder to keep my head up. My head fell into Alex's lap and I snuggled closer with my eyes closed. I had picked up my legs and laid them onto the sofa.

Alex was frozen like a rock but let me remain in his lap. After two minutes, he seemed to relax and placed his hand on my head, brushing my hair with it.

Slowly, I heard people's voices fade and then it was just me and Alex, his heart beat lulling me into a dreamless but peaceful sleep.

🔹🔹🔹

I heard the soft creak of a bed and I groaned in my sleep, turning over to where I couldn't feel the sun on my face. I heard the curtains being pulled closed and soon it was dark enough to go back to sleep.

I woke up for the second time that day when I felt a hot hand caressing my face.

I scrunched my nose and whatever was touching me, stopped.

I opened my eyes to a fairly dark room but somewhere, sunlight shone through so I could tell it was day.

My eyes adjusted to the dark colors of the room and I picked up my head to get up and instantly regretted it. A sharp pain struck the side of my head but it was gone in a second.

Sitting up in the bed, I grabbed my head in both hands and groaned. What the hell happened yesterday.

I climbed out of the bed and stretched my legs and arms, hearing the satisfying pop of my bones cracking. I looked down to see I was still wearing my clothes from yesterday.

I looked down and noticed the heels I had on yesterday on the floor and went to pick them up but from the corner of my eyes, I saw a body leaning against the nightstand in the room and I straightened up and stepped back, getting a full view of the person watching me.

I gulped when I noticed the loose towel around his hips. His wet hair clung to his forehead, the water droplets slowly sliding down his face and onto his well defined chest and then down to his 6 pack.

His face was staring at me intensely. He looked at every inch of my face and I shivered in delight.

Then reality struck my horny brain and I gasped, averting my eyes from this naked body.

"Holy Shit." I slapped myself mentally for looking at his body like how I was.

"Holy shit." I said louder, looking back at him. "What the hell are you doing in my room?"

He chuckled and gestured to his perfect body. "Taking a shower, what do you think? And this is my room."

I looked at him, then I looked at myself, then I looked at the bed and then looked back at Alex. The next thing I did, embarrassed us both. I started to sob.

I caught Alex off guard when he was suddenly up on his feet, with a shocked expression. He looked at me with confusion and all I wanted to do was kick him and then myself.

For almost 10 minutes straight I was bawling my eyes out and that piece of shit kept staring at me with a frown.

I was sitting on the bed when I finally started to calm down. I hugged myself when Alex made his way over to me and sat down in front of me but decided it was a bad idea when his towel almost came undone. He stood up quickly and adjusted his towel. 

"Um, what just happened? What's wrong?" He asked frantically, clearly confused about my outburst. I was still staring at the ground  with my arms wrapped around myself.

Finally after a few minutes, I looked at him. "Last night, we..." My cheeks blushed red and I looked away feeling the water come back to my eyes.

"Oh. OH! No! We didn't do anything!" He was backing up away from me, holding out his palms.

I sniffled, wiping my eyes free from any tears. "Really?" I asked myself mostly.

"I promise." He came towards me and held my hand in his. "I wouldn't do something like that, especially without you in your right mind. I don't take advantage of girls like that." He bent down close to my face and wiped a stray tear from my cheek.

I was an idiot for thinking that things happened last night. I smiled brightly at him and looked into his beautiful eyes that always seemed to get me lost. I must have been staring at him too long because he frowned.

He pulled his hand off mine and stepped back. My hand hit my lap with a loud smack and I frowned at him in confusion. He backed away again and ran to the bathroom, shutting the door with a loud bang.

I slowly got up from the bed and approached the bathroom and knocked on the door. "Is everything okay?" I asked confused and concerned.

Why did he always do this? One minute we were fine and the next, he does something weird.

"Go away!" His voice seemed strained like he was forcing himself to say that.

"Why!" I shouted back, angry at him.

I pounded on the door when I heard no answer. "What the fuck is your problem! Why do you do this? I thought we were-" I stopped myself before I said something stupid like 'destined to be together. "-friends." I said finally.

He opened the door and laughed in my face. "You are a fool then. How could you think I would be friends with a freak like you? I don't want you, I mean, I don't want you as a friend. Go away before I have to kick you out myself."

He slammed the door in my face again and I just stood there, frozen from mostly sadness. Something he said hit me way deep in my heart and it was as if he ripped it out and stepped on it in front of me.

I don't want you.

Pain rushed through my lungs when I realized I hadn't breathed for almost a minute. I took in a long raspy breath.

I left the room, glancing back at the bathroom door one more time, hoping he would open it and tell me he was just being stupid.

But he didn't and I left, heartbroken.