Edited by: EDIT0RR

*************************************************

"No. No way. Mandy, you have it all wrong," I retaliated. "I would never do that to you and you know that."

"I know," she admitted, stepping on the gas. Worry lines creased her face, this situation was clearly stressing her out. "But you guys were both away the same weekend and met up at the beach."

"I was on vacation and saw him there! That was a complete coincidence!" I protested.

"Then last week, you guys both can't hang out with me because you're hanging out with each other." She pulled into the neighborhood and parallel parked on the street.

"That was a Friday." I unbuckled and turned in my seat to look at her. "After the football games on Fridays if there aren't any parties or anything, everyone goes to somebody's house to hang out. I was watching the game and Luke invited me to go with them. Liam just happens to play football so he was there too."

"You were the only girl there?" She peered up at me, unbuckling too.

"No, there were cheerleaders there too. Ask Lauren, she was there." I paused before going on in a quieter voice. "Mandy, I can't believe you'd accuse me of something like this. I thought I was your best friend. I thought you trusted me."

"I'm sorry, Carter, I'm just so paranoid. I don't know what to do, if Liam really is cheating on me or not. When Lauren told me all of those things, everything just lined up and I just needed to ask." Her look was apologetic but something inside me clicked.

"But you didn't even ask, you accused me!" My voice cracked. "You know what, I shouldn't even be convincing you right now. This is ridiculous. Whether or not Lauren is your friend, I'm your best friend and I can't believe you'd accuse me of this." I could feel my face flush with anger and I got out of the car.

As I slammed it I heard, "Carter, wait!" But I just stomped away to the house. The nearest parking spot had been a couple houses down so I had a little ways to walk. I could hear Mandy's heels click frantically as she tried to catch up to me. She finally did as I was walking up the front stoop.

"Carter!" The music was so loud she had to shout. I pretended to ignore her.

"Carter!" She shouted again, grabbing my arm.

"What?" I snapped, jerking back my arm.

"You know what? I said I was sorry, but you shouldn't be getting so upset."

"Are you kidding me? You accused me of sleeping with your boyfriend! Of course I would be upset!" I took it back a notch. "Just leave me alone right now, okay? Unless you want to keep an eye on me to make sure I don't cheat on you." I narrowed my eyes at her, watching her desperately trying to figure out what to say. After a few seconds of silence between us, I decided to join the party and leave her on the porch.

****

I should not have come here. I was in the corner talking to a couple girls from school feeling awkward and uncomfortable with a glass of water in my hand. I laughed along with Brianna, Maggie, and Drew at a joke that Gabbie made. I watched everyone around me dance, drink, and kiss. I unconsciously made a sour face as one couple sucked on each other's faces in the hallway next to me.

"Carter wanna come dance?" they asked, looking eager to move away from the corner.

"Um I have to go to the bathroom," I offered a lame excuse but Gabbie pouted and I immediately backtracked. "But I'll come find you guys after."

"Okay." They bounced off to join the crowd, moving their hips to the beat of the music.

I could only imagine what I'd look like if I tried to do that. Probably like some toad wearing a black dress. It wasn't even a tight dress. I really wished for Mandy right now. She was my go-to person for times like this. She knew how to make me laugh and get me comfortable with these things because I couldn't do this by myself. But no, I had to go and leave her and screw things up.

I squeezed through everybody, making my way to the downstairs bathroom. Knocking but hearing no response, I walked in to find one of the guys from the football team making out with Maggie. "Oh for crying out loud," I blurted out but neither of them made an effort to notice me. With a huff, I slammed the door and headed upstairs. On my way up, I spied Mandy dancing with Gabbie, Drew, and Brianna.

I found the bathroom, empty thankfully. I locked the door, flicked on the light, and looked at myself in the mirror. "You need to get over yourself," I scolded myself after a minute and jabbed a finger at my reflection. 'This is a party and you're supposed to be having fun. So, go have fun. You're not mad, you're not anything. Now go." But as I switched off the light and shut the door behind me, I heard voices.

"Liam, are you sure she's not going to come up?" It sounded like...like Lauren.

"No, she's dancing downstairs. We're fine," Liam's husky voice responded, fading.

I snuck out into the hall, catching a glimpse of long, blonde hair ducking into a bedroom. I followed, suspicious.

"Liam?" I asked. The room was dark and my eyes tried to adjust. Whispers floated out and I could hear fabric rustling, but I was unsure whether it was clothes or not. The rustling stopped and as my eyes adjusted I could see Liam kissing somebody. Was it Lauren?

"Carter?" Liam laughed. He turned around, shirtless."You don't come to parties."

I felt my face heat up even though I willed it not to. I ignored him. "Lauren?" I knew it was her, I just wanted her to turn around and look at me.

She slowly turned around, hiding behind her curtain of hair. She sneered, "Hey Carter. You know, you should've asked me for advice on what to wear, because in case you didn't know, this is a party not a funeral."

My face blushed an even darker shade of red and I swallowed. "Lauren, how could you? Mandy trusts you." A thought dawned on me. "In fact, she trusts you so much that when you blamed me for cheating with Liam, she believed you. She freaking believed you, you lying, backstabbing cheater."

Lauren's eyes darkened and I went on. "Mandy deserves to know what a good friend you are." I gave a tight smile and turned to go.

"Don't you dare," Lauren hissed and pushed past Liam.

I walked out into the hall. "Why not?"

"Because she doesn't need to know," she spit, breathing on my face. Her breath smells like cheese.

Liam put his shirt on and came over in between us. "Lauren let's get out of here."

I ignored him. "Why doesn't she? It's her cheating boyfriend and lying, backstabbing friend."

"You tell her and I swear I'll..." Lauren took a step forward.

"You'll what?" I interrupted, snapping in her face.

"Lauren, come on. Just let it go. I'll break up with Mandy tomorrow. It'll be fine. Trust me, we just need to go," Liam pleaded. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, but not backing down from me either.

"Come on," he repeated, putting his hand on her butt to pull her closer to him. I think I threw up in my mouth. The nasty, burning taste that remained in my mouth flipped a switch. Before I could think about it, I clenched my hand into a fist, whirling it around to connect with Liam's nose.

"Ow," I whimpered, rubbing my knuckles. That's going to leave a mark. Liam cursed, his hand shooting up to his bloody nose.

But Lauren wheeled around to face me again. "You did not just do that."

But the sudden shock of what I just did numbed my brain. What did she just say? Think Carter, you have to come back with something witty. So I said the first thing that came to my head, drawing the words out to make them sound more menacing. "Your breath smells like cheese." I can't believe you just said that.

"What?" Lauren took a step back.

"That's right, go brush your teeth." Carter I am cringing so hard at you right now. Just leave. "While I go tell Mandy." I started to run towards the stairs.

"No!" Lauren yelled from behind. She jumped on me as I made it to the edge of the first stair. But I lost my balance and fell down the carpeted stairs, tumbling head over heels. I reached out for something to grab, tugging hard on something soft and stringy.

Lauren shrieked, "Get off my hair you-" but her words were muffled out as we crashed together at the bottom. I stood up, untangling my hand from the blonde strands. Lauren stood up next to me, trying to fix herself out as a couple people turned to look. I could only imagine what a sight I was, but I didn't care.

"Mandy!" I shouted but the music was way too loud. Lauren froze beside me.

I shouted again. "Mandy!"

Out of the corner of my hair I could see blonde hair swinging closer and only registered it when I heard a ripping sound. I looked down. My dress. A giant tear up the side exposed all of my leg up to my hip.

"Your welcome," she sneered.

"Do it again," I challenged. This girl was going down, one way or another. She had ruined my night too much already.

She smirked, "My pleasure."

As she came at me, she managed to rip a gash on my stomach. But I slammed my unbruised fist at her face, splitting her lip. She stumbled back, pressing on the wound and coming back with a few drops of blood. Anger simmered in her eyes and she took two swift steps forward, pushing me with a force that slammed me into the wall behind me. She slapped me, her rings cutting imprints into my cheek. As I recovered, I could hear more ripping sounds. I refused to look but I knew exactly what it was.

"Chick fight!" someone egged on.

I lunged, tackling her. We slid across a table, knocking off a lamp and a couple pictures. Glass shattered to the floor and we tumbled to the ground. Pain burst through my skull as she pulled my hair. I grit my teeth and stumbled to my feet, wrenching her up to hers by her hair. As she growled in pain, I felt arms tighten around me. It was then that I noticed the crowd that had gathered, the music had stopped, and Luke was dragging me back.

Liam tried to settle down Lauren but she shrugged him off. She grabbed the broken frames and took turns chucking them at me. One whizzed past my head and Luke's arms loosened. I squirmed away from his grasp and pulled a fistful of her hair again. She shrieked and pushed me down to the ground, struggling to get on top of me. I kicked her sideways and she instinctively curled up. Quickly, I used the moment to struggle on top of her, pinning her to the ground and slapping her in the face.

Luke wrapped his arms around my waist again, pulling me off Lauren. Some guy from the football team, Chris, dragged Lauren backwards, who was still seething and glaring at me. Luke took me past the crowd and over into the kitchen. The music began to blare again, vibrating the house.

He smirked, "When I said to get out of your comfort zone, I didn't mean this."

***********************************************************************************************

Tell me what you think! How do you like Carter? Thanks for reading! Also, I've decided to enter the Wattys2016, so we'll so how it goes!

- _ginger333_