Ah, sleep. What a glorious thing for an introvert. The majesty of laying in a warm bed, and being unbothered. The comfort and homeliness of the inviting, temporary, death. The only unfortunate thing, of course, was the rude awakening from something that only wanted to do its job. Something that was fulfilling its only purpose in life, and got yelled at and ridiculed. My alarm clock, of course, was being a disrespectful hobo by waking me up.

"Ugh."

I believe everyone, during at least one point of their life, has longed to continue sleeping instead of being awake. And it is natural, I suppose, for one to hate life to the point of needing sleep indefinitely. Maybe that's just me. I glanced at my evil-doing mechanical substance.

4:32 pm.

Wait. I had to be ready by when?

Oh yeah, five. Wait. Five? Did I agree to this plan that so rudely awakened my nap? Probably not. Was I going to keep my mouth shut of all of my complaints when Jacqueline asked about my sleep? Also, probably not.

I rolled over, and quite literally fell out of bed.

"Curse you," I mumbled. I sat upright, and immediately fell back down. Curse my low iron!

After about ten minutes of wandering around my house, singing show tunes and questioning my existence, I glanced at the clock.

4:52 pm

Shoot.

I ran into the bathroom, checked my hair, brushed my teeth, got toothpaste all over myself, and decided to change my shirt. Changing my shirt, of course, lead to deciding my entire outfit sucked, and I had to fix everything else. This is, of course, what lead to Jacqueline walking in on me, bright yellow shirt half off, wearing Hawaiian shorts, combat boots, and surrounded by clothes of all different natures. She glanced from me to the clothes, and in a moment walked back out.

I quickly changed into a grey tee with blue jeans, but I kept the boots. Hell, I felt powerful. Is this why girls wear heels all the time? Probably.

"Jacks? You can come back," I called. She returned.

"Well, you look much more normal." She commented.

"Normal? Normal? I don't want to be normal. Hold on a moment." I pulled a white fedora out of my closet.

"Now I'm special."

"Sure, sure you are. Now. Let's go."

"Go?"

"Go."

And this was how I managed to be in front of the door to a nice house, on the stoop, waiting for Jacqueline to give me a signal to knock. Of course, she was right behind me, so I suppose a signal wasn't entirely necessary, but still. It also didn't help that the nice house happened to be Ryan's.

"Jacks?"

"Yes?"

"This is gonna go well or my name ain't Barack Obama."

"Your name isn't Barack Obama?"

"That's the point."

"Whatever floats your Titanic."

"The Titanic sank?"

"Exactly." She winked.

"Glad to know you have such faith in me." I glared. She giggled.

Then she rang the doorbell.

"Jacqueline!" I whispered aggressively. "What do you think you're doing? Any moment, he's going to open the door, and I'm going to look like an idiot, and you're just going to stand there and laugh, and oh God, hi Ryan," I said, as Ryan appeared from behind the door. He smiled his cute smile, the one that melts me inside.

"Hey, welcome! We're about to play Apples to Apples, make yourselves comfortable and come meet some people," he motioned to the open door.

People? Oh heck no. At least it was a civilized party, playing Apples to Apples and not "I wonder who can get drunk first." Not that I have much experience with parties, but I'm guessing they aren't all crazy rave type things like portrayed by cliche teen books. Because that's realistic. I walked inside, relieved to find everything peaceful, other than a small group of young adults gathered in a room with some soda and red cups. People actually use those things? Interesting. One of the humans was wearing a furry grey vest, with bright purple pants and a black shirt. I had a feeling I recognized them, but their back was turned to me.

Among those sitting down on the floor, I definitely recognized one girl. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, the works. The one from Ryan's social media, the supposed girlfriend. I almost hated her on sight. There was a guy sitting with her, a shorter than average guy with brown eyes and dirty blonde hair that had an orange tint to it. She laughed when they talked, and I rolled my eyes for an obvious reason, they have social skills, a necessary thing that I lack. 

The guy in purple pants turned around, and I did correctly guess his identity to be Greg, the guy from Jacqueline's "social gathering." He recognized me too, and came over.

"Eddie, hey!"

"Oh, um, hello."

He laughed, "Still a little shy, huh? Well, unfortunately I don't have nachos for you this time."

Dang, those were good nachos.

"Oh, that's alright," I tried to laugh, but it came out more as a plea, a sort of "help, I'm uncomfortable."

I think Jacks picks up on it, because she walked over and hugged Greg, distracting him so I could make my escape. I was walking out of their way, watching to make sure Greg hadn't picked up on my leave, and I walked into another person. To add to my long list of humiliations, it was Ryan. He scooped his arms around me and smiled. Since I was shorter, I had my back to his stomach. He leaned down slightly, and smiled at me. He was warm. I smiled back.

Wait, if he had a girlfriend, what did this mean?

Mixed signals aren't fun.