Akai Osei as Kehlani & Aaliyah as Ashanti
I'm gonna keep the chapters short because usually my chapters are kinda long & all, but they're never short.

This book is set in UK. I am from the UK myself so it would be a lot easier for me to set a book there. All the places here are fictional though, as in you wouldn't really find them in the UK, so any resemblance to any place real, is just purely a coincidence.

Happy reading! xx

• • • • • • • •

"Ashanti, stop! This is a very bad idea. You're gonna get yourself killed out there, do you want that?"

"I don't care, Kehlani!" Ashanti fumed, speed walking to the middle of the road. "I'm going to that neighbourhood party whether you like it or not."

Ashanti and her best friend from school Kehlani were on their way to the neighbourhood party that almost everyone had been talking about since the beginning of term.

Ashanti absolutely hated parties so why she wanted to go to this one, Kehlani had no idea, and he was probably never going to find out why either.

They had been initially studying for their upcoming Maths test about thirty minutes ago, Ashanti stopping this when she had kept hearing music going on in the background, the music literally coming from the neighbourhood party.

90s R'n'B had been blasting through the speakers for about two hours or so, different types of them too, and at the moment the song Where The Party At by Jagged Edge was playing.

Unexpectedly, the girl had then stopped studying, Kehlani asking her why she had done that, but Ashanti didn't reply.

"I'm going to that party," she deadpanned, annoyingly putting her things in her school bag, ready for the next day. "And you're coming with me."

Kehlani was a lot more studious than Ashanti was, so when he had heard this, he had believed that Ashanti was completely out of her mind.

He was spending some time round at her house, but her parents had gone out to do some shopping whilst Kehlani's in the meantime had gone out on holiday instead.

Both of them were the only children (they had lived with no other siblings basically) in their house, and they might as well have been siblings because they had really acted that way sometimes.

When Kehlani had heard this, he had freaked out, absolutely mortified yet completely agitated on what Ashanti had just told him.

"Girl, are you crazy?" He shouted at her. "Do you have a death wish or something? You promised your parents that you'd stay in the house."

"Some rules need breaking sometimes, Kehlani!" Ashanti argued back, putting on her leather jacket and heading outside, Kehlani reluctantly following her, but that was only to convince her to stop doing what she was planning on doing.

"Not that you know that anyway, 'cause you're such a goody two shoes and I hate it."

That was how they had ended up in this situation. Occasionally Ashanti listened to Kehlani, other times she didn't, and right now was one of those times.

Ashanti had been walking for ages now, about two minutes or so.. which didn't really seem like that much time in reality, but to her it had felt like a really long time.

Kehlani was right behind her, and it had been that way since both of them had left the house.

The two of them had been best friends since they were five... they were both seventeen now and had become best friends when they had ended up being science partners with each other after their teacher had randomly chosen students to be with others in teams.

"I don't get you, you know. Why do you suddenly want to go to this party? I thought that you had absolutely hated parties and you weren't ever going to change your mind about that."

Ashanti didn't say anything though, they had just hit the alleyway, where many dangerous things had happened there at night.

It was the afternoon now, more precisely three in the afternoon at the moment, with Ashanti & Kehlani having to be really careful in case they had gotten killed.

Or something else, but death was the worst thing by far.

If her parents had realised that the place they had moved to was where a lot of people had died because criminals had kept on roaming the streets (especially at night), then they wouldn't really have moved there at all.

Unfortunately for Ashanti though, her parents were kind of in poverty right now, so they couldn't really have moved out of their house (or neighbourhood) even if they really wanted to.

So they did. They just needed to save up first. But goodness knew how long that was going to take. They were in poverty for quite a long time now.

Ashanti was moving really quietly along the alleyway, and now they were behind some sort of wall.

Annoyingly, to Ashanti anyway, Kehlani was seriously taking his time moving as slowly as a mouse.

"Will, you please hurry up, Kehlani?" Ashanti demanded, calling him over, considering throwing him her shoe but she didn't do that. "If someone finds out we're here, then we'd get killed, literally."

The alleyway they were in right now was actually off limits, but the two of them had taken that way because it was the quickest way to get to the neighbourhood party that had started just over two hours ago now.

Right now they were ducking behind the bins in front of them, with Kehlani actually suggesting that they had gotten in the bin itself as that was a much better way of going unnoticed, but Ashanti had just kind of inevitably disregarded what he had said completely, like the guy had suspected.

When the coast was completely clear, with Ashanti double checking this, she had therefore beckoned for Kehlani to hurry up and stop wasting both of their time, even though the party had started half an hour ago now and it had ended in two hours.

"You know, Ashanti, you still didn't really answer my question," Kehlani pointed out. "Why are you desperate to go to this party so much?"

"You just don't get it, do you, Kehlani?" Ashanti retorted, when both of them had left the alleyway completely and they were now under some sort of a tunnel.

They were about to go under a tunnel but they didn't, because Kehlani needed help getting up the fence.

He was sitting in the middle of the fence now, staring at Ashanti blankly, wondering what the girl was talking about.

"What do you mean 'I just don't get it'? Please clarify, girl. I'm getting confused."

"I'm tired of being looked down upon, Kehlani!" Ashanti ranted at him, with Kehlani not taking his eyes off of hers. "I just want to be a normal teenager and have a normal life like everyone else. I've never been to a party before."

"You went to my Sweet 16 last year, though. Is that not a party?"

"I mean, no, not really. We just played Scrabble all day and your cake was made out of vegetables. No offence, but that party sucked," Ashanti informed him. "I want to go to an actual party. We've never ever been invited to one and I'm getting very very sick of it now. People always ignore us or make fun of us at school and I'm getting tired. I know I should just ignore what they think and say but it's not always the easiest thing to do. I'm tired of being overlooked by everyone. You probably don't understand."

The girl was nearly in tears now, and Kehlani felt awful because seeing his best friend cry had made him want to cry as well.

Even if she might not have actually cried, it didn't seem that way, and Kehlani had kind of blamed himself for kinda sorta getting her into this situation.

Jumping over the fence, until he had reached on top of the box where Ashanti was standing, he had hugged her, before telling her that everything was going to be OK.

"I guess I have been a bit hard on you lately," he realised. "Fine, we can go to this neighbourhood party, but I just don't want you getting hurt or seriously injured."

"I won't. As long as you're with me."

Kehlani had asked her if he had ever left her (he didn't, even when everyone else had seemed to), before reminding the girl that he had always been there for her and that was never going to change.

Both of them had cheered to themselves happily, walking under the tunnel until they had gotten out of it.

"Now come on bro, let's go to our first ever proper party. Nothing can get in our way now!"

Or so they thought.

As things had only gone downhill from there.

• • • • • • • •

Yeah I know that Kehlani is a girls' name but Kehlani is a guy in this because I felt like it had suited him more.