Drunk Without Cause

Eight.

The last time Nessa had gone out was two weeks ago. Parties weren't percisely his strong suit, and his Mom did not exactly like the idea of allowing him to go out for the night without her supervision. But eventually, his parents agreed and here he now stood.

This one was different from the last, seemingly more controlled. The party occupied a clearing in a nearby patch of woods. Nessa thought that there were no such thing as woods in this massive city, but there were a little bit, and a lot of students from school seemed to know about this specific clearing. Not that Nessa could really recognize any of the students though, given his horrible memory.

However, as he walked through the crowd in search of his friends, he did spot one familiar face. Ian, with his short black hair and dark skin, leaning against a tree and talking to a pretty girl. She looked a lot like him, making Nessa wonder if they were related. Ignoring them, he simply kept searching along the clearing with the hopes of finding the people who invited him here.

There were a lot of reasons as to why he wasn't able to go to most of the parties that his new friends liked to invite him to. His parents were very adamant about Nessa taking it slow. They said that he was going to end up in a similar situation as the last one, or possibly even worse. Just the idea of that made him a bit paranoid, and he knew that he would eventually give in to their words just like he always did.

But it had been a month and a half since they moved here, and nothing bad happened yet. The longer he lived in this new city, the more comfortable he felt. Maybe he had finally given up, and Nessa would never have to see him again. That was the hope that had kept Nessa going all this time, and now he was finally feeling as though it were true. His old life could be forgotten about, and in this new one, he was going to enjoy himself.

Mom was more paranoid than he was, but he understood why. There were a lot of reasons for her to feel so strongly, and he did his best to give her time. But it had been two weeks at school, and no incident occurred. The man was gone, and Nessa was safe.

As the thought crossed his mind, he finally thought that he caught a glimpse of someone familiar. A black bucket hat draped over his black hair was all that he could make out, but he didn't mind. Nessa just wanted to see his friends, and he didn't like wandering around in the woods like that. It was causing his thoughts to start to take a nervous turn.

His first instinct was to tap Venice's shoulder, but just as he lifted his hand to do so, he remembered something. Venice didn't like to be touched, especially unexpectedly. Nessa vaguely remembered Ilya saying something about Venice once breaking someone's arm for that very reason. Dropping his arm back down, Nessa instead spoke up.

"Venice?" He asked, waiting for Venice to turn around, which happened very fast. He spun around, looking ready to slaughter anyone who might be standing before him. But after a pause, Venice lost a bit of the tension in his shoulders and no violence followed. Something told Nessa that he knew he was there before he had even said anything.

He was very short, Nessa thought to himself. He was shorter than even he was, by only a few inches though. Maybe two or three. His eyes were shadowed by the hat, but his pale lips weren't. They lay in a flatline as the two boys stared at one another. At least, Nessa assumed that was what was happening, but he couldn't be sure since he couldn't see his eyes.

"Where is everyone else?" Nessa finally asked.

There was a small bout of quiet before Venice responded. "All over the place. Keely and Emi took off in the woods, Kiwi is playing cards with those guys—" he waved to random group of people a few yards away "—and Ilya is persuading someone to fuck him."

Glancing behind Venice again, Nessa finally spotted Ilya. He was right, Ilya was definitely persuading a tall guy with long dreadlocks to screw him, which Nessa could tell by the sexual tension in their eyes.