Fallin' From The Tree (StemxStud)

32

{ Anaela }

I walked in with the group of people I came with, already feeling guilty for what I was about to do. I thought I saw Dom in the crowd, but I figured it was just my nerves.

"Anaela, we're going to the bar," Ariana told me. I nodded but went to go sit down on an empty bar stool away from everyone. I clutched my phone in my hand, reading from the notes section silently. I have to do this.

I grabbed the slippery counter and maneuvered myself on top of it. I shouted at the DJ and he cut the track. Everybody was slowing to a stop in their dancing, drunkly looking up at me. Somebody shouted out, asking if I was an angel. This moment felt so surreal.

"There are some people in here who have done me wrong," I said loudly, looking across the crowd like they were commoners. "Ariana is an ass kisser. She'll agree with whatever anyone says and party til her feet hurt. That's not her secret though, she liked her cousin Reneah last year." I saw Ariana at the other end of the bar trying to make her way towards me angrily. A security guard was coming my way and her way.

"Reneah was never hard, she just acts that way to put down other people. She's a bully by heart, and her and Ariana are of the same peas in a pod. If that makes sense," I scratched my head. I kept reading from my list as security got closer to me, weaving through the confused crowd. Some people were recording.

"Sissy, always hated me for how I was. I tried to ignore it, I thought she was my friend. She always hated that a lot of people knew me at school but not because of my looks or because they wanted to copy answers off of me. People loved me there for my personality. They loved both me and Pouty for our genuine way of love."

"Ma'am, please come down," the security guard asked,looking upwards at me with a walkie talkie in hand.

"Mayah...I feel like she's splitting our group apart, but we won't know until all of the truth is revealed." The security guard grabbed me down. I guess he was done with being polite. "And Siara, that's Pouty!" I shouted, "I thought she was my friend but I don't know anymore! I never did anything wrong to her! That shows what type of friends you all are to believe that I did!"

I was almost to the exit. "They have fake ID's!" I shouted for extra measure. My old group of friends were crying and angry, surrounded by security guards asking them questions and trying to keep the two hotheads of the group in check. Mayah held my gaze as I was kicked out, disgust in her eyes.

The security guard simply placed me off the club premises and headed back inside; people outside waiting to enter the club were shooting me curious glances. I called a Lyft, hoping that the car would arrive before my old friends did in the parking lot.

I was unlucky.

"There she is!" somebody shouted.

I looked back and started running. This was a relatively busy street, but I couldn't run out into traffic. I also don't need a death involved with me if one of my friends were to still try to chase me through the traffic if I somehow managed to survive.

I started running around the front part of the parking lot, on the sidewalk as my friends left the parking lot as well and followed after me along the cement. I went back into the parking lot through another entrance and raced towards the side of the building.

I saw the dead end before everyone else.

"Dead end! Dead end!" they each cheered, I heard their feet slapping against the uneven, gravelly pavement. I jumped over a pothole and took a risk. I grabbed onto a raggedy ladder alongside the building and hoisted myself up. Ariana was the closest to me, and grabbed at my legs, digging her nails in deep.