A Toast and a Drink

Act 1, Pt. 1: A formal Introduction

Here I am, stuck at a party I don't even wanna be at. How did I even get here? I just wanna go home, snuggle up in my blankets, and watch some random videos on YouTube. But no, I had to be stupid enough to accept his dumb invite and end up actually going.

-

I was in math class, doodling on the side of my paper. Flowers, plants, mushrooms, any type of plant you can think of. I really like plants, they're just like us but not as advanced. I think having a conversation with a flower would be pretty interesting, cause you never know what they're gonna say. Like, they could tell you the cure to cancer, effects of global warming, literally anything is possible! And a lot of people judge me for liking plants for some reason. Like, dude just leave me alone. I just wanna stay with my plants because they're better than actual society. I guess people just aren't smart enough to see it.

Anyways, the teacher must've seen me doodling during his boring lesson because I looked up to a very angry and annoyed face glaring at me. He coughed and then said, "Herb, do you want to answer this next question?" I shrugged. "Sure, I guess." I went up to the board and solved the math problem perfectly, then I sat back down. Some of the kids started giggling because I had just embarrassed the teacher. He shot me one last glare then went back to teaching his boring lesson.

I sighed to myself. Geez, teachers can either be a real buzzkill, or a completely nice person. I guess my teacher was the buzzkill. I laid my head in my arms and sat there, listening to the teacher blab on about useless stuff. When will I ever need to use this? I wanna become a flower shop owner, not an office person. I started doodling again and just hoped to be left alone for the rest of class. He kept blabbing on and on and I got sick of it. I raised my hand. He glanced over and called on me, "Herb? What do you want?" I lowered my hand and said, "Can I use the bathroom?" He shrugged and moved on, which I took as a sign for me to go.

I brought my notebook from my backpack and went out the door in the direction of the bathroom. He looked at me before shrugging it off and going back to teacher his lesson. While walking, I tried to keep my head down and just looked at my shoes, because I have social anxiety. A lot of kids say that they do, but a lot of them don't. I actually have been diagnosed, but whatever I guess. On my way, I saw a few kids skipping. But do I care? No. I kept my head low and just kept walking. I reached the bathroom. I ran into one of the stalls, and I shut the door, making sure that it's actually locked. You never know if those things actually do lock, so you've got to make sure that they aren't actually unlocked. Then I sat down on the floor and sighed a sigh of relief. I took out my pen and started scrabbling in my notebook.

I drew some more flowers, mushroom, and other stuff. Then I started writing;

Wow, sometimes life sucks. But hey, I guess that's the way it is. It doesn't really matter what other people think, I just wanna get through life without getting bothered. Hope you are reading this right now, love you <3.

You might be wondering who I was writing to. I was writing to my sister, who got lost when I was very young. We were playing in the park and my mom was watching me, and I guess she just wandered off and my mom didn't notice. After a bit, she realized she was gone and she absolutely freaked. She looked everywhere, but there was no trace of her. After a while of searching on her own, she called the police and sent a missing report, but they couldn't accept it because it hadn't been more then 24 hours. We went back home and my mom started crying so much. After 24 hours she called back and said she still hadn't found her, and so they finally went out to search for her. Of course, they never found her and just proclaimed her dead, but my mom never believed it. We held a funeral and everything. Even though I didn't know her that well, I still miss the small memories I have of her and I like writing to her as a coping mechanism. Of course, I don't think she's dead, she has to be somewhere out there. She just never returned.

I rested my head on the cool, brick wall and plugged in some earbuds. I closed my eyes and just sat there, listening to the soft music ringing in my ears. But that was soon interrupted by the bell ringing, and that meant I had to go back and grab my stuff.

I stood up and walked out of the bathroom to go to my classroom. Once I arrived, there were still a few kids leaving so it wouldn't be awkward. I grabbed my stuff and was about to leave before the teacher called me to go talk to him. I was about to just straight up say no but I could tell that wouldn't make him happy, so I stayed. He glared at me before saying, "Herb, you've been very distracted recently and every time you're in my class you have to go use the bathroom. I'm getting tired of this behavior and I want it to change instantly. If you continue to behave this way, then I'll have to call your mother." I nodded before quickly heading out. I knew this would happen eventually, but I didn't expect it to happen this early. I went to my locker, grabbed my stuff, and headed towards the exit.

When I was walking, my "friend" came up to me and said, "Hey Herb, how's it going?" She smiled shyly at me. I ignored her. This is Parfait. She has light blond hair that fades into pink at the ends. She usually wears her hair up in a ponytail and wears a ridiculously stupid clip to keep it in. Currently she's wearing a white ruffled crop top with ruffled shoulder sleeves or whatever they're called, a mini skirt, high-knee socks, and some pink heels. It totally breaks the dress code, but nobody says anything about it because her dad paid a lot of money to the college to keep their mouth shut. That's how she also has "perfect grades." She's literally so annoying and I want her to leave me alone. She's one of the "nice popular girls" in the college, but she bullies kids everyday. The only reason she's nice to me is because she has a crush on me. So every single day, she walks with me and talks to me whenever she can. I always ignore her, but she never takes a hint I swear to god. She smirked at me. "Wanna go to party with me? I can get you an invite," she said. I shook my head no, but she kept talking anyways. "Aw, come on! You need to come because I'm hosting it and if you don't come I'm going to be so sad!" I already knew that this meant she was going to make my life a living hell if I didn't come. I sighed, and with a heavy heart I shrugged. I guess she took that as a yes because next thing she said was, "YES! Thank you Herb! I'll be waiting for you there," she said with a wink. Sheesh, this girl is such a pain. I sped off towards the bus and got in before I could hear her shout, "GOODBYE HERB!"

Okay, let's talk about the bus sections for a bit. All the way in the back are the "cool kids" who aren't actually cool. They sit there so they can be annoying and bully kids. Right in front of them are the actual popular kids, and they sit there because it doesn't make them too suspicious so they can get away with anything. In front of them are kids like me. They sit there because they have no idea where to sit and so they just decide to sit there. And finally in the very front, we have the nerds and the quiet kids. They sit there because they either wanna become a teacher's pet or they just have no intention of talking to anyone else. Alright, now that you have a good idea of what's going on, it'll help you understand what's about to go down.

I was walking to my regular seat where I sit (basically we all claim seats on the first day of college and we just sit there. It's not an actual rule but we like to do it,) when I saw someone sitting there. I was surprised when they were sitting there because it was one of the popular boys. I didn't bother to look at him. I was about to walk away because I don't want to deal with anything, but then he said, "Hey, take a seat. I want to talk to you about something." I gulped and sat down, trying not to make and contact with him at all. I could feel his eyes on me when he said, "So, you got a personal invitation to Parfait's party?" I turned slowly to look at him. He had white curly hair, and white hoodie on with a little cookie in the front, some jeans, and some sneakers. I sighed in relief. This is Milk Cookie, one of the actual nice popular boys in our college. He's a grade above me, and he's kinda like Parfait cookie's second crush. It's stupid honestly.

I nodded slowly at him, not feeling as scared as before, but still curious. What did he want from me? "Listen, I always thought you were a cool dude but I've never gotten a chance to talk to you! You wanna hang out with me and my friends for the party? I'm sure you'll like most of them, and most of them will like you back," he said casually. I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Did he just invite me to join their friend group? Did I just become one of the popular boys!? "Uh, hello? It's okay if you don't want to, just answer me!" he said. I nodded. "Sure, why not," I said, trying to sound as cool as possible. "Great! Oh, this is my stop, I'll see you tonight at 7," he said, as he got up and walked towards the bus door.

I'm glad that's over. I scooched over into his spot and took out my headphones. I turned up the volume on my playlist and watched out the window and things whizzed by. I sighed to myself, slowly starting to regret my decision to go to this party.