♡ 'One Moment More' ♡
a short story
Part Two
Well, this certainly was not what I'd been expecting, I thought, as I weaved my way through the mercilessly packed crowd at the entrance of Buxton's Under Twenty One night club. Not in the slightest. Squeezing my way around a teenage couple who had taken attached at the hip to a whole other level, their bodies so entangled together it was as if they had become one person, I tried to ignore the oppressive wave of anxiety that crawled up my spine, spreading goose bumps across my otherwise warm skin, tempting me to just turn around, walk out those large, blood-red doors, and find my way back home, where there was nothing but the promise of a pleasantly uneventful rest of the evening.
Now, don't get me wrong: I actually liked the idea of spending the night in the presence of my friends, laughing and making complete and utter fools of ourselves. I just didn't understand why it had to be done in the presence of so many horny, love-sick—and obliviously wasted—teenagers on the eve of one of the most over-hyped "holidays". There were much better places we could have celebrated at. Places that didn't offer the same worrisome amount of alcohol, drugs, loud music, dirty dancing, and sweaty brawls, as the infamous Buxton's did.
I knew I wasn't an expert of how this place worked, but I'd been here enough times to see more drunken parties and catty fights than one sixteen-year-old could ever ask for. So you could say I had reason not to be its biggest fan.
"Reina Elizabeth Williams, are you even listening to me?"
Freezing in place, right before my ruby slippers had the chance to brush against the colorful tiles of the dance floor, packed with teenagers and young adults desperate to show off their moves, I bit my lip to suppress the smile that threatened to break across my lips. Apparently I'd been so caught up in trying to rid my body of the night club jitters I hadn't even noticed Lila was speaking to me. And now, as she scurried up from behind me, nudging me in the side, I heard that familiar twinge of annoyance dripping from her honey-sweet voice. "I was talking to you."
"Sorry," I said, shaking my head and trying to act as innocent as possible, "I must have spaced out for a sec. You were saying?"
She spun me around, hands at the tops of my arms. When she noticed the smile that was creeping up my lips, despite my desperate efforts to keep my expression neutral, she shook her head, making a scoffing sound under her breath. "Oh, you know," she said, in a tone that was incredibly close to the mocking side, "nothing important. Just that I caught your brother and his girlfriend having sex in the little ladies room."
"Lila!" Horrified by the mere suggestion that my fifteen-year-old little brother—who in fact was currently going through a rebellious phase—would do something as careless as that, I struggled to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor. Then I gave her shoulder a light shove. "That is so not funny!"
"Oh come on, Reina," she replied, grinning like the Cheshire cat, "you know you want to laugh. Don't try to deny it." She pulled a tube of lip-gloss from her diamond encrusted clutch and squeezed the cherry-red substance across her lips, before smacking them together and holding the tube out to me. Hesitantly, I took it. "Besides, I have your attention now, don't I?"
"You're ridiculous," I sighed, stifling a laugh as I refreshed my chapped, rosy lips. "You really make me question how we ever became friends in the first place, you know."
