What If We Did | ✔️ COMPLETED

Chapter Three

I'm trying my best to listen to what Kerry, the mousy looking girl, is saying to me. But all I can focus on is Jordan. He's got a girl pressed into his side and a smile on his face.He laughs at something she says, all warm and relaxed, like he's known her forever. And just like that, the tiny fantasy I'd been clinging to starts to shrivel.

His eyes are glazed over. To be fair most peoples are, we've been drinking for hours. I unashamedly stare at him. Now he's not close, or talking to me, or mocking me, I can really appreciate his beauty. His legs seem to go on for days, his body is muscular, his arms strong and jaw taught. His dark hair is perfectly styled, he has two dimples on his cheeks and his hazel eyes seem to glow.

He's the sort of guy that gets written about.

"You drank a yellow shot," Kerry says, making me tear my eyes from Jordan. She's holding two blue shots.

It's a stupid rule. You're only allowed to drink drinks that are your designated colour, if you fail, you have to drink two drinks of your designated colour. Our colour is blue. I drank a yellow shot after a boy was insistent I had to.

Kerry is taking it incredibly seriously, as if we're going to score points each time we do it right, or lose points each time we do it wrong. When the whole point is just to get as drunk as possible.

I am drunk, it's the first time I've been properly drunk and I know I'm not in my right mind because I want to do dangerous things. Like march over to Jordan and kiss him just to see what it would feel like.

I've been hit on several times tonight (none of which were by the boy I want it to be), but the attention is welcoming. It's bolstering. For the first time in my life, I feel seen. I feel pretty.

It's never really ever happened to me before. I've never had a boyfriend. I don't think Andy (the boy I would sometimes kiss at house parties) counts. I didn't even know men particularly noticed me.

Back home, I was always the other girl. The friend. The one who got asked to take the group photo, not be in it. Even at sixth form parties, I'd spend most of the night pretending to text someone while my best friend danced with whichever boy she liked that week.

And that was fine back then. But here, now, people are actually looking at me. I'm not used to it. And I'm not sure what to do with it—but God, I want more. For once, I want to feel desirable.

It's hard to move in this place without having to curl into yourself to weave through dancing teenagers. It's crazy to even think this many people can fit into one room, or that they'll be going to uni with me.

My town was smaller than this bar. Three pubs, one café, and a Tesco Express which opens and closes randomly. Nights out meant sneaking lukewarm cider to a park bench and hoping you didn't see someone's dad.

The idea of being somewhere like this—surrounded by glitter, noise, possibility— felt fictional. But it's very real. I'm here. And I don't want to go back.

My eyes move across to Jordan again. The girl he's with is winding her arms around him, his arm is slung across her shoulders and he's sipping a disgusting looking concoction, a mixture of all the colours. It's turned into a brown sludge.

I look back to Kerry only to realise she's speaking to me again. I strain to hear her over the music.

"You have to drink them!"

"Or what?" I demand. "Are the uni police going to arrest me?"

"It's just part of the game." She says, a little miffed.

I look at them and then look back to her. "I don't want to drink them."

"But it's part of the game."

Not eager to argue but desperate to shut her up, I snatch them from her and down them. They taste like toothpaste with a hint of vodka. Absolutely vile. She smiles at me but I frown back. I've never been a huge lover of being told what to do. Unless, of course, it's mum.