❝she was the girl, who bit the horizon, who peeled the stars from the sky and put them on her tongue, the girl who was hungry for the universe, who craved magic and saw the broken boy for who he truly was- a broken boy.❞
Beca...
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Chapter 42
Birthday Boy
Jem
"I told you not to put a pool of Gatorade in the middle of the party," I grumbled to Heath as a splash of sweet blue water doused me, drenching my swimmers, and I retreated as the cold sting awakened every single alcohol-ladled fibre in me. Somebody had jumped into the inflatable swimming pool, causing the blood Gatorade to wet the whole floor at the sides, even though the inflatable pool was already packed with too many people.
"I know," grinned Heath, pushing his shades up onto his nose obnoxiously, even in the dead of freezing November. There was something mildly infuriating and annoying about people who wear sunglasses indoors or when it wasn't even that sunny, it just made the fact that you're trying to seem cool sound pathetic and seeking for attention. But I knew that Heath was just doing it to piss me off. "But come on, this is the best idea we had in a long time."
I couldn't deny that as a smile traitorously twitched on my lips. As I turned around, I inspected the whole place. It was rented at the local indoor swimming centre and it seemed like the whole school had shown up for it, making it the most populous party I had so far. Decor-wise, it was far more organized than I thought it would be, with all the activities collected together at a place. The food was stationed by the entry on foldable plastic tables, the music was being blasted on the speakers at the four corners of the massive swimming hall by an iPhone on shuffle. A massive banner hung by the bleachers screamed: HAPPY 18TH, JEM LEIGHTON! A gradient of balloons tied to the rungs of the bleaches added some colour to the place, lined up from navy to cobalt to baby blue. I had no trouble thinking that Ellis had done the tweaks for it and I wouldn't be surprised if the bottles of wine and alcohol were even alphabetized, but I wasn't sure because everything seemed to be growing fuzzier the more I drank.
"Ellis organized it?"
"Yeah," Heath assented, "Most of it was our ideas but she was the one who worked out the kinks, y'know the invites and the colours. All the organizing stuff."
Somewhere in my clouded mind, I knew I had to thank her. Organizing and putting together my party, just a couple weeks after stressing out over ironing out the perfect events for Prom, which turned out as great as it could've gone, in terms of how smoothly the night ran (save the Ellis-Effy hiccup but people barely remembered what happened), but Ellis's memories of Prom were tarnished by her falling out with Calista and Astrid. However, planning the party just right after Prom while preparing her college application was not easy to manage. I was positive that even I would have a mental breakdown from so much going on but if there was anything Ellis was an expert at was multi-tasking at it's finest.
"Where is she, by the way?"
Heath looked around, still sober enough to walk and distinguish faces from faces. "I think she went to- she's right there."
