Cuddle Application

7 - Hit Me, Baby, One More Time

"If somebody hits you with an object, you should beat the hell out of them." ~Charles Barkley

➳♀♁➳

The thrum of people around us pushed against my brain. Bodies against bodies, noise on top of noise. Everyone was laughing, it seemed. Happy, drunken people conversing or flirting or arguing. The whole room was getting smaller and smaller, and my chest started to flutter with anxiety. The smell of sweat and heavy perfume and alcohol wafted in the kitchen, pushing out into the backyard through the open slider door. A faint breeze was coming through the opening, but not enough to calm the sweat that beaded my palms.

Oliver must have noticed my trapped expression because he grabbed my arm gently and started pulling me towards the hallway. His hand on my arm sent a wave of electricity through my veins. I made a fist and tried to shake it off.

"What are you doing?" I asked because it seemed like an appropriate question. Frankly, I didn't care what he was doing as long as we were going somewhere else. Somewhere I didn't have to watch Josh ogle another girl.

Say something, part of me commanded. Confront Josh. He's yours.

But then another part of me said no, he's not yours. You didn't make him yours, and now he's leaving you for someone else.

My heart pinged with a message. "You're not good enough."

But a year - a full year was how long Josh and I had been at this on-again-off-again-What-Do-You-Mean-They're-Still-Not-Dating train. That was a lot. Our rocky romance had been, surprisingly, one of the only stabilities in my life when we'd started seeing each other.

It just didn't feel right to let it all go, no matter how much we didn't mesh. In Cinderella, the glass slipper didn't fit the stepsisters, but that didn't stop them from slamming their big feet into the thing.

I just wanted us to fit, to be what we used to be.

The sharp tug of Oliver's pull on my arm pushed me back into reality. "Where are we going?" I asked, observing that we were in a hall I hadn't been in before. Past the kitchen and deeper into the house. Oliver didn't answer; he just tugged me along in silence.

We entered a large room with a huge ceiling. A sparkling chandelier hung from the highest point, glinting with the sparse amount of light in the leftover rooms of the house. The party seemed to be concentrated in only the living room, hallway, kitchen, and backyard.

We headed towards the broad staircase, covering the full length of the wall to our left.

"People might be having sex, by the way," Oliver mentioned, his face nonchalant. He pulled me up the stairs.

I climbed the sleek, white steps and gagged at the thought. It was a usual high school party, but still, I wouldn't ever think of dirtying a random person's room like that.

"Um, why are we going upstairs?" I asked, my voice oddly high pitched. Suddenly I wondered if the reason we were going upstairs was that he expected us to have sex. I tried to tug my arm back from Oliver's grasp.

"We're not just going upstairs," he said, looking forward.

We were almost at the top of the staircase. "Um, do you see this?" My voice was getting higher and higher as I pointed at the steps below us. "This right here, what we're doing, is us going upstairs. And if you think I'm going upstairs with you because you want to-"

Oliver whipped around, and my body slammed into his. We were at the very top of the stairs now, standing on the landing. The chandelier was sparkling right above our heads.