divide ; dan smith

00:15

"Hurry up Harri!" the short ginger called out to me. She was tugging at her crop top as we ran down the sleepy streets.
"Yeah alright Lily, just slow down a bit." I huffed as I slowly caught up to her. My auburn hair whipped behind me in the cold air and the thud of my sneakers on the asphalt echoed in my ears.
"they're not gonna let us in-" Lily tried before she had to pull down her crop top again. I chuckled as I slowed down to a brisk walk and stuffed my hands into my sweater pockets.
Lily jumped as she came to the final house on the block. Faint music could've been heard all down the street and it was booming now. Lily was beaming when she turned to me, warm orange light danced over her face and turned her eyelashes gold.
"And here, my dear Harriet, we have your first high school party."
I stepped into the orange light with her now and stared at the bleek looking double storey house brought alive by dancing, drunk teenagers and the throbbing of music. Lily tugged on my wrist as she pulled me out of the night up towards the front door.

Stepping through the front door was like stepping into an alternative universe. A large disco ball hung from the ceiling fan in the lounge, dotting the walls with silver and all of the lights were turned out other than several coloured lights that were placed throughout the house and along the floor. The floor glistened with booze and bodies mingled throughout the home.
Lily grinned up at me. "Come on~" she waved for me to follow her as she moved through the dense crowd of people. We found the kitchen without hassle since most of the houses in our end of the suburbs were built with the exact same floor plan. Several people occupied the kitchen; a tall boy with an Iron Maiden shirt was raiding the fridge and two girls were making out on the marble island.
Lily danced through them towards the kitchen table where several alchoholic beverages were situated. Vodka, beer cans, several flavored coolers and a tower of shot glasses filled with creamy pink liquid. There was also a punch bowl on the table and there were a fare amount of used kool-aid sachets beside the bowl.
Lily seductively readjusted her outfit as a muscly guy passed her. She loved this, partying and the drunk delirium that surrounded these kinds of nights. Her fingers walked along the drinks table as she found a shot and tossed it down her throat. I stared at her in awe, I had never actually seen her in action and I was highly annticipating seeing her a few hours into the night when she would be a bit off her head.
She pressed a can of beer into my hand.
"Take a shot too, it'll help kick things off." she advised before she stepped towards the large group of sweaty dancing people. She had her arms in the air and I laughed as she shifted her shoulders awkwardly, she should've worn a normal shirt.
I turned back to the drinks table and watched as other's hands worked at the drinks. They seemed to know their way around the table, mixing vodka and coolers in plastic cups and gulping them down.
Following Lily's advice; I downed a shot and it's sweetness almost completely disguised the taste of the alcohol within. I stuffed the beer into my pocket and grabbed for a plastic cup and dunked it into the kool-aid bowl. Kool-aid would be my drink of choice tonight.
I turned towards the party then and allowed the colourful lights and dispersed fragments of heaven from the disco ball to bathe my face. Everyone smiled as their bodies pressed up against one another and as they let the music flood their systems. I sipped on my kool-aid and tried my best to stay to the edges of each room I entered as I made my way back towards the living room. An even larger group of people were dancing and several had passed out already on the couches which had been moved to the sides of the room to make space. They looked content, in their slumber with their inevitable hangovers to be.

My eyes fell upon him then. He was serene in the heterogeneity of chaos. His hair looked black under the changing lights and his skin glowed in the subdued luminosity of the room. His dreamy eyes caught mine suddenly and he smiled softly.