Into the Oven

Partie!

I stared around at the people closely packed together. They were talking and laughing with their friends. I was here alone, dragged by a 'friend' who promptly ditched me to hang out with the popular people.

I threaded my way through the crowd, envying everyone who knew someone. There was one free chair at the table. I quickly claimed it and gazed at the array of food and drinks laid out.

A girl reached across me to grab a beer, hitting me on the shoulder. "Whoops," she muttered without glancing at me and marched off to her boyfriend.

The people sitting at the table with me were talking too loud to each other. The music pulsing though the house made my head throb.

The guy next to me tapped my shoulder. "Yo. Can my friend have your seat, man?"

I sighed and stood up. "Yeah, sure."

With nowhere else to go I ventured back to the dance area. Everyone was dancing with a partner or a group of friends. People jostled me constantly as I tried to look like I belonged.

It was in that moment, when I was standing in the middle of the dance floor surrounded by people when I realised: I've never felt more alone in my life.

~ Crumb

I wove my way through the crowd, seeing flashes of red, green, yellow-all and every color- in the corner of my eyes. My heart beat to the thump, thump, thump of the bass, the stereo rumbled the room like the smash of the drumstick to the cymbals. I had stopped by the refreshments table earlier to grab a snack, amused by how fast the chip bags drained and the drinks went dry. Big parties like this were chaos: friends swamped into masses of moving heat, the stereo bouncing off the halls, couples getting drunk and falling all over each other. And to survive this chaos, I found a strategy that made huge parties strangely comforting.

You can't escape chaos. You can only find something that keeps you sane.

I grinned like a dumb puppet on one of those TV shows and pushed my way towards him. "Whoops," I muttered, accidentally smacking someone when deciding to grab a beer before reaching my destination. Maybe it wouldn't be too bad to be elevated, feeling like we're above the music and the crowd and the people.

"Hey," he grinned at me, and we fell into a dance, his arms around my waist while I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, still holding the beer.

"You know, my favorite thing about big parties like this?" He whispered in my ear, causing me to giggle and lean into the tickle of his cherry laced breath. "Of all these people, I get to hang out with you."

Maybe the magical thing about grandeur parties weren't the fact that the music, food, and decorations were out of this world. Maybe it was the simple fact that though surrounded by a multitude of people, the only thing that mattered was the person in front of me.

~ Cookie 🍪