𝕤𝕒𝕟 𝕗𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠 • 𝕝.𝕙

thirty-six

Today was the 31st of December.

The build up to the end of the year had been pretty underwhelming so far, each day passing feeling more painful than the last one as I struggled to make it until the end of every week because of the turmoil I had caused myself by torturing myself with stories about boys.

I knew I was trying to undermine it, as I always was. That these stories about boys, like I'd just called them, were emotional and had caused me to stoop extremely low, to get a job that I thought I wanted, just because I wanted to run the fuck away.

But this was the end of the year, and hopefully, things would move forward from this point. See, I didn't want to fall back into the arms of whoever stood in my way. Time for myself was more than needed, and I wanted all of this time to be focused around friends, my one true family. I wanted to make amends to them and prove that I was growing up, that I felt the need to grow out of the phase of just hoping for the best.

By a stroke of infinite luck, Andy had accepted my apologies and had welcomed me back into his life. I had never had a pure friendship with a man like I did with him. Nothing had even been ambiguous, and things had always flowed so easily whenever he was around. After Lisa, he was my partner in crime, the quirky friend, just... He was Andy. 

As I stood in front of my mirror in my room, adjusting my clothes, I felt defeated. Celebrating today was the last thing I'd wanted to do. I would have been just fine staying home in front of the TV, talking shit on Twitter, but Andy had pushed and pushed for me to come with him to this party.

Last time I'd gone, he had ended up taking me to Calum's house on the hill. I had made sure that this wouldn't be the case this time, and he had promised, that it was a house party on the outskirts, that it was a childhood friend of his, that his girlfriend had refused to come, so he had decided to invite me. I'd believed him. I mean, there was no way he would maliciously lie to me. I hadn't told him the full story yet, just that I didn't want to see any of these men again.

"I don't like my outfit," I moaned. "I don't know."

"Just wear jeans, whatever," Andy called out from the other room. "Lex, you do this shit every time. We need to get a move on."

"You are so fucking..." I groaned. "Whatever. You're right. Doesn't matter."

I walked into the living room, my bell-bottom jeans grazing the floor as I noticed that Andy had already gotten started on the drinks. Cheeky fucking bastard.

"Hey," I called out. "Pour me a shot."

His face lit up. "Yes! Yes, yes yes!"

I leaned forward and grabbed the bottle from him, and brought it to my lips. "Fuck this."

"Party time!"

I swallowed hard the liquid burning my throat, purely disgusted at the taste of straight vodka.

"It's party time, baby."

✴

As we sat in the taxi leading us to the party, Andy kept sneaking us shots of booze through his hip flask. I finally started to feel excited and ecstatic, knowing that tonight would be fun, that I was wearing my prettiest shoes, that I had done my hair, that things were good, right? They felt good! Everything felt good, and I was drunk, Andy was drunk and oh my god, things were so fun already!

"Lex, I've got..." Andy started. "I need to tell you something."

"Don't be in love with me," I said, before cackling loudly. "Ew!"