Prove To Be

5

Jay's eyes adjusted against the darkness once she opened them up. She lay there, still. Looking above her, the tree's brittle branches were dark silhouettes against the night sky. Slow-moving clouds covered the moon in a thick mesh.

Sitting up, Jay looked around her surroundings. She was outside, unsure of where exactly. She was actually unsure of a lot of things.

The shirt she was wearing was loose and didn't fit her at all; however, it smelt familiar. Where did I get this shirt from? A memory prodded at her brain. She was in a bedroom, not her own, talking to a mysterious, good-looking man.

She wondered how she came to be laying on the sharp, rocky ground in the middle of nowhere. Jay remembered being in the man's house and having a rather intense confrontation with meeting his family. Her mind is blank after that.

Instead of driving herself to insanity trying to think of how her life became so screwed up, she pushed everything from her head. All of the dread she was experiencing because she was in a place she knew not where she was. Her confusion from learning of her new life. The betrayal she felt from her family. All of the hopeless, troubled, and miserable thoughts; gone. Until she felt nothing else other than the breeze wrapping around the trees and the slight poke of the sharp rocks underneath her.

A scent tickled her nose. She breathed in deeply. Her head snapped in the direction the scent was coming from. Getting up, she followed it like a hungry dog following the scent of a barbecue cookout. It was all she could focus on.

As Jay moved closer in the direction of the delicious smell she was captivated by, smoke filtered through the leaves and up into the sky. Voices became louder and music could be heard in the direction she was following. She stopped to look at the party full of drunk teenagers in front of her.

Looking around, Jay noticed the party site was on the beach of a lake. A large bonfire was lit on the sand and there were people chattering around it. Jay breathed in through her nose. All around her the scent was thick in the air. However, she couldn't decipher what it was.

A boy stumbled in front of her, falling onto his hands. He looked up and smiled drunkenly. "Help a guy out, would ya?" He could barely keep his eyes open. Jay brought her hand down to grasp his and hoisted him onto his feet.

"Thank ya." He stumbled backward a few steps. He looked more closely at Jay. She stood defensively. "Don't you know the rules in this place?" He swung his beer can in her face.

Jay shook her head. The boy pointed to the left of her. A large sign was stapled to a wooden post in the ground. Alcoholic Beverages Encouraged. The word prohibited was crossed out. "I don't have any," Jay said. A loud drumming noise was coming from the boy. Her mouth salivated from the scent coming off of him.

He grabbed Jay's hand and slammed a can into her palm. He shook her arm a couple of times before laughing and stumbling away to the group of people by the fire. Her teeth ached as she watched him walk away. The booming noises around her joined together in a symphony of terrible harmony. Jay's head felt like it was going to explode.

Jay teetered on her feet as the pain in her body increased. She stumbled into the trees behind her, the bark dug into her back. She sucked in a lungful of the cool forest air. She could taste the damp earth on her taste buds and smell the earth around her.

Jay was calmed down by her senses working together to sturdy her mind. The music pulsed around the bodies in front of her with a hungry temptation. Jay held the can against her hot skin. It only helped some to keep her cool.

Instead of having her mind be devoured by the alluring music, she sunk down against the tree until she was sitting on the ground. Focusing on the scents of the forest and the night air was the only thing helping to calm her itching nerves.