For the first time in a while I actually felt some anxiety running through me. Usually I did things with a careless mind and yolo'd everything in my life.

But right now as I'm in the car about to head into some dudes house for a party, I was pretty nervous. My hands felt sweaty and I play with the end of my skirt.

"You nervous?" My dad asks, watching me look out the window.

"Nope" I lied and unbuckled my seat belt.

The other thing was confidence, fake it till you make it, right? I did a lot of pretending to get over my anxiety.

"Well dad, see ya. I'm off to do some hard drugs and drinking. Let's see if I can kiss up to four boys tonight, I'll let you know how everything goes." I said, joking around and opening the car door.

"Thalia. That just makes me more worried." He says sighing.

"I'm just kidding, I won't go that hard on the drugs." I reassured him and he rubs his hands against his face.

"In all seriousness, Don't go near any drugs or alcohol or whatever you teens like to do that ruins your Health. And I want you home before ten, okay?" He points a finger at me like dads do.

"Got it, do drugs, drink alcohol and ruin my health. I'll be home by one am." I get out and flattened down my white tennis skirt.

I lean against the car and poke my head through the window.

"Bye dad, Love you." I give him a reassuring smile.

He doesn't drive away until I'm inside and I'm pretty sure my dad was the only parent to drop me off. Probably because every other person here could drive already, I've been meaning to do some practice but I've been like really busy.

Kinda.

As I walk inside, my stomach turns and I'm anxious all over again. I don't have any friends here even and though I recognize some people from school, it's not like I really talk to anyone here.

I look around the room and right away feel like I stand out. Every single girl here was wearing a pretty dress that made them look so pretty and I just felt underdressed.

It took me about thirty minutes and three different outfit choices to finally pick out the one I wore right now. I wore a white tennis skirt that reached right above my knees and a black, tight long sleeved shirt that was opened just a little showing off my collarbones. Adding my black Dr.Martens.

I look around as I walk more into the house. It was huge.

That's what she said.

The house was dark with dim lights and colored lights brightening up the living room where most people were chatting with one another. Sometimes I wish I really was popular so that at least people would talk to me.

I go back into the living room and sit on the empty side of the couch, although it was occupied and the couple next to me was intensely making out I sat there awkwardly, in my own little corner.

I could feel them start to get closer and closer to me as the girl lays on her back, the boy on top of her moving down to kiss her neck.

"AY! Ain't no way ya'll are about to have a three some on the couch right now!" A voice shouts and I look around to see, but notice everyone looking in my direction.

Oh, they're talking about us.

The couple next to me stop making out and look up when they notice people start to stare.

"Oh, I'm not with them-" I say, standing up. Struggling a bit because they were basically on top of me.

"Babe, don't just stand there, help her!" Some girls voice says and a guy lowers down to help me off the couch and away from the couple.

"Thanks, I almost suffocated" I take a deep breath and patted my skirt down.

"Sure, my bad for that. From my view it looked like you were in the middle of all that." I finally look up and see the guy who had helped me.

He had tan, Carmel skin and his eyes were a nice light shade of brown. His brown curls on his head gave him a beach boy look and the freckles on his cheeks were very noticeable.

"Hi, I'm Mateo." He sticks his hand out and waits for me to shake it.

I grab it and shake his hand.

"Hello" I said, I see a girl walking towards our direction as she sees our hands intertwine.

She was really pretty, her blonde hair looked like a natural color and her honey brown eyes complimented her so well. She was tall and her yellow dress did her so much justice.

"Hey, sorry about my boyfriend. He tends to not mind his own business." She nudges him and he touches the place she lightly hit.

"Im Lola, by the way. You're so pretty, I feel like Ive never seen you before." She smiles and when she does she looks even more pretty.

"I'm Thalia, I tend to lurk in the shadows most of the time." I said before I could stop myself.

"Oh well, in that case. Do you wanna hang out with us tonight? You don't have to, but I guess it would be nice to hang out with someone other than this one tonight" she gestures to Mateo and he raises his brow.

"Hey, I'm a delight to be around with. Don't listen to her, we're gonna have a good time. Let's go out in the back." Mateo smiles and holds his cup up high as he walks through the crowd.

Lola turns to me and gives me an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, he can be a lot. But anyway, let's go somewhere more quiet." She says and I follow her outside to the yard.

Some people were in the pool while others were just standing around talking .

"Have you ever played never have I ever before?" She ask, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Duh, of course I have." I said and she smiles.

"Of course. Wanna play? Just you and me." She says convincing me and I nod.

"Okay, we'll take turns asking each other questions and if we have done it, you drink." She says as she hands me an empty cup.

"I don't drink alcohol. Only soda, juice and water. Not pepsi either tho, because that's just a remake of coke. Except coke taste 10x better." I say, kneeling down. I sit on my knees because my skirt would show everything downtown if I didn't.

She chuckles lightly and placed two cans of coke in front of us.

"I don't drink either" she says which makes me feel better .

Lola and I play our never have I ever game for a while and I am really starting to think I made a good choice about coming to this party. I feel like Lola is another version of me, we have lots of things in common and we got along very quickly.

"I had the biggest crush on Mateo way before he even knew who I was and we started dating." She begins to tell me how she and Mateo met.

"Then junior year, we got partnered up for this English project and we started to talk and he says that he started to crush on me since then." She smiles looking off into the distance where Mateo was with some friends .

"We became friends after that, even after the project ended and we started dating the summer right before senior year and now... here we are." She brings her attention back to me with the biggest smile on her face as she talks.

"That's the cutest story ever." I said in awe but before she could respond someone steps in our view.

"Thalia, hey. I've been looking everywhere for you. I'm glad that you came." I look up to see a smiley Henry standing before me.

"Oh, hi Henry. Im glad I came too." I smile looking up at him.

"I'm glad I came to the party." I restate so that my mind be at peace and can clear any dirty thoughts away.

"Come find me later tonight when you're not busy, I'd like to hang out. See you, Lola." He acknowledged Lola before leaving.

Lola turns back to me with a big smile on her face.

"Oh my god, he totally likes you! Did you see that smile he had on his face?!? He could not stop smiling!" Lola chuckles.

"I know... it's kinda starting to creep me out by how much he smiles." I start to think out loud but look at Lola when she squeals.

"No, Thalia! I think he really likes you. He's never smiling that much around anybody." Lola says, looking more excited than I feel.

"Are you sure? Because every time I'm around him he smiles more and more." I look back to see if I could still see him form here, Lola grabs my shoulders making me face her.

"Listen to me, I've known Henry for years. He's friends with Mateo. He definitely has a thing for you." She nods but Im not satisfied.

"Cool." I said shrugging and taking my cup, pouring more soda in it.

"Cool? Don't you care? I say you should go over there and talk to him right now. This could be your chance " She says sounding excited.

"I don't really like Henry like that, he's just my friend" I told her and she finally relaxes.

"Alright, fine. If Henry's not your type then who is?" She asks, raising a brow.

"Hm no." I shake my head and she looks confused.

"No what?" She asks.

"Just no" I shrug and later on she shrugs.

"This party's kinda lame. What should we do?" She sighs, thinking to herself before looking over at Mateo.

"I have an idea. Would you be down to do something crazy?" She has a smirk on her face that I think I like.

"Heck yea." I said feeling my adrenaline pump through me.

I think it was all that soda.

"Alright but it might actually be a little too crazy and extreme." She says and stands up.

I stand up too and pull down my skirt that had ridden up.

"Crazy's my middle name." I said, I feel drunk even though I'm not.Is that possible? Or is that called adrenaline?

"Actually it's not, my middle name is Blaine." I told her and she chuckles.

Gosh, who knew having friends was actually so exciting.

————————————————————-

A/N

It's currently like 3am but I'm writing cuz I couldn't sleep and I really liked this chapter and hope u guys did too.

7/4/22