Most people can conclude that there's a nostalgic quality to High School parties; the way the music played and the people who were there. The short conversations that would have gone differently in your head and being obsessed with all the wrong people at the wrong times.

The "ridiculous" party was hosted by the Ramirez brothers – they lived on 478 Westpalm Court in a large house isolated from neighbors that lent itself as a perfect place to throw a raging high school party. By the time we arrived the beer was flowing and 'Come Baby Come' was heard a block away.

Yara had been flirting with middle brother Tay for the better part of the last two years they had made out like water eels in Homecoming. The three Ramirez brothers were infamous because they were all handsome and despite not playing sports, they were effortlessly cool, suave, and popular. They dressed well, their parents were well off and they were often home alone while their parents traveled for the family business in Puerto Rico. Jon, the oldest, had graduated the previous year and he had been known as the class clown. He loved staying as the responsible adult over his brothers as it provided him with ample ability to be with impressed High School girls. Tay was a senior like us and Han was the cutest freshman to ever walk through the halls of Colony High.

We agreed to meet in Mercy's house because we had to pretend we were sleeping over at her place and since she lived with her flight attendant mom this was the best course of action. Our moms didn't need to know that she was on a long flight to London. Plus my mom would never let me go to a party. Actually, had it been for my parents, I would have been transported to a Catholic nunnery the moment my breasts hinted at growth.

The trick to a perfect party entrance was in the arrival; you had to arrive about an hour late, the important people were already there or arriving the same as you. You also needed your girls around you, dressed to perfection, with a scandalous amount of cleavage and eyeliner that only looked good in dimly lit rooms. I felt my heart aflutter; Clem would be there, we would be graduating soon and my time would be tonight. Even Mercy, stingy with compliments, said I had looked so hot Clem was sure to finally put the moves.

The varsity volleyball team, which held red cups and lounged on the porch, announced our arrival much to Yara's pleasure and my discomfort.

"Hey, hey, hey, Patty Girls are here!"

Yara and Mercy's names were called out. Not Rosalind and I; we were their friends and not the main attraction. We entered the house, ignoring the inebriated assholes, and went into the large kitchen, bouncing as the song switched to a new group called Backstreet Boys. My heart lurched when I spotted Clem wearing a tight black shirt that clung to his chest, his arms straining against the sleeves. He was sitting on a counter with a girl I did not know dancing between his legs. He had his own private dancer and I felt ready to run out of there. How could I have been so stupid to think that he would be as excited to see me as I was to him?

"Ugh." Yara groaned and glanced at me but I could not meet her eyes, I was concentrating on not fleeing. I felt Mercy slip her hand into mine and give it a squeeze, a sharp contrast to the raptor look she leveled at Clem. If I let Mercy, she would grab him by his collar and shove him at me, demanding he gave me what I desperately wished but love did not work that way, not even in High School.

I forced a smile on my face despite the shortness of breath. I had been here twenty seconds and already my best-laid plans had crashed. Clem looked up when we entered, he blinked at me, our eyes meeting and then his jaw tightened. He forced himself back to his private dancer and I fought the urge to yell at him the way I yelled at Victor.

Tay Ramirez appeared before in a sea of strong cologne. He held a beer in each hand and a lazy smile formed on his face as he studied Yara.

"Patty Girls have arrived."

He was supermodel hot, there was no way around it with dimples that made him Mr. Personality.

"I didn't know you were letting freshmen come to your house." Yara crossed her arms and glanced at the private dancer.

Tay looked at Clem and the dancer then slowly stared at me with a knowing look. They all knew, and I fought the embarrassment that gurgled at the back of my throat. Tay and Clem were best of buds since second grade and the two had once been three. That third missing person was the reason I was currently single. Alvin had left them, had left me, and now I wandered from crush to crush looking for a replacement for Alvin. Alvin Delgado had been their leader and my first (and only) boyfriend. I had been emerged in him, desperately, blindly, for most of 10th grade until he left a year ago. So blind was I that I thought we would stay together even when through his move back to New York. I had been rather silly, but time and life had been a calming balm on my feelings. A part of me knew the boys still saw me as Alvin's girl even though the two of us had never been an actual couple.

It had been a lot more of Alvin and I making out after school; him pressing me against lockers and janitorial closets, slithering his callused hands under my shirt and flirting with the need to touch one of my infamous breasts. I had stunned him when I first responded eagerly, thirstily, gasping against his mouth and pushing my plush pelvic bone to his. Word had gotten out that we were hooking up and by the time Alvin left everyone knew that I had been his. The realization that Alvin had no intention of being faithful to me from New York had crushed my little sixteen-year-old heart. But my Patty Girls had arrived to my room, pulled me from the covers, and held an impromptu slumber party with magazines, nail polishes, and music, enough to make me realize that I was more than Alvin's girl.

Yara became quite distracted from the Clem calamity with Tay's magnetism and I had to roll my eyes, extricate myself from Mercy's hand and get out of the immediate area.

"I'm going to the restroom," I said.

What I wanted was to find somewhere quiet to lick my wounds. I felt so stupid, doing my hair and showing the right amount of cleavage so that maybe Clem would dance with me. I made my way outside to the pool patio, grabbing a secluded seat and brooding like a child. I could clearly see the family room of the Ramirez's house, it was lit softly and music played. Couples danced or made out in couches and I sat outside. To my horror, Clem walked the private dancer to the room and she pressed herself against him. I watched them sway, I watched as his hands slowly slid down her small dark body and cupped her ass, pulling her to him. I could see why he liked her, she fit softly into him and it looked right. I knew I wasn't particularly petite, if guys placed their arms around me, I wasn't covered in them, I was an armful. Yet, I thought back on Alvin and how he had always sought me out at parties, how he'd love to squeeze my legs. It wasn't so much that I missed Alvin, it was that I missed someone wanting me. I wanted to be strong and stand on my own but nevertheless, that delicate pull of being desired was still on my skin, it remembered being caressed.

"What you see in that guy is beyond me."

A loud belch followed that statement and I looked up to see Victor drunk and shirtless. He was smiling and I scowled.

"Why are you shirtless?"

He looked down at himself in realization and looked back at me, flexing his abdominal muscles and smacking them soundly.

"Because I bust my ass to look like this, Becky-girl," he said.

I ignored him, usually I was fine with people calling me Becky-girl but not him. Not dreaded Victor. The idiot planted himself on the chair next to me and slurped tactlessly from a can of beer. I was cursed by the high heavens, Prometheus chained and tortured.

"He's never going to make a move, you know."

He pointed at Clem and I yanked his hand down, flushing and looking around to make sure no one had seen him.

"Shut up, you don't know shit."

Victor looked at me and laughed a little. "He's not, Becky-girl, he's just not, you're off-limits."

Clearly, he was drunk and ridiculous.

"You don't know anything about us, why don't you stick to football?"

"Listen." He leaned forward and I could smell the beer in his breath. "You're Alvin's girl, that's all there is to it."

I pressed my lips together, molar grinding on molar. "Alvin's been gone a year, I'm no one's girl."

"It's a guy thing, we're loyal. To Clem, you're the one girl he can't have." He shrugged his large shoulders and I fought the urge to shove him into the pool and watch him drown.

"Because he doesn't want me."

I was filled with a sudden need for my room and my bed and my books. Clem not wanting me was something I'd long suspected but to hear it from someone like Victor Manning flayed me alive. I felt exposed and embarrassed even as Victor looked at me. Especially when he looked at me.

"No," he said matter-of-factly. "He wants you."

"Wait, has he told you something?"

I knew I looked stupidly eager, but I was already flayed and open, might as well go for the BBQ.

Victor, however, stopped drinking from his can. "Shit you really like him, don't you?"

I looked away, ashamed at my own ridiculous desperation. Next to me Victor chuckled and slowly stood, stretching out his long muscular torso that had girls in the pool giggling. This caught his attention as one of them was Helene Sao, one of the prettiest girls in school and head cheerleader.

"Look, I don't do this friend thing too well, Becka, but don't you want a guy who says fuck it all and goes after you?" His eyes were warm and lazy as he smiled. "I like this friend thing we have going on, you're easy to talk to."

"Because you don't like me?" I raised a brow.

"Exactly!"

He spread out his arms and crushed the beer can against the wall sending Helene's girls laughing at his antics. I stared at him incredulously, he was a caveman.

"For the record."

I stood up and straightened my skirt, walking to him and eyeing him up and down.

"I don't like you either because I'm too smart to fall for you."

He looked a bit taken back when Helene's flirty voice came from the pool calling him over.

"You're being summoned," I smirked.

He shook himself off and then backed away from me.

"See you in Calculus, Becky-girl."

I shook my head when he jumped into the pool, loudly splashing the water making the girls squeal in excitement. Idiot. The thing about Victor was that he was smart, he was that rare breed of honor roll student and handsome popular jock made in 1980s movie hell.

I was over this party, I'd come to talk to Clem and I had ended up having a heart to heart with Victor fucking Manning. I stormed through the party and spotted Mercy scowling as Chumbawanba came on the radio, and I knew I had my ally.

"Want to get the hell out of here?" I shouted above the thumping and the cheers at the song that repeated the same lyrics over and over.

"Yes, I fucking do!" She threw her red cup in Jon Ramirez's face which I believe he liked.

Yara and Rosalind wanted to stay so we split up and a girl Mercy knew from soccer gave us a ride back to her place to wait for the other two.

"Don't listen to Manning," Mercy said after I told her what he had said.

"He's not wrong, they still see me as Alvin's girl – yes I know I'm not but they see me as her. Poor fat Becky-girl," I said.

Mercy turned sharply to me and glowered. "You're not fat and even if you were guys like all sorts of shapes."

She kneeled before me and I fought the urge not to cry like the pathetic fool I had become.

"This is all ending, Becka," she said. "When we're done with this place, college boys are not going to be able to get enough of you. You're smart, smarter than most people around here, you're funny, and you're going to take the world by storm."

I looked at her and wondered how someone so pretty could be so kind when she wanted to be. She snapped her long fingers at my face.

"You don't want them to see you like the old you? Then don't be her, find yourself. I've seen you go toe to toe with Manning, I know you've got spunk. Grab that spunk by the balls and show them! They'll remember your name, long after Alvin has been forgotten."

That night, even as I listened to the girls recap the night, I knew Mercy was right. I had allowed myself to live in the shadow of Yara and the comfort of being part of our group that I had not taken time out to fish out who I was. As if I still lived out of a wet cardboard box. I held myself back constantly, I had been afraid of making too much noise since the Hurricane had stolen all the sound in my life and trashed it like ash. I also became inexplicably angry at Victor Manning maybe because he'd embarrassed me or maybe I had always stayed mad at Victor.

Recommended 90s Playlist (will grow with each chapter)

1. Gettin' Jiggy With It - Will Smith

2. Kiss The Rain - Billie Myers

3. Come Baby Come - K7

4. Tubthumping - Chumbawamba