"I Miss You"
The Party
The February cold bit at my skin like some wild dog as I began my trek to school on foot. It was two miles away, and I chose not to take the school bus due to a certain person on the bus- my best friend’s sister, Kate. Her chocolate-brown hair, gorgeous yet aging make-up, luxuriously shiny red nails, curvy yet slim body, and velvet-soft skin had given her the gift of popularity and social power- power that turn her into a complete jerk. We were once friends in elementary, but once she gained so much power, she become the snobbiest, most obnoxious person in the entire school, which had caused out friendship to become frayed and severed beyond repair. Without her outgoing, flamboyant personality in my life, I became introverted and socially brittle.
Four hours after school, I’d be attending a party - a birthday party for an upperclassman- my best friend heard about from Kate. Basically, the entire school was invited if they wanted to come. It would be a party I’d never be able to forget in my entire life.
When I arrived at school, my best friend, Melissa, waited for me impatiently, her blond, pink-streaked hair flowing in the biting wind and her baby-blue framed eyes keeping a watch for me. She had to be the skinniest person I’d ever seen in my entire life. Her pink and purple nails tapped silently at her side impatiently as I crossed Essex Blvd. to Maxx’s Landing High School.
The school’s exterior wall-cracks as well as its almost-completely-chipped-away paint gave it an ancient appearance. The engraving that read “Maxx’s Landing High School” had long ago begun to wear away, and most of the letters had disappeared. The school had once been painted crimson, but now the chipping away paint revealed a now-white exterior. On one side of the wall, sea-green, black, and blood-red paint created a dragon, the school’s mascot, painted years ago by the art teacher who had just passed away about two years ago. It, too, began to fade away as time claimed its life.
Impatient Melissa dashed after me in excitement about that night’s party. “We have to go shopping t’night, so I can get a beautiful dress for the party tonight! Whatareyouwearingtnight? I’ll but you something new for the party! Anything!” The words jumped out of her mouth so rapidly that she had lost her breath. She panted for a few seconds as I thought up a response. “Sorry,” she apologized, “I need to calm down!”
“Oh, uhh, it’s okay,” I said to her, “Ummm, I don’t really need anything. I still have all those outfits you bought me last time we went shopping.” During every shopping trip, she bought me at least one article of clothing over $70, even though I pleadingly insisted I didn’t need it. She never took no for an answer when it came to her buying me anything. She also bought me loads of jewelry, from spiky black bracelets to elegant necklaces of diamonds and sapphires. I tried to wear the jewelry as often as possible, though jewelry wasn’t exactly my thing.
Material items weren’t what had bonded us together like super-glue, however. It was our personalities as well as our millions of similarities that kept our friendship well-intact. We had similar beliefs, such as human and animal rights, pro-choice, anti-war, religion, and many more. Our interests in music, writing, volunteer work, and much more were also the same. We were like perfect twin sisters. The only difference was age. Melissa was sixteen, but I was just fifteen, and, according to her, appeared fourteen but acted eighteen, maybe even nineteen. I often took that as a compliment, of course, but I thought maybe she was just being kind to me.
“Err, excuse me for a few minutes. I have to, uhh, use the lady’s room,” I said politely to my dearest friend. I remembered I hadn’t had time to brush my hair before leaving the house, so I’d brush it in there.
“Okay, Jewel, but try your best to make it quick. We have to discuss plans for our mini-shopping adventure after school right before the party.” My parents had been a bit over-obsessed with Romeo and Juliet, so they named me Juliet. I thought the name was adorable, but I preferred to be called “Jewel” for a short, glamorous nickname.
I swam my black and red nails through the jet-black two feet-long river with pink and electric-blue streaks that was my hair once I finished brushing it then glanced into my fatigued green eyes. I was certainly sleep-deprived. Perhaps I would sleep a bit in Mr. Keller’s class, who had let Joe sleep during the video clips about Operation Iraqi Freedom we watched all class long last class. Joe had the attention span of an orange peel and immediately became bored enough to fall asleep in class.
After I moped out of the bathroom, Melissa and I talked about possible stores we’d visit this afternoon and decided to check out a new store in town called Sky High, which supposedly had the most unique dresses in the area and the most adorable shoes in the world. That was everyone else’s opinion I’d heard on the store, anyway. I figured a checking out of it wouldn’t kill.
Before seventh period that day in the school’s halls, I crossed paths with Kate. She deliberately slammed into me, causing my books to drop onto the ground. “Going to the party, Juliet?” she asked with a pinched-up nose and an ominous smirk, “’Cause if you’re there, well, stay away from me. I don’t want your body lice!”
I glared at her vengefully. I did NOT have ANY type of bodily parasites AT ALL! What the fuck was her freakin’ problem, anyway? Why couldn’t she just leave me alone and pretend I didn’t even exist? That’d be much better than putting up with her harassment!
She then stomped her foot on my books, crushing my science project into confetti. After that, she kicked it to the other side of the hall and robbed me of all of my books. She then proceeded to walk off with them and toss them in a distant garbage can. I’d never be able to fish them out of there before the bell for seventh period rang! My science project was also murdered, so it was absolutely useless! Ugh! How I loathed Kate!
After school, Melissa picked me up, so we could venture out to the nearby shops downtown. She drove an admirable royal blue Mercedes. The texture of the seats reminded me of velvet as I ran my fingers down the back of one when she first bought the car, which was four and a quarter months ago exactly. The engine roared like some fierce, acerbated animal as she fired up the ignition. We were then off to the shops.
The comments about Sky High being absolutely the most amazing store ever were surely an understatement. I glanced around the store to see jiving disco lights dancing to the exhilarating music being played inside of the store. The lights were a bit dim for my taste, however, probably to show off the lights. That’s when I found it- the perfect dress for the party. It was midnight black with an eggplant belt stretched across its mannequin’s stomach. The sign next to it read that it’d make anyone thin, but it had a troubling price-$235! I knew that Melissa would purchase it for me in a heartbeat, but that would make me feel entirely guilty! Plus, how would I ever repay her (not like she ever asked me to)? I wasn’t rich like her! I lived in a two-room apartment with my single mother, who worked as a cashier for Wal-Mart, for Heaven’s sake! She must’ve noticed I had been staring at it, so she said, “Wow, that’s a beautiful dress, and you’d look GORGEOUS in it! I’m going to purchase it for you!
“Bleh, I’ve seen better,” I lied in a monotone voice, pretending not to be interested in it.”
“But I bet it’ll look wonderful on you! Why don’t you go try it on?” Before I even had a chance to reply, she snatched one that was just my size and shoved it into my hands. I trudged into the dressing room to try it on, Melissa following directly behind me.
Unfortunately, Melissa was right. My jaw dropped when I saw myself in it in the mirror. It looked absolutely fabulous! I turned sideways and noticed in my head how slim it made my stomach appear. My stomach appeared nearly non-existent in this miracle-dress! Too bad it was so pricey!
Melissa stared at me as I turned toward her. “Oh, yeah! You’re DEFINITELY getting it!” There was no escape from receiving the $235 dress! Oh, dear…
Melissa picked me up at 6:30 that evening. She wore magenta lip-stick, faded-blue eye shadow, a pink t-shirt with the outline of an electric guitar, and black jeans. I wore my new, slimming dress and ruby earrings she’d bought me a few weeks ago for my birthday. I just hoped I wouldn’t ruin my dress the first night I wore it. That’d make me feel catastrophic guilt.
The party was at a gigantic house, no, actually a mansion, on the west side of town. The outside of it was dark chocolate brown. We stepped in through the back door. That’s when we spotted a gigantic indoor swimming pool you’d normally only find at state parks and such. Two gigantic waterslides were at the sides of the opposite entrance of the pool. One waterslide was a grass color while the other was a strawberry-red. The pool was enclosed in a glass-wall room, and many people who just arrived at the party from the house’s front entrance were now staring at the gigantic indoor pool in complete awe.
Melissa and I walked out of the pool area for a bit to take a look around the place.
“Guess what I bought!” said Melissa exuberantly as she held up an old Wal-Mart bag as we began to explore the place.
“What do you have?” I asked bewilderedly.
“I bought you brand-new, surprise bathing suit!” Her small smile now transformed into a gigantic grin.
“Wow! Thanks!” She seriously surprised me there! I never would’ve guessed she bought me a bathing suit! She’d never done that before!
Suddenly, Kate jetted out of nowhere and darted for her sister, Melissa. “Hey, umm, Melissa?” she said quickly, “You think you could, uhh, give me a ride home tonight? Err, my new boyfriend just broke up with me and left, so now I have no ride.” Kate gave her younger sister pleading eyes as her sister thought up an answer.
“Yeah, sure!” Melissa said to her desperate sister, “You can hop in the back after the party with Jewel!”
I instantly glared at Kate. She better not try anything in the back of the car tonight. Uh! Kate automatically turned her head back away. I let out a staggered, nearly-silent growl.
“See you later, Mel!” she shouted to her sister as she skipped away. We then continued our exploration through the mansion.
The last place we checked out was the kitchen. About ten kids were in there at once, and Melissa and I had a difficult time figuring out why, exactly, so many people were in there at once. Surely nobody was hungry, yet, and caked wasn’t being served yet, right? That’s when we saw it- a gigantic cooler of alcoholic drinks from beer cans to wine bottles. Melissa and I just looked at each other’s faces. This definitely was not the type of party we thought it would be. Both of us were the sickeningly sweet, good-girl type. We were taught by our parents to never ever consume such poison in our entire lives. Well, I was, anyway, but I didn’t expect Melissa to try alcohol anytime soon, either. That’s when we spotted Kate in the crowd. She was guzzling down out of the bottle the reddest wine I’d ever seen in my entire life.
“Hey, Mel, why dontcha try some? Kate asked her sister, “It’s REALLY good and makes you feel absolutely AWESOME!”
“Err, not r---”
I cut Melissa off and said, “I’m going to be in the bathroom, alright? I have to go really bad!” Melissa excused me.
The bathroom was absolutely magnificent. The floor tiles were lit up while a crystal chandelier glittered all around me. There were three stalls inside of this bathroom, and their walls were an extremely dark brown. The countertop was silvery granite, and the sinks were clear glass with some sort of tropical fish inside of them. The walls were tan or maybe a really light brown. I was unsure. The borders of the mirrors were composed of highly valuable gemstones, such as topaz, diamond, ruby, sapphire, and many more that I didn’t know the names of. Everything from the toilets to the stall doors were motion-activated. Inside of the bathroom played some tranquil, harmonic music just like the background music during a calm part of a movie. The bathroom was absolutely stunning and luxurious.
When I was done, the party had transformed into total chaos. There were about five mini-fights occurring. Glass had shattered everywhere in the kitchen. Melissa was sitting on the sofa in the ten-times-as-normal living room waiting for me in her bikini. She tossed my bathing suit at me, so I walked into the bathroom once again.
The pool had been heated to a bathtub-water hot. A few minutes after we both dived in off of the diving board, Drew from Chemistry class came over.
Drew had short-brown hair and chocolate eyes. He’d normally be wearing square, horn-rimmed glasses, but of course he couldn’t swim with them. His skin was a medium tan and shined like the sun due to how drenched in pool water was. He wore a delightful smile as he approached us. An alcoholic smell lingered in his breath.
“Hey, girls, how’s it goin’?” he asked kindly. When I lifted up my head to answer, I noticed he’d been suddenly hypnotized by my boobs. This created uneasiness for me.
“Absolutely wonderful!” exclaimed Melissa, “How about you?”
“I’m absolutely great! I’ve never felt better in my life!” he replied.
“Well, that’s good!” Melissa replied back.
I felt something icy-cold and wet on my shoulder and turned around. Drew had placed his hand on top of my shoulder. Now I really felt uneasy! His icy-cold hand then slid down my arm and then around the front. Melissa had been turned around to watch someone else I didn’t know. I gave him a fierce kick in the stomach, and he was soon gripping it instantly. I darted away, so Melissa noticed what had happened and followed.
I snatched up my dress and suddenly darted into the bathroom. Melissa lounged on the cotton-soft sofa in the living room while I dressed in the bathroom. As soon as I went into a stall, I heard the door to the bathroom open and someone stepping in with droplets of water crashing to the floor. I hurriedly dressed myself back into my new dress and rushed out of the stall. The person who had come into the bathroom gripped hold of my dress and pushed me up against the wall.
Without even glancing at their face, I ran like a bull and freed myself from their grip. I then dashed out of the bathroom and ran to where Melissa had been sitting on the plush sofa. Her glasses had been in her right had, and the ear holders of them had been stretched at obtuse angles. The lenses had spider webs shooting down them. She looked quite peculiar without her glasses on. I guess it was because I’d been used to seeing her with them on. Sitting beside her was Kate, who appeared to be severely intoxicated.
“We have to go home, now, because my glasses are broken,“ Melissa announced to me, “Uh, woah! What happened to your dress?”
Wha?”
“The shoulder is torn! Look at it!”
“Woah, I don’t know!” I hadn’t realized the person had torn my dress! I peeked at it and noticed the flap that had been created by the person’s gripping hands.
“Oh, and Kate has to drive, because I can’t see well enough to drive.”
“WHAT? Are you insane? Look how drunk she is! We’ll get killed!”
“Tons of people drive drunk and get away with it! Besides, who else is gonna drive?”
“I can!” I was an experienced driver, even though I didn’t even have a permit, yet. I knew every state law there was and everything else you must know in order to drive! I even amazed my mom a few times, even though she’d ground me immediately after I drove!
“No way! You are definitely not old enough to drive! You don’t even have a permit! Do you realize what kind of trouble we could get into?”
“Alright, you’re right,” I lied. I hadn’t wanted to enrage her anymore, so I shut up. Maybe she was right. What were the chances any of us would get killed, anyway?
The three of us then exited the building and hopped into the car when Kate tried to push the keys into the ignition. She plugged up the air vents for the air conditioner with them, instead. She then attempted to turn them, but they wouldn’t budge. “Damn! Your car is broke!” she screeched at her sister.
“No, you just put the keys into the air conditioner,“ Melissa corrected her.
“Oh!”
“Hey, umm, could you turn on the heat?” I asked her, “My hair is freezing me!”
“Sure!”
She then fired up the ignition. Then, she turned on the windshield wipers instead of the heat. I said nothing and kept silent.
“Hey, what are those things going across the windshield?” Kate asked about the dark figures dancing across the windshield that were the wipers.
“They’re the wipers,” Melissa replied.
“Wipers?”
“Windshield wipers.”
“Oh, how did they get on?”
“You turned them on.”
“I did?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Oops!” She then attempted to turn them off but instead turned on the air conditioner. The zephyrs from the air conditioner whipped through my hair and made my teeth chatter exorbitantly. I curled up in the back seat with my legs against my chest. Then, we were off.
When Kate backed up, we landed into the wall behind us, so she then went forward and turned out of the parking lot. I then glanced at a sign that read “Speed limit 15.” We were already speeding at 45 when we were two blocks from the party. We then accelerated to 55. 65. 75. 85. Then we halted to a complete stop. Melissa’s head nearly bashed off of the dashboard. We then accelerated to 35 once again in five seconds. That’s when I realized we were on the wrong side of the road! We were going 65 when I noticed a pair of headlights in my vision. We were going to collide right with them! Kate must’ve noticed them, because she then swerved to the right. I suddenly felt the jolt of the car hit something else and then blacked out…
I woke up in the hospital with tons of needles protruding out of me! Oh, how I ABHOR needles! I peered around the room and noticed a bouquet of red roses, my favorite flowers, next to the table. I read the tag, and they were from my mom. I lied in bed for about thirty minutes, attempting to fall back to sleep once again. That’s when my mom came in. She looked like she was going to have a panic attack when she came into the room.
“Hello, Juliet! How ya feeling’?” she asked me as I glanced in her direction.
“I feel fine. How are you?”
“I was a little nervous to come, because I was scared that you were critically hurt! Do you hurt anymore?”
“No, not really. Why I am here?”
“You were in a car crash with your friends. You guys hit a telephone poll!”
“Is everyone else alright?”
“Well,” my mother said. I could hear the blatant hesitation in her voice as her words trudged out of her mouth, “Kate needs six stitches, but she’s going to be fine.”
“And Melissa?”
“Well, I don’t actually know. They never told me.”
“Oh,” I said, “When can we go check on her?”
“They said we can’t right now. I don’t know why, though.”
“Oh.” I let out a deep yet quieted sigh…
Two years later, we had an assignment in Creative Writing I where we were required to write a letter to someone we deeply missed. I, of course, wrote a letter to my dear deceased friend, Melissa. In it, I informed her that Kate and I eventually ended up as friends and how much I missed her. I also included a line that read, ”When I arrived at the memorial site, I couldn't think of anything witty or poignant to write, so I just carved 'I miss you' into the telephone pole that killed you and went home.”
Four hours after school, I’d be attending a party - a birthday party for an upperclassman- my best friend heard about from Kate. Basically, the entire school was invited if they wanted to come. It would be a party I’d never be able to forget in my entire life.
When I arrived at school, my best friend, Melissa, waited for me impatiently, her blond, pink-streaked hair flowing in the biting wind and her baby-blue framed eyes keeping a watch for me. She had to be the skinniest person I’d ever seen in my entire life. Her pink and purple nails tapped silently at her side impatiently as I crossed Essex Blvd. to Maxx’s Landing High School.
The school’s exterior wall-cracks as well as its almost-completely-chipped-away paint gave it an ancient appearance. The engraving that read “Maxx’s Landing High School” had long ago begun to wear away, and most of the letters had disappeared. The school had once been painted crimson, but now the chipping away paint revealed a now-white exterior. On one side of the wall, sea-green, black, and blood-red paint created a dragon, the school’s mascot, painted years ago by the art teacher who had just passed away about two years ago. It, too, began to fade away as time claimed its life.
Impatient Melissa dashed after me in excitement about that night’s party. “We have to go shopping t’night, so I can get a beautiful dress for the party tonight! Whatareyouwearingtnight? I’ll but you something new for the party! Anything!” The words jumped out of her mouth so rapidly that she had lost her breath. She panted for a few seconds as I thought up a response. “Sorry,” she apologized, “I need to calm down!”
“Oh, uhh, it’s okay,” I said to her, “Ummm, I don’t really need anything. I still have all those outfits you bought me last time we went shopping.” During every shopping trip, she bought me at least one article of clothing over $70, even though I pleadingly insisted I didn’t need it. She never took no for an answer when it came to her buying me anything. She also bought me loads of jewelry, from spiky black bracelets to elegant necklaces of diamonds and sapphires. I tried to wear the jewelry as often as possible, though jewelry wasn’t exactly my thing.
Material items weren’t what had bonded us together like super-glue, however. It was our personalities as well as our millions of similarities that kept our friendship well-intact. We had similar beliefs, such as human and animal rights, pro-choice, anti-war, religion, and many more. Our interests in music, writing, volunteer work, and much more were also the same. We were like perfect twin sisters. The only difference was age. Melissa was sixteen, but I was just fifteen, and, according to her, appeared fourteen but acted eighteen, maybe even nineteen. I often took that as a compliment, of course, but I thought maybe she was just being kind to me.
“Err, excuse me for a few minutes. I have to, uhh, use the lady’s room,” I said politely to my dearest friend. I remembered I hadn’t had time to brush my hair before leaving the house, so I’d brush it in there.
“Okay, Jewel, but try your best to make it quick. We have to discuss plans for our mini-shopping adventure after school right before the party.” My parents had been a bit over-obsessed with Romeo and Juliet, so they named me Juliet. I thought the name was adorable, but I preferred to be called “Jewel” for a short, glamorous nickname.
I swam my black and red nails through the jet-black two feet-long river with pink and electric-blue streaks that was my hair once I finished brushing it then glanced into my fatigued green eyes. I was certainly sleep-deprived. Perhaps I would sleep a bit in Mr. Keller’s class, who had let Joe sleep during the video clips about Operation Iraqi Freedom we watched all class long last class. Joe had the attention span of an orange peel and immediately became bored enough to fall asleep in class.
After I moped out of the bathroom, Melissa and I talked about possible stores we’d visit this afternoon and decided to check out a new store in town called Sky High, which supposedly had the most unique dresses in the area and the most adorable shoes in the world. That was everyone else’s opinion I’d heard on the store, anyway. I figured a checking out of it wouldn’t kill.
Before seventh period that day in the school’s halls, I crossed paths with Kate. She deliberately slammed into me, causing my books to drop onto the ground. “Going to the party, Juliet?” she asked with a pinched-up nose and an ominous smirk, “’Cause if you’re there, well, stay away from me. I don’t want your body lice!”
I glared at her vengefully. I did NOT have ANY type of bodily parasites AT ALL! What the fuck was her freakin’ problem, anyway? Why couldn’t she just leave me alone and pretend I didn’t even exist? That’d be much better than putting up with her harassment!
She then stomped her foot on my books, crushing my science project into confetti. After that, she kicked it to the other side of the hall and robbed me of all of my books. She then proceeded to walk off with them and toss them in a distant garbage can. I’d never be able to fish them out of there before the bell for seventh period rang! My science project was also murdered, so it was absolutely useless! Ugh! How I loathed Kate!
After school, Melissa picked me up, so we could venture out to the nearby shops downtown. She drove an admirable royal blue Mercedes. The texture of the seats reminded me of velvet as I ran my fingers down the back of one when she first bought the car, which was four and a quarter months ago exactly. The engine roared like some fierce, acerbated animal as she fired up the ignition. We were then off to the shops.
The comments about Sky High being absolutely the most amazing store ever were surely an understatement. I glanced around the store to see jiving disco lights dancing to the exhilarating music being played inside of the store. The lights were a bit dim for my taste, however, probably to show off the lights. That’s when I found it- the perfect dress for the party. It was midnight black with an eggplant belt stretched across its mannequin’s stomach. The sign next to it read that it’d make anyone thin, but it had a troubling price-$235! I knew that Melissa would purchase it for me in a heartbeat, but that would make me feel entirely guilty! Plus, how would I ever repay her (not like she ever asked me to)? I wasn’t rich like her! I lived in a two-room apartment with my single mother, who worked as a cashier for Wal-Mart, for Heaven’s sake! She must’ve noticed I had been staring at it, so she said, “Wow, that’s a beautiful dress, and you’d look GORGEOUS in it! I’m going to purchase it for you!
“Bleh, I’ve seen better,” I lied in a monotone voice, pretending not to be interested in it.”
“But I bet it’ll look wonderful on you! Why don’t you go try it on?” Before I even had a chance to reply, she snatched one that was just my size and shoved it into my hands. I trudged into the dressing room to try it on, Melissa following directly behind me.
Unfortunately, Melissa was right. My jaw dropped when I saw myself in it in the mirror. It looked absolutely fabulous! I turned sideways and noticed in my head how slim it made my stomach appear. My stomach appeared nearly non-existent in this miracle-dress! Too bad it was so pricey!
Melissa stared at me as I turned toward her. “Oh, yeah! You’re DEFINITELY getting it!” There was no escape from receiving the $235 dress! Oh, dear…
Melissa picked me up at 6:30 that evening. She wore magenta lip-stick, faded-blue eye shadow, a pink t-shirt with the outline of an electric guitar, and black jeans. I wore my new, slimming dress and ruby earrings she’d bought me a few weeks ago for my birthday. I just hoped I wouldn’t ruin my dress the first night I wore it. That’d make me feel catastrophic guilt.
The party was at a gigantic house, no, actually a mansion, on the west side of town. The outside of it was dark chocolate brown. We stepped in through the back door. That’s when we spotted a gigantic indoor swimming pool you’d normally only find at state parks and such. Two gigantic waterslides were at the sides of the opposite entrance of the pool. One waterslide was a grass color while the other was a strawberry-red. The pool was enclosed in a glass-wall room, and many people who just arrived at the party from the house’s front entrance were now staring at the gigantic indoor pool in complete awe.
Melissa and I walked out of the pool area for a bit to take a look around the place.
“Guess what I bought!” said Melissa exuberantly as she held up an old Wal-Mart bag as we began to explore the place.
“What do you have?” I asked bewilderedly.
“I bought you brand-new, surprise bathing suit!” Her small smile now transformed into a gigantic grin.
“Wow! Thanks!” She seriously surprised me there! I never would’ve guessed she bought me a bathing suit! She’d never done that before!
Suddenly, Kate jetted out of nowhere and darted for her sister, Melissa. “Hey, umm, Melissa?” she said quickly, “You think you could, uhh, give me a ride home tonight? Err, my new boyfriend just broke up with me and left, so now I have no ride.” Kate gave her younger sister pleading eyes as her sister thought up an answer.
“Yeah, sure!” Melissa said to her desperate sister, “You can hop in the back after the party with Jewel!”
I instantly glared at Kate. She better not try anything in the back of the car tonight. Uh! Kate automatically turned her head back away. I let out a staggered, nearly-silent growl.
“See you later, Mel!” she shouted to her sister as she skipped away. We then continued our exploration through the mansion.
The last place we checked out was the kitchen. About ten kids were in there at once, and Melissa and I had a difficult time figuring out why, exactly, so many people were in there at once. Surely nobody was hungry, yet, and caked wasn’t being served yet, right? That’s when we saw it- a gigantic cooler of alcoholic drinks from beer cans to wine bottles. Melissa and I just looked at each other’s faces. This definitely was not the type of party we thought it would be. Both of us were the sickeningly sweet, good-girl type. We were taught by our parents to never ever consume such poison in our entire lives. Well, I was, anyway, but I didn’t expect Melissa to try alcohol anytime soon, either. That’s when we spotted Kate in the crowd. She was guzzling down out of the bottle the reddest wine I’d ever seen in my entire life.
“Hey, Mel, why dontcha try some? Kate asked her sister, “It’s REALLY good and makes you feel absolutely AWESOME!”
“Err, not r---”
I cut Melissa off and said, “I’m going to be in the bathroom, alright? I have to go really bad!” Melissa excused me.
The bathroom was absolutely magnificent. The floor tiles were lit up while a crystal chandelier glittered all around me. There were three stalls inside of this bathroom, and their walls were an extremely dark brown. The countertop was silvery granite, and the sinks were clear glass with some sort of tropical fish inside of them. The walls were tan or maybe a really light brown. I was unsure. The borders of the mirrors were composed of highly valuable gemstones, such as topaz, diamond, ruby, sapphire, and many more that I didn’t know the names of. Everything from the toilets to the stall doors were motion-activated. Inside of the bathroom played some tranquil, harmonic music just like the background music during a calm part of a movie. The bathroom was absolutely stunning and luxurious.
When I was done, the party had transformed into total chaos. There were about five mini-fights occurring. Glass had shattered everywhere in the kitchen. Melissa was sitting on the sofa in the ten-times-as-normal living room waiting for me in her bikini. She tossed my bathing suit at me, so I walked into the bathroom once again.
The pool had been heated to a bathtub-water hot. A few minutes after we both dived in off of the diving board, Drew from Chemistry class came over.
Drew had short-brown hair and chocolate eyes. He’d normally be wearing square, horn-rimmed glasses, but of course he couldn’t swim with them. His skin was a medium tan and shined like the sun due to how drenched in pool water was. He wore a delightful smile as he approached us. An alcoholic smell lingered in his breath.
“Hey, girls, how’s it goin’?” he asked kindly. When I lifted up my head to answer, I noticed he’d been suddenly hypnotized by my boobs. This created uneasiness for me.
“Absolutely wonderful!” exclaimed Melissa, “How about you?”
“I’m absolutely great! I’ve never felt better in my life!” he replied.
“Well, that’s good!” Melissa replied back.
I felt something icy-cold and wet on my shoulder and turned around. Drew had placed his hand on top of my shoulder. Now I really felt uneasy! His icy-cold hand then slid down my arm and then around the front. Melissa had been turned around to watch someone else I didn’t know. I gave him a fierce kick in the stomach, and he was soon gripping it instantly. I darted away, so Melissa noticed what had happened and followed.
I snatched up my dress and suddenly darted into the bathroom. Melissa lounged on the cotton-soft sofa in the living room while I dressed in the bathroom. As soon as I went into a stall, I heard the door to the bathroom open and someone stepping in with droplets of water crashing to the floor. I hurriedly dressed myself back into my new dress and rushed out of the stall. The person who had come into the bathroom gripped hold of my dress and pushed me up against the wall.
Without even glancing at their face, I ran like a bull and freed myself from their grip. I then dashed out of the bathroom and ran to where Melissa had been sitting on the plush sofa. Her glasses had been in her right had, and the ear holders of them had been stretched at obtuse angles. The lenses had spider webs shooting down them. She looked quite peculiar without her glasses on. I guess it was because I’d been used to seeing her with them on. Sitting beside her was Kate, who appeared to be severely intoxicated.
“We have to go home, now, because my glasses are broken,“ Melissa announced to me, “Uh, woah! What happened to your dress?”
Wha?”
“The shoulder is torn! Look at it!”
“Woah, I don’t know!” I hadn’t realized the person had torn my dress! I peeked at it and noticed the flap that had been created by the person’s gripping hands.
“Oh, and Kate has to drive, because I can’t see well enough to drive.”
“WHAT? Are you insane? Look how drunk she is! We’ll get killed!”
“Tons of people drive drunk and get away with it! Besides, who else is gonna drive?”
“I can!” I was an experienced driver, even though I didn’t even have a permit, yet. I knew every state law there was and everything else you must know in order to drive! I even amazed my mom a few times, even though she’d ground me immediately after I drove!
“No way! You are definitely not old enough to drive! You don’t even have a permit! Do you realize what kind of trouble we could get into?”
“Alright, you’re right,” I lied. I hadn’t wanted to enrage her anymore, so I shut up. Maybe she was right. What were the chances any of us would get killed, anyway?
The three of us then exited the building and hopped into the car when Kate tried to push the keys into the ignition. She plugged up the air vents for the air conditioner with them, instead. She then attempted to turn them, but they wouldn’t budge. “Damn! Your car is broke!” she screeched at her sister.
“No, you just put the keys into the air conditioner,“ Melissa corrected her.
“Oh!”
“Hey, umm, could you turn on the heat?” I asked her, “My hair is freezing me!”
“Sure!”
She then fired up the ignition. Then, she turned on the windshield wipers instead of the heat. I said nothing and kept silent.
“Hey, what are those things going across the windshield?” Kate asked about the dark figures dancing across the windshield that were the wipers.
“They’re the wipers,” Melissa replied.
“Wipers?”
“Windshield wipers.”
“Oh, how did they get on?”
“You turned them on.”
“I did?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Oops!” She then attempted to turn them off but instead turned on the air conditioner. The zephyrs from the air conditioner whipped through my hair and made my teeth chatter exorbitantly. I curled up in the back seat with my legs against my chest. Then, we were off.
When Kate backed up, we landed into the wall behind us, so she then went forward and turned out of the parking lot. I then glanced at a sign that read “Speed limit 15.” We were already speeding at 45 when we were two blocks from the party. We then accelerated to 55. 65. 75. 85. Then we halted to a complete stop. Melissa’s head nearly bashed off of the dashboard. We then accelerated to 35 once again in five seconds. That’s when I realized we were on the wrong side of the road! We were going 65 when I noticed a pair of headlights in my vision. We were going to collide right with them! Kate must’ve noticed them, because she then swerved to the right. I suddenly felt the jolt of the car hit something else and then blacked out…
I woke up in the hospital with tons of needles protruding out of me! Oh, how I ABHOR needles! I peered around the room and noticed a bouquet of red roses, my favorite flowers, next to the table. I read the tag, and they were from my mom. I lied in bed for about thirty minutes, attempting to fall back to sleep once again. That’s when my mom came in. She looked like she was going to have a panic attack when she came into the room.
“Hello, Juliet! How ya feeling’?” she asked me as I glanced in her direction.
“I feel fine. How are you?”
“I was a little nervous to come, because I was scared that you were critically hurt! Do you hurt anymore?”
“No, not really. Why I am here?”
“You were in a car crash with your friends. You guys hit a telephone poll!”
“Is everyone else alright?”
“Well,” my mother said. I could hear the blatant hesitation in her voice as her words trudged out of her mouth, “Kate needs six stitches, but she’s going to be fine.”
“And Melissa?”
“Well, I don’t actually know. They never told me.”
“Oh,” I said, “When can we go check on her?”
“They said we can’t right now. I don’t know why, though.”
“Oh.” I let out a deep yet quieted sigh…
Two years later, we had an assignment in Creative Writing I where we were required to write a letter to someone we deeply missed. I, of course, wrote a letter to my dear deceased friend, Melissa. In it, I informed her that Kate and I eventually ended up as friends and how much I missed her. I also included a line that read, ”When I arrived at the memorial site, I couldn't think of anything witty or poignant to write, so I just carved 'I miss you' into the telephone pole that killed you and went home.”