This Couldn't Be More Complicated.

Addison’s POV

I felt the familiar buzz of my phone on the lounge next to me. I hesitated before picking it up. Not only did I not want to stop the movie I was watching, but I knew what it was going to be before I opened it.

Message from: Zack
‘hey are you coming to the party tonight?’

I sighed. I guess I could drink away my problems for one night.

Reply to: Zack
‘yeah. Whats the address?’

He texted back Max’s address and I trudged up the staircase to get ready. I stared at my reflection for a good 5 minutes. How was I going to make this look good tonight? I shed my clothes and turned on the shower, waited for the water to heat up and slid in. I ignored the heat on my face and just let the water run over it. ‘Tonight should be interesting’ I thought to myself. I washed my hair and finished up in the shower, turned off the faucets and wrapped my towel around me and walked to my bedroom to make some sort of presentable outfit for myself. I slipped on a pair of black underwear and a matching plain black bra. My hair had dried slightly by that stage so I ignored my clothes and went back into the bathroom to do my hair and makeup. I was lucky my mother and Zack’s parents went on the same work conference.

After I straightened my hair and put on some simple, but party-appropriate makeup, I made my way back into my bedroom to put on the clothes I had decided on. My black jeans. I was always going to wear those. I had picked out a dark blue singlet top; it had subtle black ruffling on the neckline, with sliver studs placed strategically between the ruffles. It also billowed out at the stomach and cinched at the hip. It was new, so I had never worn it. My mother had bought it for me. It fit fine, so I laced up my dirty converses and looked myself over in the mirror. The jeans seemed to hide the stomach fine. The singlet seemed to accentuate the arms but my black cardigan covered that up. I deemed myself party worthy, picked up my keys and jumped in my car. I double checked the addressed in Zack’s text message and drove over.

---

I could hear the music before I got to the house. ‘The neighbors must love Max’ I thought to myself as I pulled up and parked the car. I checked it the time. It had just gone 10:30pm. Zack would have been here since early this afternoon. I made my way up to the front door. I didn’t even bother knocking. I opened up the door and was met by a sea of band shirts and black pants. I seemed overdressed. A few of them turned and looked at me for a couple of seconds, then turned back to their conversations. I made my way through the people, there seemed to be at least 50 that I could see. Although, they had seemed to be thinning out. Three people were leaving when I had pulled up, and five more had left in the 20 or so seconds that I had been there. Maybe I had missed the classy, afternoon affair.

“Addison! Hey! Addison!” I whirled around to find the voice calling my name. It was Max. He signaled for me to come over, so I waved, picked a nameless alcoholic drink from the fridge (I was sleeping here, for some reason) and walked over to Max, who was accompanied by Zack. I hugged them both and popped the top off my drink.
“Hey guys” I yelled over the music, they both nodded their heads in understanding, then Zack pointed to the roof and shook his head. I assumed that meant the music was too loud to talk. I looked around, and even more people had left. I motioned to get Max’s attention.
“Why is everyone leaving?” I mouthed at him.
“I told them to” He mouthed back. I looked at him with a puzzled expression. He chuckled and grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled ‘didn’t expect so many people, told them cops were coming’ hastily on it. I grabbed the pen and paper, and wrote ‘what’s wrong with all the people?’ he read it and replied by writing ‘just wanted us and a few friends from my old school’ I nodded.
“People will be back later in the night” he yelled into my ear. I was confused at his logic, but nodded and took a swig from my drink. I contemplated leaving and coming back later, to avoid the intimate festivities, but I had already started drinking.

After about an hour or so of nursing my one drink, having light conversation with random strangers and talking with Zack, the party had thinned even more. There seemed to be about 9 or so faces left. Me, Zack, Max, some good looking guy with dirty, scruffy hair, another guy who was trying to look like slash, a guy with a bandana on his head, a short guy with long hair, and 3 girls.

“Let’s do some spin the bottle drinking games!” the slash guy shouted, everyone whooped. I looked over at Max
“You spin the bottle, do shots until it stops then kiss the person on the end. I don't know how I feel about the 6 guys to 4 girls ratio though” He smirked.

I sat down warily. I had never been good at this game.