Compare and Contrast

I felt my eyes shutting as the feeling of unconsciousness was creeping up my spine.

Wake up, I demanded myself.

My eyes shot open.

I looked up, flinching slightly at the bright light shining directly into my eyes.

"-can keep quiet, I will let you work with a partner," Mr. Harris, my biology teacher, lectured on and on. "Any questions?"

"Yeah, could you shut the blinds?" I asked.

He narrowed his eyes. "Yes, Ms. Grey." He frowned and shook his head, walking to the blinds and shutting them, just as I'd requested. "Now," he said, turning back to the class, "does anyone have any questions related to the subject?" The room was quiet. "Fine. The reports due Tuesday."

And with that, the bell rang.

"Finally!" I exhaled. I jumped out of my chair, reaching down and grabbing my book bag from beside my desk.

I walked out of the classroom, waiting just outside of the door for Matt Nicholls.

"Yeh needa sleep more, Panic. Yeh were fallin' asleep, like, all class."

I fake gasped, covering my mouth with my hand. "Mr. Nicholls!" I hit his arm. "I am appalled that you were staring at me all class!"

"I couldn't help it, yeh were fallin' over in yeh're seat. That tends to draw a persons attention."

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms, shifting my weight to my left foot. "Could you, for once, stop making up excuses and admit you were just staring at me?"

He looked to the side, as if in thought, for a moment or two. He then fixated his dark brown eyes back on my face, catching my eyes in a dead stare. "No."

"But you already know I know it's true!" I protested.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well." I opened my mouth to argue with him some more, but he spoke before I could. "So, anyways, there's this party tonight, and you're going."

I grinned. "Party? Me? Never! I don't go to those monstrosities!"

He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head back, nodding at me with complete and utter disbelief written all over his face. "Uh, huu-uh. Tha's why las' weekend at my house yeh were there, drunk off yeh're ass an'-."

"Yes, I know what I did!" I yelled, smacking his arm. "Shut up about it already!"

Last weekend, Matt had thrown a party at his place since his mom was completely chill with that stuff. I'd gotten shitfaced, as usual, took off my shirt and straddled Matt's hips, acting like I was riding a bull. And, NO, we did not do anything. We had on all of our clothes, minus both of our shirts.

"So, do yeh need me teh pick yeh up tonight?" he asked me.

"Matthew," I fake whined. I leaned up against him, burying my face in his chest. I wrapped my arms around his torso. "Take me home." I looked up to see his facial expression. He just looked really confused. "Your room has just been added to my list of homes." I smiled sweetly and pushed him against the locker, resting my head on his chest again.

"Wasn't it already? Half of my closet is yeh're stuff."

"Hey! No PDA!"

I opened my eyes. Curtis Ward was standing about five inches from my face, leaning down and resting his hands on his knees. He grinned at me when I looked at him with a blank expression.

"Curits, hugging isn't PDA," I informed him.

"Neh, but pinning someone agains' the locker is!"

I narrowed my eyes at him and stood up and off of Matt.

"So, where're yeh goin, Panic?" Matt asked, smoothing the wrinkles in his shirt I'd made.

"Ehh... Your place."

---------------------------------------------

"Yeh look fine!"

"No I don't!" I whisper-yelled.

I looked down at my attire, which consisted of a black Metallica shirt with purple writing, some frayed skinny jeans, and my light purple converse shoes. I had about ten or so black gel bracelets on one wrist, and ten purple, pink, and blue ones on the other, and I'd painted my nails dark purple. I reached over and grabbed my purple studded belt off of Matt's dresser, pulling it through all the belt loops on my jeans.

"Panic, I swear teh god, if yeh don' jus' walk down there-"

"Matthew Nicholls, I swear to god, if you don't stop rushing me-."

We both left our unfinished threats hanging in the air.

"Why are yeh even freakin' out so bad? Yeh never do, an' it's jus' Tom an' Oli," Matt noted, wrinkling up his nose in confusion.

"I... Hell, I don't even know." I laughed and then walked to the bathroom attached to his room. "Glad I left this here," I said, picking up my blue Conair hair straightener off of the counter. I flipped it over and switched it on. "I'm coming back in here in five minutes, so if you're in the shower, sucks for you," I told Matt before leaving his room and walking down the stairs to the kitchen.

I grabbed a Granny Smith apple off of the counter and rinsed it in the sink.

Why was I freaking out so bad like that? It's not like I was doing anything different than I normally did. Still, I couldn't shake off the dreading feeling I had in the pit of my stomach. It was growing as the days came closer. Closer to what, might you ask? Oh, Halloween. I loved Halloween, but this year, something in me was telling me to fear it this year. I don't know, it's just my mind being stupid, I guess. I'd also been having these weird dreams lately. Like... I don't know how to explain them... There was darkness, and a lot of it. And that Trenton girl was in it. Everything was blurry, and going in and out of focus, and I could see the faces of little kids hidden behind their costumes. I would see Tom, Oli, Matt N, Matt K, Lee, Curtis, and then it would switch to Craig and his gang. All of them had this look in their eyes. Like they were... waiting.

"Panic?"

I snapped out of my thoughts. I blinked and looked to the kitchen doorway. Tom was standing there staring at me like I was a retard.

"Uh, yeah?"

He shook his head. "Nothin'. Yeh jus' looked... I dunno. Out of it, I guess."

I shrugged my shoulders and hopped onto the counter to eat my apple. "Just thinking, I guess."

"Yeh guess?" He chuckled as he restated what I'd said.

"Yeah. So, what's up?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Oh, nothin'. Jus' waitin' for yeh, I guess."

"You guess?" I laughed, copying what he'd just done to me.

"Yeah."

I smiled and hopped off of the counter, tossing my apple into the trash can. Yes, I could eat those things pretty quickly.

I ran back up the stairs to check to see if the straightener was heated up enough, yet. As I neared his room, I heard his shower running.

I knocked on the door."Hey, I'm coming in," I told him.

"Kay," he called from the shower.

I opened the door and walked in. "Geez, you take hot showers!" I yelled directly after being blasted in the face by a lethal amount of steam. So, maybe it wasn't lethal... Close enough!

I picked up my straightener and ran it through a small chunk of my hair to see how well it would do. i was satisfied with how it was doing, so I thoroughly ran it through all of my hair. It only took my about ten minutes.

"You know, I'm surprised you're still in the shower," I said as I turned off my straightener.

"I was waitin' for yeh teh finish with yeh're hair so I could get outta here," he replied.

"Uh huh, sure. What were you doing in there for the extra ten minutes? Jacking off?" I teased.

"Only to the thought of you!" he playfully defended.

"Ha, well I don't do the same for you!" I yelled, running out of the bathroom laughing.

I reached the bottom of the stairs and ran into Tom.

"Ah!" I screamed.

He flinched. "Tha' was loud." He rubbed his ears. "Aye, now why did yeh go an' straighten yeh're hair? It's already straight!"

"And now it's board straight," I responded, flicking his forehead. "Is it not hot like this?" I asked playfully, flipping my bangs out of my face and swinging my hips a little.

"Tha's not wha' I'm sayin'. It's jus'... Sexier when it's natural. Cause, it's long an' thick. There's more hair teh grab onto durin' sex when it's natural!"

My eyes widened and I swung my arm back. He busted up laughing and turned away, shielding himself from me. I smacked his arm and laughed. "Is that all that guys ever think about?!" I yelled.

"Isn't that wha' girls always thin' abou'?" He grinned, winking.

"No. Well, not me. I thin' abou' music. An' yeh," I teased, copying his accent.

I saw him narrowing his eyes at me, so I turned to run, but before I even made it to the stairs, he'd wound his arms around my waist.

"Ah! No, Tom, lemme go!" I screamed. I flailed my arms around in front of me, trying to reach up my legs and kick him, but to no avail. "That's not fair! You're a year younger than me, but you're like a foot taller than me, and totally stronger! How does that work out?!"

"Reasons yeh'll probably never find out," he answered simply. "An' I'm only, like, three or four inches taller than yeh, geez, no need teh panic."

"Oh, haha."

"Aye, I'm done, so if yeh're wantin' teh put on some make up, do it now," Matt informed me, walking down the stairs.

I rushed up the stairs and into his room. Yes, I even had my own make up and stuff over here. I grabbed some black pencil eyeliner, mascara, and some purple eyeshadow. Getting ready for anything never took me long. The longest I took to do anything was wake up.

I was finished in less than a minute, and yes it looked perfectly fine!

I opened the top drawer of the miniature jewelry type box sitting against the wall on the bathroom counter. I dug through it for a few seconds and pulled up my small purple octopus necklace. It may have only six legs, but it looked like more of an octopus than it did a squid.

I switched off the light and ran down the stairs. "Hey, look I'm ready to go!" I grinned at the three guys standing before me.

"She's not anything like all the other girls."

"WHY?! And I'm okay with that," I said shrugging.

"Eh, yeh take less than thirty minutes to get completely ready, and it takes most other girls thirty minutes to do one thing."

I shrugged again. "I guess I just really can't go under the category of most girls."

"Guess not," Matt said, grabbing his keys off the entertainment center and walking out the door.

"Oh! I almost forgot my wallet." It was right next to where his keys had been. It was a black wallet chain with a white skull in the middle. I hooked the little hook thing to the front belt loop on my jeans and slid the wallet into my back pocket.

Oli slid into the passenger seat and Tom sat in the back. I sat in the back seat behind Oli. It was easier to talk to Matt, because I could see him.

Oli would have driven Tom and himself to the party, but Oli's car had been taken away last Sunday, and he wouldn't be getting it back until this coming Sunday. So, Matt had been giving Tom and Oli a ride to and from school the past week. He just brought them to his house today since there was a party tonight and we were all going.

The drive was silent, apart from the music we had blaring. Luckily, it was only a five minute drive.

Matt drove past the house, but saw no empty spaces along the side of the street close to the house.

"Eh, fuck this." He turned the wheel suddenly and pulled the car up over the curb and into whoevers place this was' lawn. A few teens scrambled to get out of the way.

"Well, done, Matt!" I cheered.

He turned off the engine and the four of us piled out. The house was spewing with drunk teenagers, teens trying to get high, throwing toilet paper at the house. I saw at least twelve different make out sessions taking place on my way inside. And inside was a lot worse. There was basically no space to move, or at least, the first ten feet of stepping through the front door. I turned and grabbed onto Tom's wrist, guiding him in front of me and then letting him lead me through there.

I found myself in the kitchen. Bottles of vodka stretched along the length of the counter, and red plastic cups littered the kitchen and living room floor. I pretty much knew as soon as I'd walked in the doorway I'd be shitfaced in no time.