The Heart Does Go On

I was surprised on Friday when Kathryn approached Duke and I. She actually stopped for more than a 5 second chat, and then she did something I didn’t expect. She invited us to her sister’s birthday party. She said she was allowed a few friends, and she was inviting Duke and the gang, as well as I. Even though we were still a little annoyed at her for ditching us completely to go with her old friends (To add to the injury none of her friends could make it, so we put the pieces together to see that’s the only reason why Duke, the gang and I were invited in the first place) but we still accepted, just because we had nothing to do that next night.

When we ran the party past the gang, they were just as excited. Even Bakura was invited to go, and he accepted as well. Maybe I could get to know Bakura, he seemed nice.

***

I heard the car honk, and I rushed down quickly with my bag to Duke’s car. Because a lot of our gang was going, we were going in two cars – Duke and Joey. Joey was taking Tea, Yugi and Bakura whilst Duke was taking Tristan and I. Joey fought with Duke for a long time over who would take me, but it was decided it was easier for Duke to pick me up.

As soon as I was out the door and out of sight from my father, I took off my cardigan, which was hiding how inappropriate this dress was. The dress has adjustable straps, so depending how you wore the straps, and what sort of bra you wore, the dress could be a very classy dress, or a very immodest dress.

Me, modest and classy? Nah, at least not anymore. I chose the second option. The dress had black spaghetti straps, and it had a sort of ‘v’ neck that went very low cut. I however adjusted the straps so that the dress wouldn’t be low cut at all, but I wore a push up bra to show ultimate cleavage in the ‘v’ area. Showing a little cleavage was okay; my boobs weren’t showing or hanging out at all. I may be a little trashy, but I’m not 100% trashy or slutty.

As for the dress itself, it was a sexy fiery red colour. It was made of a silky material, and bunched up at the bottom like a formal dress would. It also had a black bow at the back that tied up.

When I jumped into the passenger seat of Duke’s convertible (which had the roof on as it was a very cold night) Tristan and Duke turned to the back to look at me, and both whistled lowly.

“Who are you trying to impress?” Duke asked.

Tristan opened up his mouth to speak but I cut him off, “Don’t even say it.”

Joey was right. Once the gang had a while to realise that we were just friends and were just acting friendly towards each other, they backed off a little and stopped making comments. However every now and then a subtle comment was thrown at us that we should be dating or that we still liked each other, and it got annoying.

“Okay. Well you’ll impress every guy there. So no matter who you’re trying to impress, you’ll do it.” Tristan said.

“So Duke I’ve been too busy to ask, what happened with the ginger?” I asked Duke, sniggering at the derogatory term I used.

“Oh don’t get me started on her. She’s like ‘I want you to respect me, I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to kiss’ and all of this.” Duke said, shaking his head.

As much as I thought Duke was a pig/player for saying this, I still had to giggle. EVERYONE in the school knew that Duke doesn’t do relationships, and he only wants a fun time, even if it wasn’t always sex. Besides, it was weird for a girl to immediately say ‘I want you to respect me’ only after a few dances! It’s not like you’re giving your virginity away in a dance!

“Now she won’t leave me alone. She keeps calling me. She kept telling people we were going out. Argh. So much for respecting herself!” Duke complained, and Tristan and I roared with laughter.

Silly hypocritical girls are so funny. If a girl does want to respect herself and not sleep with a guy with like Duke, then I really respect her. When she complains that dancing is not respecting herself, and also becomes infatuated with the guy that only wants a fun time with her, it’s a funny situation.

Duke pulled up outside Kathryn’s house, and we all piled out. We saw Joey’s car out the front, and headed in.

When we got in, we said a quick round of ‘hi’ to everyone, including Kathryn’s sister Juliet. Kathryn and her sister don’t get along very well, so Kathryn was rather sour, but Juliet was still polite to us nonetheless.

It also turned out that Juliet’s twin brother, Lachlan had gone out with friends, rather than have a joint party. Kathryn stated that Juliet was going to throw a hissy fit if they had a joint party though.

“Um, Ella.” Joey said to me, once we were in our group chilling out talking to people.

“Yeah?” I asked him, feeling slightly cold (Okay understatement, VERY cold) from the cold weather.

“I need to tell you something. Come inside.” Joey said, and I gave everyone a confused look as I got off my chair and headed into the house.

“Uh, firstly, your necklace, it’s kind of been stuck in your cleavage since you arrived” Joey said, with a blush on his face because he admitted he had been looking at my cleavage.

I removed the necklace and put it into my bag. It would just keep getting in the way.

“Do you want to stay in here? It’s too cold outside. I know that Kathryn has been ignoring you for the past week, so she won’t miss us. Duke will be out picking up girls, and Tea, Tristan and Yugi have each other. All of Kathryn’s sister’s friends are already drunk and annoying” Joey offered.

“Uh yeah, sure. Okay.” I smiled, and we put ourselves on Kathryn’s lounge room sofa.

Joey and I spoke for a few hours. Every now and then Duke and Tristan would come into the room to speak to us or taunt us, they were both waaaaasted. Duke tried to hit on me a few times, and Joey CRACKED it at him. When Joey had left the room for something, a few other guys as well as Duke kept hitting on me, but they all scrambled once Joey returned.

By the end of the night, I was lying on Joey’s lap, and he was stroking my hair. I was about to drift off into a peaceful slumber, when I heard screaming coming from one of the bedrooms. Instantly, Joey and I jumped off, and we headed out to the bedroom to see what the commotion was.

I saw Juliet on the floor crying, a very scared looking Sam, an angry looking unknown male and another unknown female crying next to Juliet.

“Alright, what’s going on?” I sighed, knowing I had to deal with drunken idiotic behaviour.

“I fight with my girlfriend, and I come back in and see her making out with Kathryn’s boyfriend!” The unknown male said, getting even angrier.

“Matt! I was not making out with him!” The unknown female screeched at him.

I turned to Sam.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but you should probably leave the room if this is to be sorted out.” I sighed to Sam, and he took no hesitation to run outside.

“Besides! I saw you making out with another girl!” The unknown female screeched at the unknown male (The ‘Matt’ guy), whom I figured was her boyfriend.

“I didn’t even make out with her! She tried, but I pushed him away!” ‘Matt’ defended, but Juliet kept screaming at him.

“You’re the worst boyfriend ever to my beautiful best friend! You’re a horrible person!” Juliet screamed at him, and it felt my whole body went numb.

I closed my eyes. I could see nearly the same scene in front of me, however I was in the place of unknown female. One of my close friends was in Juliet’s position, and my ex was in ‘Matt’s position’ this had happened to me a year ago.

That was a horrible night, and one of the only nights my ex was not in the wrong. I was going to help this situation move along, so things could be sorted out a lot quicker than they were for me.

“Look Matt, I’m on your side. I think you should go out the back, before Juliet kicks you out of the house or something.” I whispered to Matt.

“Do you think I should call her mother? She’s had a LOT to drink, I’m surprised she’s still conscious.” Matt asked me.

I thought about it for a second.

“Yeah, maybe you should. Be prepared for a little drama to follow it though.” I warned him, remembering what happened when I was in unknown female’s situation.

Soon enough, Matt had exited the room, and I shut the door. Joey was still standing in the corner, looking a little dumb struck.

I sat on the bed next to unknown female, and motioned for Joey to do the same.

“Hi. I’m Ella, and this is Joey. I’ve been in a similar situation, and I’m ready to help you through this.” I smiled at her.

I then began to try and ‘counsel’ her if you will. From experience I knew how to hush a drunken girl, and unknown female (her name was Chantelle as I found out) was quiet after a while. Juliet was still stirring up drama, and I could see why Kathryn found her annoying. Chantelle had even admitted she was in the wrong and went to apologise to Matt, but Juliet shoved her back down and tried to poison her against Matt.

I eventually got Juliet to leave the room, when Joey told her that people were leaving. I was then able to coax Chantelle into apologizing with Matt, and Chantelle was not screaming or crying anymore, but was silent.

“Juliet is going to be sooo mad at me that I made up with Matt.” Chantelle said, once her mother had arrived and was about to take her home.

“Look, if Juliet is anything like the friend I had in the situation, she’s just never really experienced a good or real relationship, and doesn’t get that you’d do anything to save it. And her personality blinds her from seeing anything logical.” I snickered, thinking that Juliet is exactly like Kathryn.

Chantelle smiled, but then her smile then faltered.

“You see, my boyfriend has done wrong things in the past, that’s why I reacted the way I did. Not because of what he did tonight, but similar things that have happened in the past.” She stated.

I closed my eyes, and saw a similar scene to the one I saw before.

It was earlier in the night to the last scene I had a flashback from. A girl was so drunk she was coming onto my ex (boyfriend at the time, though) He did the right things and pushed her away. But it reminded me of what he used to do; he used to embrace it, just like Joey did that one time. And because he did the right thing now, it made me so angry he couldn’t do the right thing in the past. Which is why I got angry, and things got to where I was on the floor crying, my best friend crying next to me, and my boyfriend mad because I had made out with another guy.

“Look,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder “You’ve got some tough thinking ahead of you. Sounds like you haven’t actually forgiven your boyfriend, even though you probably said you have. Forgiveness shouldn’t be automatically given. If he really has hurt you too much to be forgiven, then he deserves to be dumped. If you don’t want to dump him and want to stop hurting, then you must find it in your heart to forgive him.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Chantelle smiled at me, and got into her mother’s car.

“No, thank you.” I whispered.

I helped and silenced a drunken girl in distress, instead of being the annoying drunk girl in distress for once. I was able to remember my past, and use it for good rather than to choke up on it. I was ready to completely move on from my past.

I looked around and saw that only Duke, Juliet, a few friends of Kathryn’s family, Joey and I were left.

“We best be off.” I said to Joey, and Joey nodded.

We didn’t bother saying goodbyes, Juliet was still drunk and worked up crying, and no one else we were friendly with. Duke had passed out on the couch from being too drunk, and Kathryn and Sam were not to be seen.

“Oh boy!” Lachlan, Juliet’s brother said, walking in.

“What?” I asked.

“Kathryn and Sam! Wow! She’s up the street SCREAMING at him, apparently he made out with another girl!” Lachlan smirked, and walked past us.

Joey and I looked at each other, but said nothing as we made our way to his car.

“I wonder how Tea, Yugi and Tristan got home.” Joey said.

“Probably walked. Yugi’s house isn’t that far, they’re probably crashing there.” I shrugged, and we stayed silent for a while.

“I had a good night tonight Ella. Before that Chantelle chick ruined everything.” Joey said, rolling his eyes.

“Hey I only helped her to shut her up!” I defended.

“You didn’t have any alcohol tonight did you?” Joey smiled.

“No. I haven’t gotten drunk in a while. As demonstrated I always end up like that Chantelle chick. I needed to get my life in order. I can party in other ways. Besides, I have better things to do with my time.” I scowled.

We arrived outside my house and I checked the time. 3AM.

“Thanks for dropping me off.” I smiled at Joey.

“No worries.” He smiled back.

I got out of the car and was halfway up the driveway when Joey called out to me.

“Ella! You forgot something!” He shouted.

“What?” I asked, trotting back to the car.

“This.” He said, getting out.

He wrapped his arms around my waist, and pulled me in for a breath taking, long, warm kiss.