I Am Invincible

It took my parents, brother and best friend a while to convince me to get out of the car when we arrived at the venue where the prom was being held. I gave them any excuse I could think of, ‘I feel sick’… ‘I left something at home that I need to go and get’ but they still didn’t listen, and practically dragged me out of the car, with me protesting the entire time.

When our parents left us – that is, Declan, Emilie and I – at the door, wishing us a fun time and warning us not to get too drunk at the after party, I considered just making a break for it, but I had my brothers hands gripping one arm and Emilie’s gripping the other, tightly.
Em gave me this look that said “If you even think about running, I’ll break both your legs”, before her face softened. She let go of my arm and took my face into her hands, making me look her in the eyes as she spoke.

“Cam. There is really nothing to worry about. He’s going to show up and then you’re going to live happily ever after. I promise.”
“You can’t promise something like that…” I murmured, “You can’t know whether or not he’s going to turn up, whether he wants me anymore…” I trailed off as the doors of the venue opened to reveal the rest of my grade socialising, eating, dancing and just having a good time. The boy and girl who opened the door went off somewhere around the side of the building. It wasn’t that hard to guess what they were going to do around there, and I shook my head in remembrance of what happened at the prom in Australia.

“Come on, Cameron, cheer up,” Declan said, noticing the look of distaste on my face and misreading it, “Look, maybe he’s already inside, I can see Tam, Hanna, Aaron and Dan over there, maybe he’s talking to them or something?”

I nodded slowly, disbelieving. Emilie grabbed my hand and led me over to my friends, while pulling Declan along with her other hand. As soon as we reached the others, Emilie let go of me and my brother and immediately attached herself to Aaron and began talking loudly to him over the music. Declan had also dropped my arm and was currently wrapped around Tamsin so tightly I couldn’t tell where my brother ended and his girlfriend began. Hanna and Dan left to get a drink from the refreshment table and I was left pretending to listen to Emilie flirt the pants off Aaron (well, not literally, but you get my drift… I hope). I mean, I don’t blame her; I’d get with Aaron in a heartbeat if number 1: he liked guys and number 2: I wasn’t already in love with someone else, but still, I didn’t really want to watch my best friend practically drooling over her date as she undressed him with her eyes.

I turned away from the pair and began scanning the crowd, hoping that I’d spot the familiar features of the boy I loved. After five minutes, I still hadn’t spotted him. No wonder. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t coming. He doesn’t love me. Why did I invite him in the first place? I just made myself look like an idiot. I’m so fucking stupid. I may as well just go-

I was cut off from my thoughts as Emilie wrapped her arm around my shoulders. She had looked away from Aaron long enough to realise that my eyes were filling with tears and came to comfort me.

“He’ll be here, Cameron. I promised, remember,” she told me.
I shook my head sadly, “No, he won’t. Everybody else is here, if he was coming, he’d be here now.”
“What’s going on?” Aaron asked, overhearing our conversation. Em glanced at me, and I shrugged, not really caring who knew.
“Cam invited his ex-boyfriend tonight so that they could hopefully get back together and he hasn’t showed up. But he will show up because he loves Cameron,” she told Aaron, but pointing that last bit at me.

I sighed unhappily and looked around the room again unintentionally, my eyes seeing nothing but the rest of the students in my grade and my teachers.
“Cameron, just relax. He’ll be here,” Em said, getting impatient with my lack of enthusiasm about the prom.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay. What are you guys talking about?”

“Music, actually,” Emilie told me, and continued chattering to Aaron about how cool it was to know a famous band like All Time Low. I think she wanted me to join in the conversation because, obviously, they’re my family, but I wasn’t in the mood, so I stood there and listened to Em talk on and on about the people she’s met through me and my dad.

As my friends talked, I got more and more depressed. By then, I assumed that everyone who was going to turn up at the prom had. And Zach wasn’t there. The music had gotten louder and more people were dancing and mingling and having a good time. I couldn’t see my brother and his girlfriend, nor could I see Hanna and Dan. I had a few people come up to me and try to start a conversation and I responded half-heartedly until they gave up and began talking to someone else. I was also asked to dance by a few of the girls, but I turned them down, feeling like a bitch. There was only one person I wanted to dance with and he wasn’t here, so what was the point in staying? There isn’t any point, I thought to myself. I’m not going to stand here all night being miserable. I knew that dad had a supply of “emergency” alcohol stashed all around the house. I didn’t think it would be too difficult to find, and I decided that all I really wanted to go was go home and drink myself to sleep and not think about how smashed to pieces my heart was.

I breathed in deeply, and exhaled so loudly that Emilie and Aaron stopped talking and looked at me strangely.
“Cam? What are you –?”
“Fuck this,” I said sharply, “I’m leaving.”
“Cameron, you can’t, its prom; you have to stay. Please C-”
“I don’t have to do shit. What is the point of being here? He didn’t turn up. I knew he wouldn’t. I don’t even know why the fuck I stayed this long in the first place. I’m going home.”
Emilie grabbed my arm.

“No, get off me. You can’t stop me,” I said, yanking my arm out of her grip and turning around. I looked back at my best friend. “I’m fucking going home, I just want to be al-” I stopped talking when I turned to walk away and instead walked straight into someone’s chest. They grabbed my shoulders to steady me, seeing as I had nearly fallen over from the impact. I was about to abuse the person for standing right behind me and nearly knocking me to the ground, when I looked up at the person’s face and all my malicious thoughts ceased…