Life Plans

Saturday arrived much quicker than any of us expected. Church was over a lot quicker than usual, and before I knew it, me, Shay, Tammy and Taylor were in my room putting on our new dresses, doing make-up and hair, and just being girls.
“Alright, should I go for green or purple?” asked Shay as she tried to decide what eye shadow to wear.
“Go purple. It brings out your eyes” responded Tammy.
“Yeah, like there’s going to be any chance that anybody will see them with her boyfriend all over her?” I said. This sparked one of our usual debates over the level of PDA Shay and Chad always gave.
My phone then began to ring, and I almost missed it jamming to the tunes of Minaj, but if I ignored Dylan even once, shit was going down.
“Mhhhhm, speaking of public displays of affection, how are you and your lover boy doing?” said Taylor, directing a wink at me. I gave her a slightly less-than-polite hand gesture before answering the phone.
“Yo, this is Cassie, speak now”
“Dude, where are you guys? Do you realise how much convincing it took to get Chad to let the girls leave to get ready at yours? Most of that convincing came from me. If you’re all late, it’s on my head.”
I laughed. Chad was getting really obsessed with the perfectness of this party. The girls had been telling me how much of a dictator he had turned into when they were helping him set up.
“Listen, tell Mugabe we will get there when we get there. We were planning on being fashionably late. I don’t want to hear another word on the matter, goodbye” and I hung up before he could respond.
“Tut tut, Cassie,” said Shay, shaking her head, “that’s not going to get you a kiss at midnight now, is it?” She narrowly managed to avoid the pillow I aimed at her head.
For the past few days, the amount of relationship jokes about me and Dylan had skyrocketed. They even had Cian coming to me and asking me if it was true we were going to let him ride an elephant at the wedding. The truth was, there really wasn’t anything there. At least, nothing that I was aware of. He was my closest friend on this side of the ocean, and that’s how things were going to be. Or, at least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
No, that’s all there is to the story. But my friends seemed to think otherwise.

We were all dressed, ready and an hour late for the party. Everything was going to plan. After finally separating my dad from his nature show to give us a lift, we were on our way out the door. Before I could get out, however, Derrek grabbed me by my arm and pulled me aside.
“Listen, I want you to be careful, okay?” he said to me, with a worried look in his eyes. I rolled my eyes. He always gave me the same speech every time I was going out to a party. He is the exact definition of a protective older brother.
“Yeah Derrek, I know. Don’t get pregnant, stay away from drugs and alcohol, all the usual stuff. I’ve got it.” I turned to walk away, but he held tighter.
“I’m serious Cass. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I turned to look at him. Ever since that dinner, there hasn’t really been anything to worry about. I honestly thought that I had just imagined everything I had seen, but now I was starting to re-think that.
“Derrek, is there something you wanna talk about?” I asked him, with a concerned look. He looked directly at me for a few seconds, before shaking his head and pushing me out the door.
“Nah, don’t worry about it, I just want to make sure my only sister comes back in one piece.”
I still didn’t buy his story, but my dad was honking his horn and the girls were shouting for me to get in the car with them, so I decided this conversation was going to have to be continued later on.

Stepping out of the car, I was more than half expecting a furious Chad to storm over to us and shout at us for our lateness, but with the amount of people pouring out of his house, I don’t think he noticed just how late we were. There were seriously so many people here, I was praying his parent’s didn’t suddenly decide to rush home because they had forgotten their private jet keys or something.
“Guys!” came a shout from someone jogging out of the mansion. It was Clive, and he looked like he was fully enjoying the party. He was holding a bottle of what I seriously hoped was apple juice (so I don’t drink. What can I say, I’m a good Christian girl), and he had some blonde chick on his arm.
“Ah, you guys missed it. Ronan just skinny dived into the pool in the shallow end. He had to be rushed to the hospital.”
My eyes widened. The party had only been on for an hour and already something that dramatic had happened? I was going to have to get used to this.

The party was okay, I guess. Considering I was staying as far away from the alcohol as possible. The same can’t, however, be said for my friends. They had al disappeared and were dancing with guys with bottles in their hands like there was no tomorrow. I had been fairly quiet this party, until Dylan found me, sitting on a sofa and watching everybody dance.
“What’s this? Little miss popularity is sitting being anti-social in the midst of a party? I must say, this is a side of you I thought I’d never see of you.”
I smiled at his remark. He seemed strangely sober compared to the other people at this party. Before I could voice my question, however, he answered it for e.
“I’ve never been a drinker. Never understood the benefits of alcohol to be fair.”
We just sat there talking, when a very drunk Taylor came whooping at us and being held up by a really happy looking guy. I was seriously hoping she wasn’t planning on doing anything stupid.
“You finally decided to ask her out yet D, or are you still hiding behind your vagina?”
Before Dylan could even think of a clever remark, all of Taylor’s food for the day escaped on her poor toy-boy’s shoes. His face fell quickly, and apparently any plans of what he was going to do with her left his mind.

We were still laughing when we escaped out into the garden. The party was still on full rage here. Even after the previous pool accident, people were still enjoying themselves in the pool.
I was just thinking about getting into the pool myself when I felt my phone vibrate. I pulled it out of my clutch to see I had 13 missed calls, all from Derrek. He was still ringing me now, and I figures if I didn’t answer now, I was going to get in some serious trouble.
“Hello?” I answered timidly.
“Cassie, what the fuck you think you’re playing at? You had me worried sick!” His voice sounded urgent and strained, as if he was on the brink of tears.
“Derrek, what’s wrong? It’s only 11, I told you I would—“
“No, I don’t care what time it is,” he interrupted, “I want you to come home now.”
Now I was seriously confused. I didn’t understand why I was so urgent I got home then.
“Derrek, what’s going on?”
“No time for questions, just come home. Now!” Then he hung up the phone.
I stared quizzically at my phone, waiting for it to give me some answers, but nothing. Dylan sensed something was wrong, and he asked me what was going on. I told him I had to leave.

As I got out of the taxi, I half expected to see my house in flames, but everything seemed normal when I got there. I opened my front door, and immediately Derrek rushed to me and gave me a big hug.
“Ah, good, you’re safe.” He said, but I really wasn’t in the mood to be kept in the dark about anything anymore.
“Alright D, you need to tell me what’s going on now, because you’ve seriously got me freaked out.” But he just pretended he didn’t hear me, and after ordering me to go to bed, he climbed up the stairs to his room.
I kept staring after him, deciding that tomorrow, I would have to have a serious talk with my brother.

One thing that people always tell me about myself is that I’m a very deep sleeper. Although this does have its advantages, It wasn’t very useful that night. You see, if I wasn’t such a deep sleeper, I would have heard my phone ringing non-stop with worried people asking me where I was, or all the pings and alerts I was getting. But I didn’t see any of these until the morning. The morning was when I found out that not only had three people been shot at Chad’s party, but half of the house had gone up in flames that had not been an accident.