Burn

Strong alcohol poured down Rae’s throat like battery acid, making her scrunch up her face with distaste, her chest and throat burning with a slight tingle as a result from the alcohol. Once the taste faded slightly, she raised the bottle again, taking another swig but managed to cough on the awful taste, sputtering the liquid slightly.

The girl set the bottle back down on the table, bringing the back of her hand across her mouth to wipe the remnants of alcohol from her lips. She already felt somewhat out of place, the last thing she wanted was to walk around looking like her mouth was sweating.

Turning on her heel, she scanned the party, deciding she was going to be social with anyone but Trystan; she was still proper pissed about being lied to. It wasn’t that Rae was a total freak about getting in trouble, she had been in trouble plenty of times in her life. The problem was, is that the type of trouble these boys got in was not the kind she wanted to be involved in, or around to witness.

Moving through the crowd, Rae spotted one of her friends from grade school, Erin. Erin had always been a lovely bird and still kept in touch with Rae, sending Christmas cards every year. It was a relief when the girl smiled at Rae, opening her arms for a hug.

“Hello love! Happy Birthday!” she wrapped her thin arms around Rae’s small frame, having to bend to hug the shorter girl. Erin was tall and languid of form, something Rae wished she was. “Alright?”

“Thanks, I’m doing splendid, besides the fact that Trys dragged me here,” Rae replied with a laugh, flashing a smile at the people that she didn’t know. “But you know me, I just can’t say no.”

“Oh that’s not true!” Erin disagreed, waving away Rae’s comments. She turned to the boy and girl that she had been chatting with. “This is Rae Bastian, we went to grade school together. She likes to pretend she isn’t, but she’s a feisty bird.”

I rolled my eyes, extending my hand to shake with the girl and boy, who were Gretta and John. “Lovely to me you lot. How do you know Louis?”

“My brother works with him,” John explained, sipping his pink colored drink. He was dressed extremely sharply, his clothes screaming designer, and screaming gay. He even had a bow tie on, which made Rae immediately classify him as adorable. “So naturally I came here and Gretta was my plus one.”

“I see.”

“And you?”

“My best mate Trystan seems to have a lot of friends.” The comment went over their heads, for they couldn’t really see the sarcasm in Rae’s comment. They took it for a simple reply, and they should have thought nothing more. “This is a rather lavish house… you don’t think he’s worried about it getting fucked up?”

Gretta shrugged, her blue eyes glazed with alcohol. “As if he cares, he’ll just hire maids to clean the whole place. Plus, it’s really Harry who threw it.”

Rae’s teeth clamped together slightly, working like a horse chomping at the bit. “I see. And you guys know him as well?”

She snatched a drink out of someone’s hand as they passed, the passerby too bladdered to take noticed. She took a sip of it, trying not to cringe at the amount of rum that she could taste through the soda. “Sort of,” Erin answered slowly. She was bouncing slightly to the music that was blasting through the entire home. “I only met him once and he seemed well enough. But you know, you hear things.”

“I heard his father tried to get him to go to rehab for his drinking,” John whispered to the group, making a face that read ‘uhhh huhhh’. “But he refused and apparently broke a lot of shit in their house.”

“Is it true that he got kicked out of university for beating up a professor?” Erin questioned John. It was clear that he had all the gossip. Rae made note of that.

“Definitely true. Apparently the professor accused him of being drunk during the midterm and Harry flipped out, throwing him half way across the room and beating the bloody hell out of the bloke.”

The entire conversation my Rae’s sea green eyes flicked back and forth between the talking teens. They were conversing about things she had already heard, things that had made her want to stay away from the boy in question. Everyone around knew about or heard of the bad boy that was Harry Styles.

The angst ridden teenage boy had attended grade school with a young Rae, and though she didn’t have the displeasure of meeting him on a personal level, she knew that he wasn’t exactly a cup of tea. His parents were really brilliant lawyers, which was ironic since their son wasn’t exactly an upstanding citizen.

Even when they were young, it was well know that the Styles boy had anger issues and that his parents didn’t seem to do anything about it. Rae vividly remembered as a young girl that her parents were always talking in hushed tones, always saying, “The poor boy doesn’t have anyone to tell him no” or “the lad is just crying out for attention.” Whatever it was, she was always told to stay away from him as a child, and the girl did so willingly

After a few minutes of discussion that had drifted away from gossip, Rae excused herself by saying she needed the restroom, desperately needing to take a break from people. It was difficult to locate it, but she eventually found a bathroom door upstairs where there wasn’t a line of people waiting to relieve themselves.

Opening the door, she walked in only to pause and have an apology quickly bubble to her lips, the door hitting a figure sitting on the floor. The apology fell silent from her lips, seeing the boy lying on the floor with his head resting on the white porcelain, content to use it as a pillow.

The figure picked up his head, his chocolate brown curls sweaty and sticking to his forehead slightly. His face was that of pure beauty, though it was obviously red with alcohol, his eyes glassy and bloodshot. He wore a white t-shirt and jeans that fit his form. It took no amount of time for her to quickly put a name to the gorgeous boy in front of her.

“Sorry,” she muttered quickly, turning to leave.

He caught her delicate ankle, stopping her. She froze, turning to look at him over her shoulder. “Please don’t leave me,” he slurred. He looked like absolute rubbish and Rae realized that he hadn’t been sitting on the ground for sheer enjoyment; he was sick. “Well come on, have a sit.”

“I really can’t-"

“You would leave a sick lad all by his lonesome?” he asked, raising a brow. “What if I pass out and drown in my own vomit? My death would be on your hands.”

“It most certainly wouldn’t,” she snapped at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “I didn’t force alcohol down your mouth.” He stared at her, no reply seeming to come to his lips.

His eyes still begged for Rae to sit before he suddenly turned to the toilet, retching into the toilet bowl with an awful coughing sound. She blanched, not really enjoying the sound that was emitting from his throat as he choked. She remembered how she used to cry when she was little when she was sick, unable to find relief in anything but her mother’s voice.

Feeling guilt well up inside of her, Rae cursed under her breath, stepping into the bathroom and shutting the door firmly shut behind her. Setting her purse down on the sink and kicking off her heels, moving to sit on the very cold tile as the boy did one last retch before panting.

Harry haphazardly reached up to flush the toilet, setting his face back onto the toilet as he gasped for air. His convulsions had been quick and very hard, making Rae wonder how much he could have possible drank to be vomiting with such vehemence.

“What’s your name?” he croaked, voice raspy from the bile that had just lit it on fire. He didn’t pick his head up to face her, he rather let it hang lifeless. “You do have a name, don’t you?”

Rae blinked in surprise, not realizing that she hadn’t answered. “It’s Rae, Rae Bastian.”

“Ah, Trystan’s friend. Harry Styles.”

“I know.”

His jaw twitched slightly, and though she couldn’t see his lips, she got the sense that he was smiling. “So you’ve heard of me.”

“Not exactly something to be boasting about, but yes.”

“But you have heard of me.”

Rae stared at him long and hard, not sure if he was trying to quote Pirates of the Caribbean. She decided that it wasn’t his type of movie and that he wasn’t intelligent enough to be quoting Jack Sparrow; it was just his arrogance talking.

Before she could get a word out, she saw him tense again, knowing another wave of sickness was coming over him. He coughed hard, his body spazzing as he dipped his head in the toilet again. Though she wasn’t sure what it was, Rae felt some sort of instinct kick in, reaching her hand to place it on his back rubbing small circles as the muscles underneath her hands jerked and twitched every time he threw up.

In a few moments it was over, his body slumping with exhaustion. Rae kept her hand on his back, though she had stopped rubbing it. Something in her felt slightly bad for the boy sitting in a pitiful position. That was, until the next few words that came out of his mouth.

“I can see up your skirt, you know? Lovely knickers.” Rae flinched, realizing that he had his head tilted, a dazed smile on his face and a glimmer in his emerald eyes as he sat there with a proper good view up her skirt. “Lace.”

“Fucking bastard,” she swore, standing up. She opened the door, intentionally hitting him as his laughs echoed off of the tile.

“Oh don’t be like that, love.”

“Good luck not drowning in your own puke, twat.”

With that, Rae slammed the door shut, the wall vibrating with its force. From the other side of the door she heard a laugh and a muffled, “Happy Birthday.”