The Academy of the Elite

Most of the day went by in a blur. I was just so excited for tonight; my first on-campus party! I make my way over to cafeteria for dinner, even though I wasn't really hungry. I search for company to sit with while walking through the aisles. Just when I started to wonder where my friends were, someone grabs my arm and pulls me onto their lap. I instantly turn to face Mike.

"Hi, Lizzy's little sister." He gives me cocky grin, and then allows me to ease my way off to sit on a separate chair. "Hey, what are you doing tonight?" He tilts his head and winks at me. The ego on this guy was so large I wonder how it fit in this room.

"Not hanging out with you, that's for sure." I curtly respond while rolling my eyes.

"No need to be hasty now. I was just asking." He says, putting his hands up, in a retreating manner.

"Actually, she is coming to my party tonight." Jack says, slipping into the chair across from me.

"Oh, so we are going to be hanging out because I'm going too," Mike says while slipping his arm around my shoulder.

I ignore his statement and pick up his arm off of my back. I look up when I hear Vic's voice as soon as he walked into the vast room. I get up and run to him, and when he sees me, he opens his arms wide. I jump into his arms and let him carry me while we embrace.

"Hey buddy," he says smiling.

"Rude. We were talking." Kellin shows up next to him. I give him an uncaring look while Vic sets down.

"My bad, didn't see you there." I turn my attention back to Vic. "How are things going for you?"

"Well, I haven't seen Lizzy for the whole day and that's making me a bit anxious, but I think I'm doing pretty well." He smiles wearily. When we get to the table I take a seat next to him.

"What's for dinner, guys?" Kellin asks picking up the menu.

"You're face," instantly comes out as a response.

"Wow, very mature Aaliyah, what are you, ten?" He looks up at me and scoffs. “So you want to do this in front of everyone or in private?” He winked.

"Ugh, get over yourself, pervert."

"Alright guys," Tony says while joining us at the table. "School starts in less than a week and I haven't finished my break project, who wants to help me?" He looks around waiting for a response, but everyone is caught up in their conversation. In reality they were all ignoring him and didn't want to help him.

The rest of the guys stream in, Lizzy walks in with some chick I have seen her with lately and vanishes with Kellin to another table. Better for me, now I can eat dinner in peace. Tonight's main course was baked ziti, and I was happy, man do I love pasta. After dinner, we scattered in groups to get ready for the party.

"See you later guys," I call out to them as I left to go meet Naomi at her room.

"Put this on," she says throwing a dress in my face. It was a black dress with a magenta colored belt. She also pushed a shoe box towards me, with flats the same color as the belt. "You're going to look perfect."

After she helps me pick out my outfit, she decides to do my hair. So while we wait for her curling iron to heat up, she starts to search for her outfit. She was making a huge mess of everything, so I was glad that we weren't in my room.

"Why is this party such a big deal?" I ask, sitting on her bed.

"Because, you don't want to disappoint Jack, now do you?" She asked with a playful tone, pulling out a perfect outfit from her closet.

"What are you talking about?" I watch her as she walks across the room to her dresser, scavenging for nylons.

After she finds a grey pair, she tosses them to me. I catch them, shrug and slip them on before sitting back on the bed.

"Isn't it obvious? Jack totally likes you." She walks back to her closet and pulls off her shirt.

"Um, no. He doesn't." I say, re-reading the text message from last night. She slips on her black and white vertical stripe sleeveless blouse then rolls her eyes at me.

"Whatever Alls." She walks over to me and snatches my phone from my hands. "Uh huh, and I suppose you don't have any feelings towards him either?" I can feel myself blush so I take my phone back.

"No, we're just friends. Nothing more." I look down and fold my hands in my lap.

"That's great. But I didn't ask if you guys were friends or anything more than that. You're avoiding my question," She says while wiggling into her sea green skinny jeans.

"I am not!" I grunt at her assumptions. I do not like Jack...do I? Of course not!

"All right, I'll just wait for the party to prove that I'm right." She walks in my direction, picking up the curling iron.

"Nothing is going to happen." I say, turning my head to face her. She grabs my head and turns it back to face forward.

"Stay still, I need to fix your hair."

After she's done fixing my hair she slips on a pair of white lace up shoes, which are adorable. She grabs a beanie that matches her pants and places it perfectly on her head.

"Are you ready?" I ask impatiently.

"Yes I am," she said while opening the door. She picked up her cassette designed clutch and we headed out to the party.

Once we arrive, I could already hear the music blasting from the boys' side of the dorm. We were welcomed into the room by Gabe whom got pushed out of the way by a dancer. The room was stuffed with crazy and drunk students and the party had just started half an hour ago. We walk further into the room and greet some friends. Naomi tells me something about talking to a guy she liked then left my side. I glance around for anyone I know, but most of them were on the other side of the room, and I wasn't motivated to talk to them enough to push through the tight crowd. Jack really hooked this place up. There were colored lights, black lights from wall to wall, and of course, a smoke machine. As I stood there against one of the walls, I observed the decor of his room, past the party stuff that, is. He had a lava lamp, and multiple band posters. He also had a small frame on his bureau with a picture of the band with, I'm guessing, his family. It was a nice picture, besides you know, the part with Kellin being there. Someone taps my shoulder and I turn to see Mike.

"I told you I would see you here." He had two cups in his hand and passed me one. "Here, they're pretty good."

I take a quick look at the drink and it was a yellowish color, and it smelled good too. It reminded me of pineapples, and I love pineapples. I take a sip and my throat burns a little. I take it that Mike saw the pained look on my face.

"You'll get used to it the second or third time around." Then he left to go talk up some chick in the corner. I swallow the drink a little too quickly, which causes me to cough.

"Good stuff, huh?" Jack emerges from the crowd, a little too swiftly which makes me look from him to the crowd and back at him confused.

"Yeah," I say looking at my now empty cup. "What is this stuff?"

"It's Malibu heat pineapple punch, my favorite. Well, when it comes to the softer stuff," He says with a grin on his face.

"I think this may be my favorite too," I say pointing at the cup.

He laughs. "Really? What other drinks do you prefer; I've got a variety here."

"I uh..this is kind of my first drink." I say looking down.

"Like, ever?" He asks.

"Yup." I instantly feel ashamed.

Why? I don't really know; it wasn't something to be ashamed about. I guess it was having Jack know that this was my first consumption of alcohol that made me feel this way. Which was dumb since I was sure if Lizzy found out she will kill me and him, mostly him.

"No way! I have to mix something up for you." He grabs my hand and rushes me over to the table that was set up against the wall. It was lined up with so many different colored alcohols, colors I didn't even think possible to drink.

"So what would you like: something light and sweet or strong and tangy?" He picked up a glass and stared at me expectantly. He looked almost excited to be serving me a drink.

"Um, surprise me," I say with an unsure smile.

I hope he doesn't give me anything that will trigger some crazy person to come out of me. He puts in a combination of colors into the glass, and the end result was a reddish looking drink. He hands it to me with a wide grin and I take a sip. It tasted like candied apples, but in liquid form. It was so yummy, yet my head started to feel foggy and buzzy. Lizzy is going to kill me.

"This," I say between gulps, "is good." He flashes a satisfied smile and walks back to be at my side.

"I was hoping you would like it." I nod and take another sip.

I had just finished my drink when I noticed he was staring at me the whole time. I glance up at him, and realize how cute he looked tonight. I stared into his brown eyes and felt my heart rate pick up. I wanted to touch his dark brown hair, to have my fingers run through it at least once. Or maybe that was the drink thinking for me?

"Ally, I uh.." He trails off, and I was suddenly eager to know what he wanted to say next. But Gabe comes to ruin the moment and steals Jack away from me.

"Looks like someone is trying to crash your awesome party," I mumble before he is totally out of my sight.

I sigh and slump to the floor. Maybe Naomi was right; maybe all this time I've been spending with him rubbed off to wanting something more. I stand up and figure, a few more drinks wouldn't hurt, right? I mean why not? I had nothing better to do, and in this moment I didn't really feel like socializing with anyone new. Which was odd, because normally I would want to be talking to everyone I see. It would be nice to get some friends that weren't in my major, since the friends I have now take up half of my class. For now, I just formed different concoctions with the drinks that stood out the most for me.

I see Max walk up to me, and I was too far gone to remember what I didn't like about him. He looked so cute in his little outfit. He smiled at me and I called him over, eager to talk to him. I missed the guy.

“Hey Ally.” Max stood a cautious distance from me.

“Hey you,” I pulled him closer to me, resting my head on his shoulder.

“Are you drunk?”

“I missed you Max, don’t leave me, okay?”

“Ally, I think you’re . . .” he didn't get to finish his statement because I pressed my lips against his.

So this is what kissing felt like? He pulled me in closer and I grabbed his hair. I was enjoying myself when the world started to sway.

“Max,” I pull away, “you should totally be my boyfriend.”

“Ally, I am going to get you water, okay? No more drinking.”

“Okay baby.” I happily bounce waiting for him to come back.

Once in a while someone would come up to me and try to start a conversation, but I kept it short, telling them I was waiting for my boyfriend to come back. Soon enough, everything started to get hazy, and I found myself spitting out slurred words. At one point, I got dizzy, and just sat back on the floor. I felt like I was waiting forever, but I am sure that wasn't really the case. I knew I was too drunk to be coherent of anything at all; the small voice in my head was reminding me of how much I will hate myself in the morning. I am not very fond of me now to be honest. I start to black out and the last thing I see is someone's hand grabbing mine and helping to my feet.

I woke up in my room the next day with a pounding headache vaguely recalling last night’s events. I squeezed my eyes shut wishing I could change everything that happened, that I could have told Mike no instead of taking the drink. I moaned when my alarm went off making my head feel like it was being split open. I yawn and realize how dry my throat felt, it was a horrible feeling. I drag my feet against the floor and make my way to the bathroom. I strip my clothes off and get into the tub. I plug the drain so that it could fill up and I could just sit there, thinking about the consequences of my careless actions from last night. I know that if anyone finds out I could get a strike against me and Jack could get into huge trouble for the party and the alcohol. That would be two strikes against him and maybe even the whole band would get into hot water. I put my head under water once again hating what I did. how could I be so stupid? Plus, Lizzy is going to kill me. I get out of the tub, take three pain pills, and chug down a whole bottle of water, feeling very little relief.

I was well aware that I would have to face a morning with Lizzy and somehow fake being okay. I groaned to myself when I got a text from Max.

‘Good Morning beautiful.’

Crap, I almost forgot about Max, almost. I continued to read the text.

‘I wanted to let you know we will be announced as a couple next Monday. Isn't that great?’

Dandy, just dandy.