Cheers to "Friends"

[09] And This Is Why You Don’t Get Drunk Kids…

The final touches of my make-up were put on fifteen minutes ago. My hair was already tied in a messy pony tail in double time of the make-up. Shoes were already laced on and, my outfit seemed to be screeching at me for putting it on so early. Well, metaphorically my outfit was screeching at me.

It was already eight-oh-one, and I was starting to think that maybe Kane had stood me up. What person is late to pick up their date? Actually, let’s rephrase that: What person is late to pick someone up? Thoughts of him laughing at my expense in the supposed party that I was to attend with him sprang in my mind. He wouldn’t do that to me, right? The same thought kept on nagging at me and eating away the only glimpse of a true friend I had. My second attempts of pushing the thought of his laugh away was successful with my constant repetition of ‘If X equals negative twenty-six, then what is bracket twenty three multiplied by X bracket negative six bracket seven multiplied by six X bracket?’

My reciting of the times tables spewed out like a person who was just stabbed in the artery and soon enough I found the right answer - negative thirty-nine thousand and nine hundred and ten. You might be wondering why in the name of Malcolm X, am I doing math equations on a Saturday evening waiting for Kane to come when they weren’t even set as homework. Well, let’s just say I want to pass my A-levels with an ‘A’ and to not lose my scholarship. It also took my mind off of him.

My phone convulsed into set vibrations and I swooped it up with eager anticipation to my ear. I pressed the plastic up against my ear as hard as I could thinking that maybe if I pressed hard enough his voice would lull me into a false sense of him being near me.

I didn’t bother to speak, “Tara?” he asked uncertainly.

“Mmm?” My voice cracked, I tried to keep my cool. Truth was, I was just happy to hear his voice. Hell, I was even happy to get a phone call from him!

“I’m climbing the stairs up to your room. I hope you’re ready!” He raised his voice a little on the last sentence. I quirked my eyebrow. I didn’t know why I did it. It wasn’t like he could see me through my cell phone anyway. “I know how you girls are, always wanting to be ‘fashionably late’!”

I laughed, “Don’t worry. I’m afraid I’m not one of them ‘fashionably late’ ladies you’ve been describing.” I scrambled a little to put my things away and legged it out of the door to nearly be knocked over by Kane in the flesh. With such force of my frantic running, I doubled backwards and landed on my backside.

“Yep, you’re right. Not many girls I know get so excited that they bounce of the walls and into me.” He said amusedly in to the hand held phone. He realized the necessity of talking into the phone at me when in reality I was practically five feet away from my face, and ended the phone conversation there.

I looked at him through sarcastic narrowed eyes, and gave my hand towards his general direction to help me up from my lying position. He got my telepathic gesture and made his hand latch on to mine. With one gentle pull I was already up on my feet and a little too close to him.

I’m sure many of you people out there have a security wall around you. You know, the type of invisible wall that warns you that someone might be a little too close into your personal space; the type of invisible wall that doesn’t go off when you’re really close to someone, like your parents. Well he was definitely not the type of person who made me feel comfortable in such close proximity. He made my heart beat a little faster, my eyes grow wider (somewhat like a dear in headlights), and let’s not forget about my knees nearly quivering at just the hot breath knocking on my hair. Never have I felt really like this, and usually I would imagine – one would be scared, but I wasn’t. I rather enjoyed the butterflies in my stomach.

“We should get going otherwise we’re both going to be fashionably late, and we don’t want that. Do we?” I whispered breathlessly.

He whispered back in the same manner, “Yeah…”

_WW_

I turned left and I see a boy on top of a girl – making out. I turn right and I catch at an earshot them – talking dirty. I look forward and I see a girl holding onto a guy’s crotch whilst also making out. As a sign of frustration I lift my arms and tense my fingers in the air. If I weren’t to know better I would say this is a more homely version of the Moulin rouge!

“Your carbonated beverage, M’lady.” A deep unintelligible voice tickled my ears to make me jump and swivel around as if it were an involuntary reflex. It was Kane. With two drinks in his hand – in one hand he had a red can with what looked like Coca Cola. The other hand held another metal can except this time it had a ‘strongbow’ written on it. He probably thought I didn’t know which one I was supposed to take so as to hurry up my staring he propelled the hand with coke in it towards me. Obviously, I didn’t take that as a hint at all and instead just grabbed his ‘strong bow’ instead took a mighty fine swig at it. I bet Kane was thinking I could be in a commercial right now with my pro-longed swallowing of the beer.

“I thought you didn’t like beer?” He looked at me quizzically.

“I just needed it.” I said back casually.

“You never cease to amaze me’ he smiled.

“Ah – It’s what I do best” I said flirtatiously. He looked at me for a long while, almost like he was searching some part of me out.

He finally said something, “Wanna dance?”

I pretended to think about it for a bit by putting my fingers to my mouth and looking upwards. I made sounds to add to the affect. To finally finish the suspense I shook my head, “I don’t dance,” Blunt. The way I rolled when I was being playful.

“Hey! That is not true! I saw the way you moved on that banister! It looked as if you were in your very own element! Don’t lie! Besides the only person who’ll be making a fool of themselves will be me. I win, hands down, in the worst dancer competition.” he reasoned.

‘Ah – what the heck?! Everyone here is drunk any way! Not like they’re going to remember the scenes of the other night” I convinced myself.

“Yeah, and they’re all attached to the opposite sex’s lips so it’s not like they’re going to be paying attention to your dancing style.” Kane pointed out. He took another swig of the beer and gave it to me. I mimicked his actions and placed it on the floor to fully swing out at the back of the couch to land right next to Kane. I brushed off the imaginary dust from my dress.

He gave his hand to me; I took it as he led us to the middle of the living room. “If you really can’t dance without a pole, how about you pretend I was the pole?” he said jokingly.

I wracked my brains to think of something witty to say but only came up with “Oh, Shut Up” which I settled for. He smiled at my lack of a come back and got closer to me as I just jumped about and swayed my hips a bit. It really wasn’t going well. It almost looked as if we were both dancing separately from each other.

“I told you I wasn’t a good dancer,” I said over the loud music. He didn’t say anything but gave me his hands instead. Once again I took it and he pulled me into his chest so we almost looked like we were doing some slow dance with each other. “And you don’t seem to know how to dance either!” I laughed airily.

“What do you mean I don’t know how to dance?!” he asked fake gasping. As if to show off his oh-so-existent dancing skills he pulled me up by my lower back to his body. The jerk made me let go of an involuntary squeal – truth was, I actually liked how he was suddenly taking the reigns and I think he seemed to get that I liked it too. I closed my eyes to just solely feel him against me. The friction and heat I felt made goose bumps all across my arms and body. It was quite ironic really, here I was in such close proximity with what seemed to me (allegorically speaking) – the sun and I was still getting goose bumps!

Never in my life have I ever got the logic of goose bumps. I mean, I get why we had it originally – because we had loads of hair and thus could use it as a heat trapping contraption. But if we lost it all those centuries ago then why did the goose bumps contraction continue as well?

“Are you cold?” Kane rubbed my arms as we were both dancing too close for comfort.

“No, I’m fine.” I brushed off.

“You can have my jumper, if you want.” As if I already had said yes: he unlatched himself from my waist and I swear I felt pang of vulnerability. To save myself from this feeling I started to rub my arms myself. He continued shrugging off his jumper.

“No, really it’s ok – Kane.” I assured. I stopped him in mid- pull of his sleeve by placing my hand on to his jumper’s zipper. I made use of my slight drunken stupor and slowly pulled both opening back to the middle of his chest. This time, he was the one with the heavy breathing as he and I got closer again. I smiled into his chest and looked up at him. I didn’t realize how uncomfortable I was making him feel until I saw his the bump in his throat move up and then down – a tell tale sign of gulping, and being anxious. I was getting under his skin and I started to revel in this.

I tiptoed up to give him a hug as a sign of showing that I meant well, until pounding occurred in my head. It wasn’t any kind of headache either, it was more like a surround sound system in an IMAX cinema up to full volume. I could even feel my brain bouncing about! My hands automatically cupped my forehead and Kane instinctively swapped his scared face for a look of concern.

“What’s wrong?” he asked frantically

“I think I have a headache,” I said. He pulled me closer to him whilst rubbing my hair down as to comfort me.

He stooped down a little bit to whisper in my ear, “Do you want to go outside?” he asked softly. I nodded a bit and looked at him, and he led us out of the crowd of bouncing people. There were a couple of incidents where people were boinking into us but before anyone could touch me or my throbbing headache, Kane became the human shield all the way until we reached the door. I breathed in to let the crisp summer air inhabit my lungs and I felt cooling sensation coming all over my body.

“How about we sit over there?” he asked gently pointing to a dimly lit lawn. I nodded and made my way over there. I plopped down and lay there whilst Kane was still sitting in the grass. “Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I exhaled comfortably. “This is the exact reason why I don’t drink,” I stated. “Every time I drink, I drink to get a little loose but then I get a splitting headache that makes me think a caddy just ran over my head!”

“It’s called being a light weight,” he stated. He looked down at me smiling serenely at me.

“If you think this is me drunk – you haven’t seen nothing yet.” I countered. I put my hands at the back of my head and looked up at the sky. We both remained silent for quite a while, until he broke it.

“Was it a good party?” he asked

“Mhm,” I nodded to show my sense of satisfaction with the party. “Eurghh, I’m so tired! What time is it?” I ask. He makes a smirking gesture towards my right wrist. “I’ve got a headache! Take pity on me goddamnit!” In frustration, I slam my hand against the ground.

He smiles even bigger and just states “It’s ten to eight.”

I jolted in the upwards position so quick that when I went up and stopped it seemed that my brain slammed against my skull. “Ahhh!” I agonized in pain as I held my head in a protective cradle. He soothed my back and I swear I could feel the pain dwindle away. “We should be going sometime soon.” I whispered in his general direction.

He scooted closer to me and put his arm around my waist. He looked at me and for some reason my breath was caught in my throat. “How about we not think about -”

“Umph!” My head knocked to the ground due to the force of someone’s knee. I opened my eyes and looked around for a second to get bearings of where I’d been thrown to. Kane helped me up on my feet. He helped me brush off the grass from my hair whilst I brushed the dirt from my clothes. After dealing with myself I turned to find the boy who had the decency to trip over my head sprawled across the floor. He didn’t seem to be moving, but I figured he was only sleeping. Kane saw where my attention turned and he remained silent as to show that he was my problem to deal. I turned him around and kept on slapping him lightly by the cheek until I saw his eyes flutter open.

“Are you ok? Can you hear me?” I asked. Kane shook his head in disapproval. This was obviously not the way he would deal with a drunken man tripping on you.

The boy grunted to show he was alive. He looked at both Kane and I and groaned again as he turned around to throw up on the lawn. I burrowed my head in Kane’s jumper to make sure I couldn’t see anything. He received the burrowing well and hugged me close to him.

Until I stopped hearing the ‘making sick’ noise I looked at the boy just freshly thrown up and then to Kane.

“We gotta help him,” I said to him. Kane scrunched up his face and looked at the guy.

“Fine – we’ll bring him up to one of the guest rooms to sleep it off.”

_WW_

Kane had one part of the guy whilst I got the other guy’s arm around my shoulder. Me and Kane were both being crushed under his weight as he swung from our shoulders like a playful little toddler.

“What’s your name, young’un.” Kane seethed from his teeth. I gave a look of warning to Kane as to be nice to the boy. The boy caught my wide eyed communication with Kane, and replied back to me (with a rather suggestive look…) “Toasty,” He grinned a devilish grin. In return I made a face and turned back to where we were both heading. I swear ‘Toasty’ is some type of new sexual code that I’ve been left out in the dark about. Few moments later I could feel no one other than Toasty’s hot, alcoholic-laden breath on my neck. What the hell was this boy doing? I snapped around to see his nose wriggling about in my neck region. “You smell delectabdle. What’s perfume the name?” I knitted my brows together and gave a death glance at Kane, whom was stifling a laugh. He stopped immediately, trying to compose himself. I soon directed my attention to the feeling on my neck. I could feel an alternate hot breath and something like cold porridge against my skin. The nut job was nuzzling my neck with occasional licks (which still had some of his flipping barf in his mouth!). I wrenched my body away from the drunken dope-head to see him collapse with Kane falling on top of him. As faster as you could say Pina Colada I swiped away at my neck trying to get the drunk man’s saliva and remnants of puke off from my neck. Kane held onto my arms very firmly to try and stop me from squirming about.

“Calm Down, Tara.” He said calmly. I wasn’t about to listen to him now! It felt like cold porridge was dripping down my neck! And I hate cold porridge! I hate Porridge!

“Tara, please.” He pleaded. He moved his hands further up my arms. I stopped. “I’ll deal with ‘Toasty’ you go to the bathroom and wash off your…neck. I’ll see you there, ok?”

He spun me around and walked me to the bathroom whilst I was crunching my teeth and clenching and unclenching my fists. “Here” He turned the knob and lightly pushed the door open. He pushed me in gently with his hands on the small of my back. “I’ll be back ok? I’ll just put him in the bedroom, come back here, wash my face, and then we can go back to school alright?” I nodded feebly. He took it as a cue to leave.

I walked over to the door to close it and looked at my neck in the mirror. The faucet was turned on and I lathered my neck up. This was exactly why I didn’t drink. So I wouldn’t get so drunk and throw up all over the place. Composure was important to me. I turned off the tap and looked at myself this time. My hair was so… big. I plaited my hair to make it have less of a puff.

Was Kane going to kiss me before ‘Toasty’ tripped over me? No, couldn’t be. I was at the door. If he was, he would’ve not paid any attention to the tripped up barf face, would he? I was where the shower was. Kane couldn’t like me. I’m just… me. I would be at the door but I walked into a human chest. “You know this bathroom is occu – Oh, Hi again.”

“Why are you pacing about?” Kane’s voice projected amused confusion.

“Oh - nothing.” I said.

“Come here. I need you to check whether the guys got any puke on me.” He turned around very slowly whilst I tried to wipe any of the crap off of him.

“Finished” I huffed in exaggerated hard work. Kane turned and just laughed a little with a “Thanks, let’s go back to school.”

“Flipping Hell! Kane, It’s nine thirty five! We’re late!” I screeched.

Kane’s knuckles turned whiter, “I know! But do you seriously want to end up in prison if I speed down the streets of Brighton?”

“God! I knew we should’ve left after I had that headache. Now we’re late! What the hell are we going to do, Kane?” I raised my voice at the end part as an indication that I wanted an answer.

“I don’t know, ok? If you didn’t play nurse with ‘Toasty’ then we would’ve been back here in time!” He countered.

“Oh? So what now? You’re blaming it on me!?”

“No, it’s just… ugh, never mind.” He pursed his lips until they were a very thin line.

I just made a sound of frustration and focused my attention on the lamp lights we were speeding past by. This was not going to be the most comfortable of rides back to school. We finally pulled up to the gates. Kane slowed down and waited for the gates to register our presence. It didn’t budge.

“Ass-Wipe!” He banged on the steering wheel to vent his anger. I just gave quick glances in his direction.

He reversed the car. “What are you doing?” I asked in a panicky tone. No reply. I guess the feeling of not talking to each other was mutual. I sighed in frustration, and just resumed my stoic position like before – looking out the window.

We eventually stopped in a middle of the field. I looked out in the front and saw our school in front of us. “Get out.” He said flatly. He retracted the keys and stuffed them in his pockets. I looked at him the whole time. He didn’t realize I was staring at him until he realized that there was no movement on the passenger seat. “Get. Out.” He repeated, except with a little more venom.

Guilt showered all over me. It felt as if I were trapped in a little box and drowning in this colossal guilt I was feeling. I knew I shouldn’t have snapped like that, and it was all the alcohol’s fault! If it were the sober me I would’ve just let the rowing pass and that would be it. I wouldn’t be in this predicament of where we were battling with pride.

“No” I gave him a glare. I was not going to lose this.

“Fine.” He huffed out the car and slammed the door so hard that I swore I would have hit my head on the roof of the car if it weren’t for my seatbelt. I watched him as he stomped all the way to my side of the car. He yanked the car door open and undid my seatbelt.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Before anything else could be said his fingers latched around mine with significant force. It almost felt as if he was cutting off my blood supply to my hands. He pulled me out of the car and dragged me to the fence where the border of our school and a random field was. This feels a lot like déjà vu. You know -the part in the movie where your killer drags you in to the fence and smashes your head down on the copper wire and there you have two parts to you no scythe required. Besides, if one were to be put on the newspaper, would you want to be going down as unoriginal? His grip loosened as he could feel my shivering. He stopped in his tracks and turned to look at me. Regret was written all over his face, he must’ve thought that he pulled too hard or something.

“Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be angry at you. You were just doing what was right…”

I didn’t want to say I forgave him, but I didn’t want to lead this on to be a big fight. After all this was the first person that I ever fought back against, verbally speaking. I couldn’t lose him just yet. “What are we doing here?”

He smiled, “We’re going to climb over the fence and voila we will be in school!”

“Ok!” I grinned back, this is the type of adventure I liked!

Kane motioned me to the wire fence first in a gentlemanly manner. His hand held tightly to one of mine whilst I maneuvered my way around the wires so as to not touch them. Kane soon followed after, his first foot planted to the ground and then his second – without my notice. Being on such a cramped line gravity took it’s place and I went nearly tumbling down, if it weren’t for Kane. He latched on to my hand automatically to try and save me from the fall but as he had no where to hold onto except for the wire (which he obviously thought wasn’t good enough) we both tumbled down the hill.

Groaning could be heard from Kane who was at my side. I looked around to check if Kane was ok. It seemed like he fine enough. If anything I could see a big grin on his face. He liked that we both fell! I zipped my lips together and hit him lightly on the head.

“Owwie!” he said in a faux pain voice.

“Oh, stop being such a baby!” I snapped playfully. All signs of play fullness from his face seized and soon I was left with a very serious looking boy.

“You know, you’ve changed a lot.” Face still composed until I saw a crack of a smile, “You’ve got spunk! And I like it!”

I laughed at the remark whilst lifting myself off the ground. “Come on, we should get back into the school before they notice we’re missing,”

“I’m afraid, the headmistress has already been notified – Miss.” A voice that didn’t seem to fit Kane’s voice shocked us both. I gave a quick scowl at Kane. We jumped to our feet before anyone could have said ‘churros’ to see a man. Not any man, but Millfield’s security man. Oh – flipping heck.