“Hope was excited to go?” I asked skeptically. “You’ve got to be kidding. She’s even shyer than me!”
“I wouldn’t say excited necessarily,” she trailed off. “But Steph’s excitement must have rubbed off on her a little, because she agreed to go.”
I sighed heavily, knowing full well that Hope was being dragged along against her will.
“Alright, I’ll go too, but I will not stay late and I’m definitely not going to drink anything,” I demanded.
“We’ll see about that,” Annie said mischievously as she stood up and left the room. I picked up the TV remote and flipped it on, wondering what kind of sadistic plan Annie had cooked up for me at the frat party.
The first week of classes flew by in such a blur, I hardly had time to say hello to Mark and Marie while Annie talked to them Friday afternoon. The pressure of classes didn’t take as much of a toll on her as I had anticipated. She used her schedule everyday, and had stayed home every night during the week to study and write some of her Perspectives essay, which I had already finished a week earlier. Her newfound dedication to school had impressed me so much that the prospect of Liam’s party didn’t seem as daunting as it originally had. I began to think that if Annie could change her habits so quickly, maybe I could too. As I walked in the door, it seemed Mark wasn’t as sold on the new and improved Annie either.
“Keep your mind on your schoolwork!” I heard him bellow as Annie pulled the phone away from her ear. She just rolled her eyes and held it out for a minute while Mark finished his tirade. I covered my mouth, trying to hold back the laughter building in my gut.
“Okay dad, you done?” she said, pulling the phone back once it was quiet. “Yeah, yeah, I hear ya, tell mom I say hello. I love you both, call you next week, bye!” she flipped her phone closed and collapsed on the futon next to me, watching as I unloaded my bag to get my books out.
“Oh come on… really?” she sighed a minute later, with a look of pity and disappointment spread across her face.
“What? I have a lot of homework this weekend!”
She just shook her head and leaned back on the sofa. “This is what I’ve been talking about Zoe. You have to want to go out and have fun, not just expect it to come to you. If you don’t loosen up a little, you’re going to turn out worse than my dad. Is that what you want?”
Her words were harsh, but true. I stared at the cover of my statistics book for a moment, and then snapped it shut and shoved it back into my bag.
“You’re right Ann. You’ve been working so hard this week, keeping up your end of the bargain. I think it’s time I start to hold up my end.”
“Really?” she asked, giving me a skeptical look.
“Yeah! As a matter of fact, why don’t we go out and get some dinner before we come back and get ready for the party?”
“Ok, who are you, and what have you done with my Zoe?” she said, still sounding skeptical.
“You go get ready and I’ll check to see if Steph, Hope and the others want to go with us,” I laughed, suddenly feeling ready and excited for a night full of changes.
“You have no idea how stunned I am right now,” she gasped, slowly rising from the couch.
I smiled as the bathroom door slammed shut. For the first time in a while, I could help but agree with Annie’s assessment of my life.
**************************************
It was still miserably hot outside as we met up with everyone outside our condo, ready to make the trek to the fraternity house.
“It’s already 10,” I said anxiously to Annie, checking my watch. “Is it okay that we’re late?”
“Nobody ever shows up on time to parties this big,” Annie said coolly as all eight of us walked through campus in our togas. “Only the losers show up on time.”
“I guess that makes you one of those losers Zoe,” laughed Chase from in front of us, the smell of alcohol filling my nostrils.
“Shut up you moron!” snapped Steph, who looked over at me, with an encouraging smile.
“Yeah you idiot,” Annie chimed in. “We don’t want to freak her out, it’s her first toga party. Lighten up.”
“Whatever,” he guffawed.
My head dropped in humiliation from Chase’s comment.
“Don’t feel bad,” Hope whispered next to me. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“I don’t know, maybe they’re right,” I surrendered. “What am I doing here in this anyway?”
“You look awesome,” Hope said enviously.
Annie had gone all out since it was the very first time I had given her permission to make me over. Hair, nails and makeup, she went above and beyond the call of duty. She did keep the makeup light, saying I was so beautiful that too much makeup would ruin my natural beauty, whatever that meant. My toga was a simple white sheet thrown over my shoulder and wrapped around my narrow waist, covering only my torso. It felt quite embarrassing to have so much of my body exposed. But, as we approached Fraternity Row, an enormous line, that stretched all around Beta house caught my gaze and made me feel instantly better. Every single person was in some type of toga. I saw students wearing sheets with cartoon characters on them, an obese guy wearing nothing but a garbage bag, and my favorite, a girl who was wearing nothing but a pillowcase that covered her chest and waist, separately. Seeing other people dressed up like goofballs soothed my nerves.
“Oh man, we have to wait in this?” Chase said angrily. “I want to see some females!”
“Relax man,” Annie said unperturbed, “I’ve got this.”
She led us all to the front door, past hundreds of students who presumably had been waiting for a while. They didn’t have very pleasant and friendly looks on their faces as we glided past. I kept my chin down to avoid the hate filled gazes I could feel all over my body. Next to me, I could hear Hope’s breathing become shallower. She hadn’t seemed very comfortable in her toga, probably because she had compared her figure to the rest of us girls. Annie, Steph, Emily and I were all almost paper thin, whereas Hope was more along the pudgy side. I put my arm around her as we headed towards the front door, both of our heads focused on the ground.
“Annie Johnson,” Annie said to the bulky bouncer at the front door.
The bouncer shuffled through his clipboard, stopped and looked up. His eyes traveled from face to face in our group, surveying our appearance. After a minute, Liam appeared at the front door and put his arm around Annie.
“You made it!” he said happily, his speech a little slurred. “And you brought everyone, excellent!”
He did the same survey as the bouncer, but his eyes scanned everything, not just our faces. As his eyes went from person to person, they eventually landed on me. I could have sworn that his gaze lingered on me a little longer than anyone else. My feet shuffled nervously as our eyes finally met. A slight smirk spread across his lips before finishing off his study with Hope. Liam immediately turned to the bouncer and whispered something inaudible to the rest of us. The two of them laughed lightly, as their eyes randomly looked up at Hope.
“I hate to say it, but we’re pretty close to capacity, so we can only allow three of you in,” Liam said, holding back giggles as he and the bouncer kept their gaze on Hope. Everyone else in our group kept trying to look past the front door into the party, not really paying attention to what Liam and his buddy were trying to pull.
“What? Why?” I blurted out angrily.
Annie looked over at me with a confused look.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Nothing, it’s just that we have a fire code,” Liam started to say, barely able to restrain himself. “And I’m not sure we can accommodate all of you.” At that comment, the bouncer had to duck behind the door because he started laughing loudly. The rest of the people in our group were just looking at each other confused, but I wasn’t ready to let him get away with it.
“Fine,” I snapped. “Either we all go in, or nobody goes in.”
I
grabbed Hope’s arm and interlocked it with mine. We turned on the spot and started walking away. Everyone else just stood at the front of the house, looking between me and Liam, not sure what to do.
“Zoe, wait!” Annie cried. “Liam, come on! You can get us all in, there’s plenty of space in there.”
“Wait, wait,” Liam shouted, laughing hysterically. “It was just a joke; we’ve got plenty of space. Come on in, please,” he said to Hope, extending his arm in welcome. Hope just looked at me apprehensively, but my face expanded in a friendly smile and we walked in together. It floored me that there wasn’t an apology for the public embarrassment Liam and his friend just put Hope through. At that moment, it hit me that Liam’s rudeness had no limits.
The fraternity house was absolutely huge. As soon as we walked in, an enormous room that was about twice the size of our whole condo greeted us. All of the regular lights had been replaced by black lights everywhere. Hundreds of togas flickered purple in the light, which created a mesmerizing sight in the middle of the dance floor. A wide staircase on the right hand side of the foyer led up to over five additional stories of the house. The high, pale walls were completely bare, and also gave a bright purple glow under the black light. Other rooms broke off in all directions from the foyer, but the place was so crowded, it was impossible to explore any of them. We stood frozen in the middle of the foyer, not sure where to go. People were jam packed into the house, making it more crowded than Annie had made it sound. I couldn’t help but be blown away by the crazy ratio of guys to girls. There must have been ten girls to every guy in the house. Starting to feel a little nauseous and claustrophobic, I turned to Annie who was looking around hopefully for a suddenly absent Liam.
“Where did he go?” I yelled over the blaring music.
Annie just shrugged her shoulders, grabbed my open arm and led Hope and me through the gauntlet of freakish dancers. Chase and Tyler were already in the middle of the dance floor, grabbing any girl within reach and dancing without the slightest bit of modesty. Sean and Emily were standing in a corner away from everyone else, dancing slower than the rhythm of the music allowed. Steph was jumping up and down by Chase and Tyler, looking completely aloof from the world around her.
As Annie led us through the crowd, we bumped into an extremely tall guy who had B-A-D painted in fluorescent yellow across his chest.
“Kitchen!” Annie shouted up at the red haired monster.
He threw his thumb over his shoulder without saying a word. As we passed him, he gave me a very unnecessary glance up and down, making all the hairs on my arm stand tall.
As we made our way into the kitchen, the strong smell of alcohol invaded my senses. Thousands of plastic cups and beer bottles lied scattered all over. Three fat kegs of beer were resting on the counter, with one fraternity guy running each. The kitchen wasn’t as crowded as the dance floor, but it appeared to fill up with each passing second. Annie released her kung fu grip on my arm and went straight for one of the kegs. I glanced over at Hope, who looked completely bored and awkward. I wasn’t faring much better as my body felt trapped due to a combination of the extreme heat, the overcrowded house, and that disturbing glance the large guy had given me. The only thing I could think about was getting some fresh air and getting out of the rapidly developing real life nightmare. I noticed a glowing red EXIT sign on the opposite wall from the entrance to the kitchen.
“I need air,” I said to Hope. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“I’ll come with you,” Hope said hopefully.
“No, just give me a minute. I’m feeling really trapped right now. I’ll be back soon, I promise,” I reassured her with a smile. She just stared at me sadly like a child that was just told there was no Santa Claus.
The fresh, seemingly cool air struck me like an open freezer. Even though I knew the temperature was still close to triple digits, it felt much cooler than when we first entered the house. After a few deep breaths, I noticed a set of steps that led towards the extremely disheveled backyard of the frat house, and took a seat. Weeds, brown grass and a couple of toppled garbage cans were scattered all across the yard. The noise and glaring music resonated through the thick house walls as I slowly caught my breath on the step. It was nice to be isolated for a few moments and not have to yell above the music or be forced to drink something disgusting. To make things even better, Liam was nowhere to be found. I leaned back on the steps, closed my eyes and continued to breathe deeply, as a small smile cracked my face. At that moment, a deep, gruff cough emanated from behind me. My elbows slipped from underneath me in surprise, as I couldn’t remember hearing a door close or the sound of footsteps.
“Careful,” he chuckled. “Don’t hurt yourself!”
My worst fears came to fruition as I looked up. There stood Liam, toga and all, with a cup similar to what was scattered around the kitchen. His olive tanned skin was covered with an ivory white toga that blended perfectly into the darkness. I could see the moonlight gleam off of his flawlessly toned torso as he looked at me with an all-knowing grin on his face. Part of me wanted to smack the smirk right off of his face, which was an unfamiliar and scary thought.
“Whatever,” I said curtly.
“Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone with paler skin than you,” he said jokingly as he approached and finally took a seat right next to me. I shuffled as far away as I could and kept my gaze off of him, and on the ugly backyard.
“Yep, I’m a modern medical wonder,” I sighed.
“So, too good for the party, huh?”
“What?” I responded sharply. “No, just needed to cool down.”
“Hmm, come outside to cool off… in Las Vegas? Interesting logic…” he laughed. My insides curled sharply as I realized his logic actually made sense. No matter what I said, I was going to come across as an idiot.
“You got me there,” I mocked softly. “Besides, it’s your party. Shouldn’t you be inside with the other gorillas?”
“Ah, another one of those…” he sighed, shaking his head.
“What do you mean, one of those?”
“Oh, nothing. Just another girl who sees a fraternity guy and automatically assumes he’s just a stupid jock who loves nothing more than drinking beer and hooking up with as many girls as possible…” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Funny, but that was exactly my first impression after seeing the show you put on when we got here!” I argued, still not looking at him.
“So, what does that make you then, for showing up here?” he said, not changing his amused tone. He seemed to be engaged in a fun game of cat and mouse, with me being the defenseless, helpless mouse.
“I knew it was a mistake coming here tonight,” I mumbled.
“So why’d you come?” he inquired suspiciously. It was the first change of tone I’d heard from him. His normally joking and laid back demeanor had been replaced almost instantly.
“I came for Annie, to support her,” I said almost inaudibly, finally looking up at him. At that moment, our eyes locked onto each other again, and the familiar feeling from our first day suddenly raced through my body. His attitude and egotism were distant memories, as all I could think about was the mystery that lied behind his pitch black eyes.
“Supporting her for what?” he said.
The spell seemed to break the moment he spoke. I shook off the feeling of weariness that had engulfed me and looked back out to the dusty yard.
“I don’t feel comfortable talking about this behind her back.”
“No, supporting her for what?” he asked again, sounding serious.
“Nothing, I just don’t want to see her get hurt, that’s all.”
“And you think I’ll hurt her?” he accused. “What makes you think I’d do that?”
“I…I don’t,” I stuttered. Everything was going way too fast and he was two steps ahead of me.
“You knew exactly what you were going to say,” he shot back, starti
ng to sound very angry.
“Look, I’m sorry I said anything at all. I told you I just wanted to be alone. You should just leave,” I begged. An unusual feeling started brewing inside. It was a very powerful anger, more powerful than anything I’d ever felt before.
“No, please, tell me what you were going to say. Let it fly!”
“I don’t insult people like you do.”
“Now I’m really curious. Maybe I should go back inside and find your friend, the big one. I’m sure she’ll tell me after a few drinks...”
“What do you want from me?” I bellowed, the deep anger finally exploding like a volcano. “You want me to tell you that you’re egotistical, selfish and arrogant? Fine! You are always gloating about yourself, thinking you’re above everyone else. You hurt and insult people, and get joy out of it. What you did to my friend tonight was very rude and you seem to get some type of satisfaction from it. You get a sick thrill from hurting people. That’s why I’m here; to make sure you don’t hurt Annie. I’ve seen it happen way too much. You’re no different than any other guy I’ve met before.” I exhaled. “There, are you happy?”
I looked over at Liam, and for the first time, felt completely frightened. His eyes had gotten even darker, and I could have sworn a slight shade of red was mixed into the darkness. I stood up immediately; not sure what to expect.
“You’ve never met anyone like me,” he said quietly into the night.
“What?” I asked, my eyes wide in fear.
“Ahem.”
I spun on the spot and there stood Annie in the doorway of the kitchen, sporting a suspicious look on her face. Her eyes were alternating on Liam and me. Liam was sitting on the stairs with his arms rested on his knees and his back to her and I was standing directly next to him, my eyes still wide open.
“Oh, there you are!” I said, rushing over to give her a very tight hug. She hugged me back, although somewhat weaker than usual.
“What’s going on out here? I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” she snapped at Liam.
Liam quickly jumped up; sporting his patented smile again. Any trace of hatred and anger had been replaced with a calm, peaceful glare.
Common Ground (The Common Ground Trilogy Book 1) Page 6