Jill told me to wear the clothes she’d bought me to school the following week, and I reluctantly did. The only reason I did was because she did spend her money, and it would only be for one more week; then Jill was long gone.

“Claire,” she said in a mother-voice, “promise me you’ll stop cutting your hair.”

Hell no.

“Okay.”

Jill smiled warmly, “Good.”

I tried to return the smile with the same honesty, and pulled at the edge of the dress she’d told me to wear. She said the dress was ‘simple and elegant’. I told her it was way too fitted and ugly. Lucky she let me put on some extra, pointless stuff (she called them ‘accessories’) so I wouldn’t look like a pig in a blanket. I only got to choose my shoes, so I put on bright blue Converse and pink socks to get her angry.

For the last week of school Jill made me wear lip gloss, so not only was I uncomfortable, but I wanted to throw up for all the strawberry I tasted. I was also extremely careful when I was eating, as I wasn’t used to having something stuck on my mouth all day. Aside from the lip gloss, she made me sit over a bowl of hot water because I had three pimples. Jesus, Jill was crazy.

Andrew didn’t help.

“Whoa, Claire! You got rid of those pimples!”

“She had pimples?” Steven asked bluntly.

“Yeah remember? Those little bumps that were on her cheek, right there?”

“Oh… I thought those were warts or, y’know, herpes or something…”

Herpes? What the hell?

“I like the necklaces, too,” Andrew said politely.

“What’re you talking about? They’re huge!” I whined.

“Seriously.”

“Shut up, stupid,” Andrew hissed.

Steven sighed, and grinned to me, so I grinned straight back. Even though I felt really stupid, I did feel a bit pretty. But definitely overexposed.

My new look even got me invited to another party.

The exchange student who was a senior had gotten along great with his new classmates, and they insisted on throwing a going-away party for him. He invited the seniors, but the other exchange students heard about it, and it spread like wildfire. Jill told me, and begged me to come (of course I’d be required to wear something she chose). Ignoring my best judgment, I agreed to go.

I think the attention I was getting was getting to my head.

Jill and I met the other freshman exchange student, Leroy, at a McDonald’s. Leroy wasn’t attractive at all. He’d spent his entire visit with the Goths. When we got to the party I saw the gigantic house that the senior exchange student had been sent to. Leroy parked across the street, which was necessary, as there were already a bunch of cars in front of the house.

We could hear loud music from the front lawn.

“I heard his parents weren’t home.” Leroy said sluggishly.

No duh.

“C’mon, hurry up!” Jill whined. She led the way to the front door, and after her banging on it a few times, it swung open. The music got a great deal louder.

“I’m gonna go see Eric.” Jill said excitedly.

“What?”

“He said he’s coming – I just wanna say bye!” Jill added hurriedly. Leroy shrugged to me and walked in another direction. Great, now I was alone at a senior party full of people who probably don’t like me very much.

I trudged through the house to the backyard, where most of the voices were coming from. I stepped outside to see a bazillion people half naked around the pool. Half of the people weren’t half naked, but most of them were making out or trying to get some. I didn’t have to wait long for one of those desperate idiots to come up on me.

“Hey baby, did you just get out of a microwave?”

What the hell?

“Go away,” I said, way too rudely. The guy, who looked like one of the juniors, gave me an offended face before walking away.

It didn’t take long for me to see familiar faces, and finally a face that I’d actually had some sort of relationship with. Marie was beside another mannish figure. They were both wearing skimpy clothes, which made them look like huge, scary drag queens. Marie was very animated in her conversation, but she glanced over and saw me. Her smile flipped upside down in a terrifying way. I turned around because the upside down ‘U’ shape on her face scared me, and walked to the opposite side of the pool.

This was a very nice backyard, full of huge palm trees, and other greenery. There was a wall that divided us from the neighbors that was probably about thirteen feet high. This was probably the biggest house I’d ever been to. I was astonished at the size of the pool, Jacuzzi, and all the leftover space that resembled a well-kept jungle.

“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”

My mind snapped from the trance of admiring the architecture, and focused on the group of seniors I’d seen around the school. They were surrounding people who, sadly, I recognized.

Nola had her hands on Randy’s shoulders while he had his mouth glued to the end of a beer bong. Nola was pumping him up, until he finally spit the tube out. The some of the seniors around him let out a long groan of disappointment.

“I win! I win!” Noah jumped out of nowhere, waving his arms around like he’d just won an Oscar.

“Oh, no fair!” One of the seniors whined. Noah kept waving his arms and bouncing in glee, though.

“Claire!” Nola exclaimed when she saw me.

“Hi…”

“Guess what! Randy’s brother made a bet that Randy could down more whiskey than Noah, and Randy didn’t, so Noah won twenty bucks!”

“Whoa,” I mumbled sarcastically. Noah was still jumping up and down, paying no attention to his intended money. Nola turned back to Randy’s brother and held out her hand. He handed her the money, and she managed to settle Noah down long enough for her to slip the cash in his pocket.

“You wanna try?” Nola asked warmly. I shook my head.

“Hey! Claire!” Noah spotted me. He ran to Nola’s shoulder.

“Um… hi.”

“I won twenty bucks!”

“Great.”

Noah nodded fervently; he looked flustered.

“You’re having fun.” I said apprehensively.

“You bet!”

Noah’s normally tired face was lit up, but he didn’t look confused or forlorn. I guess he’s not a crazy drunk. He looked pretty happy. The only clue I had that indicated he was stoned was the fact that he never looked like a normal happy person when he was sober. Noah’s sober happy expression was usually the equivalent to an average person’s contentment..

I’d honestly never seen him smile till then. But I didn’t see him for very long because he spun away from Nola, and hurdled himself in the pool. I thought he’d sunk straight to the bottom at first, but he came up practically half a mile from where he jumped in. He came up right in the middle of some girls, who suddenly started giggling and playing with him like a friendly dog.

Mr. Sociable.

“Whoa,” I mumbled.

“I know. I dunno how anyone in their right mind can guzzle that much whiskey,” Nola sighed.

At that moment I had the choice to ignore Nola and walk away, or stay and accept the fact that she’d changed. I decided to accept it. Somewhere really, really, really deep inside, she wasn’t a whore. But until she figured that out, I’d just need to play with the toy God gave me.

“High tolerance,” I answered.

Nola looked at me nervously, but I tried to make the most supportive face I could. Great, we were back to being really stupid, cheesy idiots. And a part of me liked it. She smiled.

“I think you’re really lucky.” She said.

“Why?”

Nola didn’t answer. Instead she looked across the pool at Noah. Mr. Sociable was wobbling slightly in the pool with three half naked bimbos surrounding him, and two mannish ones approaching him. I heard Nola sigh while one of the bimbos rubbed Noah, and took a successful stab at taking his shirt off.

“Why am I lucky?” I asked.

“You just are. You’re hella confident.”

“No I’m not, you are.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Yeah!”

Nola’s big eyes looked a bit stressed.

“You’re confident around guys. And Andrew likes you,” she muttered.

“No he doesn’t, he’s gay.”

“And Steven likes you.”

“He likes you,” I insisted, even though I knew it probably wasn’t true.

“And Noah likes you.”

“No he doesn’t. Look at him!” I pointed to Noah, who, at the moment, was stuck to some slut without her top on.

“The girls at that table I sit at? A lot of them like you.”

“No they don’t.”

“Well… I mean, they’re jealous. Lisa has dated all of them – Kenny, Steven, Noah, Andrew… well accept for Randy and Al. But she dated them all, and serious dating. The kind of dating where a guy will really only look at one girl, the kind where you go somewhere, anywhere, just to start touching each other and talk to each other. She’s had sex with each of those guys in every bathroom at least twice. That kind of dating! But they never let her sit with them at lunch! Ever!”

I frown in disbelief, but Nola nodded vigorously.

“How do you date four guys seriously in three years?”

Nola rolled her eyes.

“Why?”

“That’s crazy.”

“She and Andrew were early bloomers and they were already dating in seventh grade.” Whoa. “But the point is that they really like you!”

“It’s probably just Jill.”

Nola put her hands on her hips and huffed loudly.

“You just don’t want to understand! This is why sometimes I really think you’re les!”

“I’m not gay!”

Nola rolled her eyes, spun around and walked away. I frowned, agitated with her disillusionment, and went over to Randy.

“Randy?” I said as kindly as I could, “Are you okay?”

He gave me a struggling thumbs up.

“Do you need help?”

“N-no, not really,” He gulped.

“I’ll go get you water…”

Despite his best efforts, Randy got me feeling bad enough to insist on getting him awter. I walked away, to the kitchen, with him saying “No, no, I’m fine, no!”

I went inside the mansion, and after walking around aimlessly through a mild crowd, I found the kitchen. It was jam packed full of people with the munchies. I saw two or three pizza boxes lying, forgotten, on the floor.

“Hey, Claire!”

Steven waved me over to where he was. After stepping on some toes, I finally made it over to him.

“Hey,” he said coolly.

“Hi.”

“What’re you doing here?”

I shrugged stupidly. “It’s a party!”

“You got that right…”

Steven was giving me the eye. Okay….

“So…” I said awkwardly, “did you see Randy and Noah? They’re insane, y’know?”

I laughed at my own joke while Steven merely grinned.

“Where’s Andrew? I gotta tell him, ha, it was funny…”

“You’re looking for Andy? He didn’t come.”

“Oh,” God I felt like an idiot.

Steven heaved a sigh, and looked at the ground for a moment.

“Well… I have to go get Randy something to drink,” I said, shrugging. “So I’ll see you later, okay?”

Steven nodded, smiling flirtatiously. I smiled back and walked back outside without a drink for Randy. I found him with his head in the pool. I thought he was drowning, but he pulled his head out quickly and took the cup of water from me gratefully. Noah was still making out with some girl in the pool. I looked across the backyard and saw Jill and Eric talking to each other, holding hands like kids in a movie.

I needed to get out.

I don’t know why, but I needed to leave.

My mom was at home when I got home. I came in and she said hi quietly from the living room.

I went to my room and lay down on my bed, closing my eyes.

Nola’s probably looking for me right now. I should’ve told her that I’d left.

Author's Note: I just found this and even though I tried editing the hell out of it, it still stinks of suckage. I'll try hardhardhard to make it a priority to fix up this whole story to get rid of typos, bad wording and get the ending totally right so I can put it up.