Tripping Over Trevor
by throwingstars

Chapter Two
God Must Hate Me

Two weeks later I was cursing God.

Yes, I know, not great thing to do and I know my crazy Christian grandmother would fillet and serve me to her Card Club if she ever heard that, but I had good reason.

I had a damn good reason.

I'd been sitting on a low wall outside the art building, staring at my worn-out purple chucks and minding my own business. They were quite beautiful, these chucks, my favorite shoes. They'd once been a bright purple but were now dulled with age and dirt, and a mess of writing over the canvas. Drawings from my artistically talented friends, sayings and quotes from those not so artistically talented ones.

I was just reading over some, and thinking about all the good times between me and my Chucks when I felt someone stand in front me. They didn't actually touch me, but it was like I could just feel their presence.

I didn't think much of it, I was outside the art building where a lot of my friends had classes. Funny how the very uncreative history major is friends with nothing but artsy people.

Anyway, I looked up and immediately came face to face with none other than Pacman. He was in the same position as before, about to gobble up a pellet with a ghost waiting on just the other side.

This is why I cursed God.

No, not because I was seeing Pacman. Pacman I didn't mind so much, it was just who he belonged to that I'd rather avoid.

It hit me after a few moments that I was staring at his neck, so I looked up and then wished I hadn't.

There was Trevor James whatever-his-name-is. Grinning like the Cheshire cat.

And not one of those hey-I'm-sexy grins, but a genuine hey-I'm-crazy grin.

Before I could say anything, he beat me to it. With a flourishing bow, he said, way too cheerily, "Nice to see you again. I think vertical suits you."

I honestly planned to say something witty, something that would make me seem clever and put his greeting to shame, but all I could come up with was, "And you looked better as moss." I said it so low I thought he wouldn't even hear it.

I have bad luck.

He looked confused for a minute, but that grin, the one he stole straight from the purple cat, was back too soon.

"I don't remember ever being moss, but I'm sure it was a lovely experience."

This earned him a weird look, and I think I was right to give it to him. Who the hell replies like that?

I didn't reply to him, busying myself by looking around for my late roommate. Probably chatting up one of her cute classmates.

All of the art majors seemed to be cute. Why are all the history guys nerds?

Danielle's overabundance of nearby artsy cuties always makes her late, but damn her. We're supposed to be going somewhere important, according to her and now she has unknowingly abandoned me with Crazy Alien to moon over artsy cuties. She knows I admire punctuality too.

This is when I turned back to Crazy Trevor, and glared at him. I bet he's never punctual, I thought. Probably too busy lying in fields.

"Actually, I'm usually very early for things. Gives me time look around a little."

Or so I thought I thought.

"And bother innocent girls?"

"Only ones who seem jumpy around me." He stood with his hands behind his back, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He seemed entertained.

I scowled, and he smiled, "That's usually a cue to bugger off."

"Quite the contrary, it's intriguing. I'm really very nice."

This kid obviously liked to talk properly. Who says "quite the contrary"?

"So said the serial killer before maiming the poor girl." I didn't bother muttering this.

Before I could go on, he got a certain look on his face and it distracted me. His head tilted to the side, and his eyes reflected the sun in a way that made him look very young. The pose would have reminded me of a small puppy, if not for the green locks hanging over his face.

I didn't even have time to wonder about his curious look because a second later, I was hugged tightly from behind.

I turned to find a rather excited looking blonde, her hair flying all over and in my face as she jumped around. Danielle needs to take sugar out of her diet.

Judging by the direction of my roommates gaze, I doubt she was very excited to see me.

Before I knew it, her hand was shaking his and they were passing introductions. Again, his surname was behind my comprehension.

Danielle wasn't by any means more outgoing that I, she was just much better at being friendly to anyone and everyone. So I let her talk, and naturally my mind wandered.

I was actually rather insulted that she wasn't excited to see me. Sure, we live together and see each other every day, but she could show a little enthusiasm. It was my birthday, after all, and she was the one who'd been going on and on about it for the past month. Oh, Alicia, what do you want. Alicia, we must have a party. Alicia, we must invite these people. Alicia, we absolutely have to do it this way.

This was one of those moments that I hated my short attention span. I can't keep focused on one thing, and my mind tends to wander. It usually results in me missing an important part of a conversation or lecture, sometimes it causes me to embarrass myself. Rarely does it cause me to actually regret not focusing.

This was a regretful moment.

"…Huntley street. The building with the ugly yellow trim. It's at 8:00. You obviously know Al from somewhere, so you have to come! We'd love it!" Danielle added an airy laugh just for good measure.

God must hate me.

I can't believe she just invited him! She doesn't know him, and it is not obvious that he knows me! He could have been asking me for the time, or about to attack me for all she knows! But that's my roommate for you, unable to resist any guy with pretty eyes.

The pretty-eyed alien didn't seem to mind.

&

"I can't believe you!" I raved, one hand waving around and occasionally tucking back loose hairs agitatedly. The other hand absentmindedly grabbing things from the shelves.

Danielle was rolling her eyes at me, calmly pushing the buggy and looking over a list she had.

The big important place we had to go turned out be the supermarket.

Yay.

Apparently, we were seriously going to have a party tonight, and Danielle had already sent out the invitations. I knew a good majority of the people she invited, but she also invited a lot of the artsy cuties. Again, I can't complain.

"I knew I'd never be able to pull a surprise party with how nosy you are, so you're going to help me shop for it." Is what she said.

I'd agreed, since it'd give me a chance to make it clear to her how stupid inviting Crazy was.

Plus, we were shopping for necessities for our apartment. Naturally, I grabbed bag of marshmallows and chocolate syrup.

"I just said that I don't see what the big deal is. Don't get your panties in a twist." She rolled her eyes, and I almost hoped they'd get stuck that way. They didn't.

Like I said, bad luck.

I repeated my previous statement, and she crossed things off her list and rolled the buggy further down the aisle.

"Did you not hear what happened?!" I viciously threw a bag of jumbo chips into the cart, not caring what kind they were.

Danielle picked them up, and changed them for another flavor, crossing chips off the list. "Yes, you told me the story a million times." She shrugged, "So you tripped over him, it's not like he purposely laid in your way."

We continued on in silence, her humming happily and I staring irritatedly at nothing.

Suddenly stopping, Danielle perked up, standing straighter and getting a bright, understanding smile on her face. She even put a finger up, a signal that she had an idea. "Oh, I get it now. You're embarrassed, aren't you? That you tripped in front of him."

I nearly screamed, throwing up my hands. "I am not embarrassed! Why would I be?! I've tripped thousands of time in front of complete strangers." Unfortunately, I was not being sarcastic. "And I didn't trip in front of him, I tripped over him."

"Those complete strangers weren't half as good-looking as him." She patted my arm, leading us forward again. "It's okay, it's normal for girls to make fools of themselves in front of handsome guys."

"Good-looking?! He's got green hair!"

She gave me a look here, "Don't be so shallow."

Hypocrite, much?

"Besides, you're the one who likes all those rock bands. Don't those guys usually have whacky hair?"

I sputtered, "Those guys don't lie half naked in fields, yelling 'Alien Invasion!' They're not crazy!"

She sighed, grabbing the last of the things, and loading the cart. "He's unique. It's interesting, and he was nice."

"He was crazy! For all we know he could be an escape mental patient!"

She'd stopped to glance over the items and the list, making sure we had everything, but she looked up at me, a pack of paper plates with happy faces on them in her hand, and her eyes narrowed. "Stop, Al. He's not a mental patient, he's a Uni student too."

I opened my mouth to ask her how she knew, but she interrupted me in a firm voice, "And he's coming tonight. No arguments."

"Fine, Mom." I muttered and didn't talk to her on our walk all the way across the huge store.

It was only at the checkout, when we were standing watching the cashier run everything through to the bagboy, who was packing everything quickly, that I turned to her. Her eyes were still narrowed, and she was scaring the bagboy, who only looked about fifteen.

A change of subject was in order.

"So when do I get Snookie?" The cat had eaten one of my pens this morning, so as I rushed off to my morning class, Danielle rushed him over to the vet before her own. He hadn't been sick, but she had wanted to make sure that he didn't get ink poisoning.

On our way to the store, she'd informed me that the vet wanted to keep him overnight in case he did get sick. This worked perfectly since he wouldn't like all the people at the house. The only thing was, Danielle had volunteered me to pick up, stating she needed to focus on ideas for a project as a reason. I think it's just because the vet is 20 minutes away and neither of us have a car.

Riding a bus with a cat who's irate from having doctors prod at him is not fun.

Before Danielle could give me a time, the bagboy choked on air, coughing violently. We both turned to look at him, and he was staring avidly at us.

Danielle rolled her eyes, "She said Snookie, not nookie, perv."

&

8 o'clock found me standing at the door of our apartment, stuck between the wall and the door greeting people and watching as everyone tried to cram into our apartment. The reason I was between the two was a) tiny apartment and b) the door hid my costume.

After returning to the apartment, Danielle sprung the fact that my birthday party was a costume party on me. I didn't even own any costumes! She said not to worry though.

Then she asked me more about dear Trevy-poo, and I let her know everything, including my inane little thoughts.

I let slip the Cheshire cat comment, and bam! I'm dressed as a slightly, but not completely, slutty Alice for my birthday/costume party.

I say slightly, because while the hem was above the knee, it was by no means bare-all short. The top half of the dress even looked like the original dress, only the front dipped a little too low. Both of our costumes were just hastily put together clothes. The light blue dress was one of Danielle's, and we'd stuck a black crinoline from another of her dress underneath to make it poofy. I'd added some white knee-highs, black flats, a black hair band and the white apron from Danielle's old Halloween costume- a frenchmaid. Her boyfriend at the time loved it.

Danielle was running around the apartment, saying hello to everyone and generally organizing things. She was dressed in all white, and looked very conservative in comparison to me. She was wearing a loose fitting white dress, long enough to create a slight train on the floor. She couldn't keep it all conservative though, her neckline dipped lower than mine, forming a long V. She topped the goddess look off by pinning back her curly hair, and adding a coiled band of silver to her upper arm which she had bought on her trip to Egypt.

She looked very elegant. I looked like I stole a kid's Halloween costume and jammed myself in it.

Although the flow of guests had stopped about ten minutes ago, I still hadn't moved from behind the door. Now, I know I said Danielle wasn't more outgoing than me, and she's not, but I've never really believed in celebrating birthdays. Yeah, let's all celebrate that I'm another year closer to death.

Break out the party hats.

Someone grab the noise makers.

From this spot, I observed everyone's costumes. I could see a cat, and not one of those slutty ones but an actual furry mascot-like costume. Around the room I could also see fairies, various movie characters, a ninja, a villain from a slasher film, a cowboy and cowgirl, what looked like a goblin and other random things.

Compared to the goblin thing, my costume was fantastic. In all truthfulness, my costume was actually pretty cute. Cute doll shoes, cute Alice-in-grown-up-form dress, nice little hair band. If my hair was longer, I'd be an excellent Alice.

"What are you doing behind the damn door?" I looked up at a very irritated Danielle, who looked for all the world like my mother –sometimes I swear Danielle was my mother in disguise-, and smiled.

"Looking for the white rabbit?"

&

Eventually Danielle coerced me into mingling. I didn't mind mingling, most of these people were my friends, but Danielle's form of mingling was her dragging me around from person to person. She had to make sure that everyone hugged, kissed and wished me happy birthday while also seeing my costume. She's a very forceful but well-meaning friend.

I love the girl to death, and I understand she wants me to enjoy my closer-to-death-day but my arm doesn't appreciate being pulled out of its socket.

My arm, and the rest of me, cheered though when she led me to one corner, where gifts in all sorts of colorful wrapping paper were piled on one of our small (everything in this apartment was small) tables.

After that, I had fun, though I left the gift opening till tomorrow. I drank, danced and laughed with a lot of friends I hadn't seen in ages. The woes of being a history major, nose constantly stuck in dusty old books.

When Danielle and our friend Tina pulled out a rather large cake that was in the shape of a certain body part, I didn't complain or even cringe. I laughed a long with everyone else, and set about blowing out the candles.

I did, however, rather joyfully cut the cake which made all the guys there groan as if in sympathy. It's a cake, sheesh.

It was my small act of revenge for all this fuss and would have worked fine, if the rest of the girls hadn't enjoyed it too.

Once everyone had a slice of cake, we stood and talked. That is, until Stephen decided to give the birthday girl a chocolate cake facial.

"You're gonna get it."

That said, I tossed half my remaining cake at him.

I vaguely heard Danielle say something along the lines of, "Good thing we used paper plates."

What ensued was chaos. Those who didn't want to get hit quickly backed out into a different room, but that wasn't many. Most stayed to toss mushy cake at each other, some getting the drinks and the water tap involved.

Others made nasty jokes as they smashed the cake into each others face, considering what the shape of the cake used to be.

It was all going good, fun and games, until my foot slid on some icing. Being a klutz, I was very familiar with the sensation of falling so I didn't bother fighting and just closed my eyes. As soon as I hit the floor, I heard a pleasant laugh from above me.

I opened my eyes, and stared into the pretty eyes of a Mad Hatter with a Cheshire grin.

My goal for this chapter was to introduce more of Alicia's friends and include more dialogue. We'll see Alicia's friends next chapter, where the party continues but I've started to hate writing dialogue. I used to be able to do it easily, now I find it harder. Le sigh.

Read & review, and let me know about any mistakes.

Also check out some of my one-shots. These are more near and dear to me.

Revised 08/07/08

¤ throwingstars