08. Soul of the Party

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A loud phone noise echoes in my room and I wake up immediately. Did I turned on my alarm? It's Saturday.

I grab my phone to turn that off and realize it's a phone call, not my alarm. Jess? It's 8 a.m., why is she calling?

"Um hello?" I say reaching my phone to me ear.

"Hey beb! Did I woke you up?" Jess says through my phone.

"Kinda, but it's fine. What's up?" She barely ever calls me, probably because she knows I hate having calls, so whenever she actually called it was important.

"You have to come with me and the others tonight." She says excitedly and I'm more confused than before. What was the urgency in calling me at 8:00 a.m. to invite me to hang out with her friends in the night? More exactly, why would she invite me to hang out with them when she knows I probably won't accept?

I know that not wanting to hang with them may be rude, and I feel terrible about that, but hanging out with them is uncomfortable and awkward, horrible scenario for me.

"Um what are you talking about?" I ask not really knowing what she actually meant.

"Well Robert's birthday is today and mine is this Monday, so we are partying till Monday!" She says excitedly.

"You mean three days in a row?" I ask in disbelief. How can someone even party three days in a row I'll be exhausted by 2 a.m. of the first night.

"Well you can come just on Monday, since it's my birthday. Jake will drive all of us to my house after school." I don't like hanging out with them but it's her birthday, I can't really say no.

"That sounds good, but I'll just stay for while since it's a school night."

"Of course beb, as you wish." She agrees and I hope this whole thing goes well.

After sleeping for a few more hours, my mom woke me up to have some breakfast with her, dad wasn't here for some reason, not that I was complaining.

As I was scrolling through my school e-mail, I noticed one talking about a road trip.

Dear students,

It's my pleasure to announce the road trip our beloved high school is organizing for all our students. The whole information will be emailed in the next days, plus your teachers will happily give a detailed explanation next week. It will have an accesible price and lots of fun! Hope to see all of you there!

All the best,

John Hudson.

A road trip sounds like fun, although I barely know anything about it. But I got two problems here: first of all, my parents. I don't want to create any problems since it's a big ass permission and they might stress about it. The whole convincing them to let me go and explaining everything to them sounds really tiring.

Meanwhile, the other problem is that even if I convince my parents, I have no one to go with.

In those road trips you share a room with other people, if you don't have anyone to go with, you will be staying with strangers. That's so weird, it would be like 'hi I don't know you at all, but I'll sleep next to you for some days'. Hell no.

Jess is probably going but she is definitely staying with her friends, so there's no point in going. I'll just stay home and avoid all that drama and worries.

.

As soon as I arrived to school on Monday I started looking for Jess to congratulate her for her birthday, and I also have to look for Jordan later to let him know I won't need a ride today.

"These are so dope dude, thank you!" I hear Jess by her locker with a gift bag in her hands. I suppose the guy in front of her gave it to her.

I got her a little present too: accessories and jewelry I'm sure she will love, and also some of her favorite snacks.

"Jess! Happy birthday, I love you!" I say hugging her after the guy left.

"Thank you Adi!" She said and I give her my present, she seem really excited.

"No way, this piercing is my favorite ever from now on." Jess says looking cautiously at the ear piercing I got for her. I'm really happy she liked it.

"I knew you would love it." I say chuckling at her excitement when she spotted more things in the bag.

"Ugh Jake love these too, he will steal them all, I better hide them." She says looking at the skittles in her hands.

"Yes, I will." The guy that was talking to her before says taking the skittles from her. I thought he left.

"You bitch! Give it back." Jess tries to reach for them when this guy, apparently named Jake, shakes them in the air.

I hate these situations when people start fighting or playing in front of me, like what should I do? I literally just stand there or pretend I'm suddenly busy.

"Nah." Jake says with a big smirk in his face. He is tall, probably around 6'0, and well he is kinda cute not gonna lie, but the look he's giving me is creeping me out.

"Who is your friend?" He says pointing at me with his head.

"Give me my skittles first." Jess says angrily stretching her hand, surprisingly she did get him to give her the candies.

"Finally. Well she is Adira, been friends since middle school." Jess introduces me to her friend and I just feel like leaving right now.

"Adira huh? Is she coming today?" He keeps on with the creepy smirk. The fact I'm actually going is panicking me.

"Of course she is, now go away. I loved your gifts, but you are annoying me now." Jess says and I agree. He gives me that 'boy that takes away your phone to make you mad' vibes.

"Fine. See you later ladies." He said before leaving and I just realized something, is he Jake as the guy that is driving us? I'm regretting all this already.

It wasn't difficult to convince my parents to go to Jess party since they know her and her parents, but it do was difficult to convince myself to actually go. My social anxiety can be so overwhelming sometimes, I'm trying my best to not let it beat me this time.

Everything will be fine.

.

"Good morning, today I'll use sometime of my class to talk to you about the school road trip coming next week. When I finish explaining you can ask your doubts." My physics teacher says to us and I'm glad we will waste some time of this period.

"Our high school is organizing a road trip to Pennsylvania, we will visit some state parks, museums, etc." The teacher starts explaining. I've been once in Pennsylvania, since we live in New York we can just drive and be there in a couple of hours.

"A bus will take us and we will stay at an hotel. In the hotel you will share a room with more people you get to chose. You don't have to worry about paying for the transport or the hotel, the school has decided to pay those, you just have to pay for your food and whatever else you want to buy." 

It's weird that we don't have to pay for those things, these road trips are usually a little expensive, and no one ever goes because of that.

"We are looking forward to bring as much students as possible this time and accomplish our mission of unifying our student community. It's a great offer that I hope you make good use of. Now if you have any questions I'm all ears."

The teacher answered some few questions before the class finished and she dismissed us.

As I made my way to my locker I saw Jordan walking by. It's weird the other two aren't with him, but it's better so I can talk to him.

"Jordan!" I said trying to make him stop but it doesn't work. He is getting kinda far, he probably can't even hear me.

I ran a little to get closer and tap in his shoulder. This time he turns around to face me and we accidentally end up being too close to each other.

I take a step back, not trying to invade his personal space...again.

"Hey, um, can I talk to you?" I ask him which is really stupid since we are talking already, well I'm talking already. He isn't really talkative.

"Go on." He says dryly as always but I'm not complaining, after my awkward hug I thought he will never ever talk to me again.

"I won't need you to drive me home today. I'm hanging with my friend after school and we got a ride." I say nervously for some reason while he just gives me a blank look.

"You know I can drive you there if you want, right?" He says that probably because of my nervous tone, and that's sweet, but how am I supposed to ask him that, he ain't my driver.

"Thank you, but it won't be necessary, I think we all will fit in the car." He now gives me a confused look.

"I mean I'm not sure how many people will come with us, Jess will have a party for her birthday." I continue trying to explain myself but stopped when I realized he doesn't have to know the whole story.

"Someone said party?" Roman says stepping between Jordan and me, putting an arm around our shoulders.

"No." Jordan says pushing Roman away.

"Yes. Is my friend's birthday party." I say meanwhile the two boys glare at each other.

"We are coming." Roman says raising his hand for me to high five it.

"No, you are fucking not." Jordan says while I high five Roman.

"It's ok guys, you can come. I'm sure many people will." I say reassuring them, I just know that Jess won't even know half the people at the party, so other three guys won't hurt, specially when they aren't just any guys.

"Well then I'm driving." Jordan says and I can't tell if it's a statement or a question.

"Don't worry, Jake it's ok with driving me." I say turing on my phone to text Jess.

"Jake as that dude that crashed his car in junior year?" Roman asks and I hope he is joking.

"I don't know him tho, but I hope he isn't that Jake." Both of them look at me confused but Jordan looks more mad than confused.

"Why the fuck would a stranger drive you?" Jordan asks.

"Didn't you drove me home even when you were an stranger?" I ask in response.

"That's different." He replies dryly.

"How?" I'm surprised I'm not chickening out of this conversation, it's probably because I know Jordan wouldn't purposely hurt me, I didn't need to be scared, at least that's what I like to think.

"I'm not a horny boy that will try to get in your pants." He says and I'm left speechless at his chose of words. What is wrong with him, he doesn't even knows Jake.

"Who said you aren't? I think you are." Roman joins the conversation and Jordan seems about to go crazy.

"Ok no one cares who is horny and who isn't." I say getting between them to stop them from going any closer to each other.

I check my phone and notice a voice note from Jess. I bring my phone to my ear so I can hear it.

"We need a new ride, I don't know how the fuck Jake didn't remembered that his dad was using his car today so he won't be able to drive us. I'm desperate, I guess we will have to use the fucking bus, anyways I'll let you know what's up later." A small beep sounded at the end of the voice note indicating it was over.

"Actually," I start looking at both of them. "I will need a ride, and also for my friend."

"I can drive all of us!" Roman says right away. "We can fit the four of us, counting the idiot of Blake that is actually attending English class and this horny dude, plus three more people."

"Really? That would be amazing Roman, thank you, I'll let my friend know." I say excited that I somehow helped this whole ride problem for Jess, I mean it was thanks to Roman, but I'm part of it.

"Of course pumpkin, you know how I'm the soul of the party." He winks and we high five again.

I texted Jess and she was more than relieved. Apparently Jess, Jake, and another girl named Eve are coming with us.

AUTHOR NOTE

Vote and comment if you liked this chapter!

-ARV

Published: June 13 2021

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