It was the summer of Skinny Pop and simple syrups. It was the summer of Emma sneaking out to swap spit behind her parent’s lake house, and I still hadn’t kissed a boy. It was the summer when that would change. I met him when Emma invited me to her parent’s lake house for the majority of June. Emma had told me to drop at least two pounds before I showed up in a bathing suit. After we’d arrived, Emma had told me she wanted to go to a house party to meet up with Movie Guy. Some college frat boy she flirted with earlier that day who, you guessed it, worked at the movie theater and wouldn’t shut up about The Godfather franchise. I couldn’t see the appeal. He smelled like popcorn and always looked sweaty.
“You should put those things to use.” She said as we were getting ready, pointing to my chest. I felt torn looking between what I had on and what she laid out because Emma said we’re only seventeen once, and that the summers where our metabolisms are still fast and consequences are far away don’t have a very long shelf life. I just wasn’t interested in spending my summer on losers who still didn’t know how to put on deodorant properly.
I looked down at the bed where I found the suggestion of a dress that she had laid out for me. “Emma…do I have to wear this out? I packed my stuff.” She paused in the mirror.
“Umm, no Grandma. I’m not going out with someone who looks like they haven’t been outside in the past 10 years.” She gave my suitcase a pointed look and chuckled. Those comments shouldn’t hurt, not anymore. I’ve taken so much crap from Emma that I should have been immune. But I wasn’t. Because when she said stuff like that, it just made me think about us as kids. I’d known Emma since I was 5. I wasn’t sure why she had chosen me then, why she chose to keep me along for all these years. But what I did know was that she would hold my hand through anything, that she loved me. Or I thought she did. When high school rolled around, it hit us hard. Emma had always somehow been at the center of everything, she was the sun, and I became Pluto, like something she just had to drag along, and couldn’t let go of.
“Oh please Emma, at least I don’t have to be practically naked to keep a guy interested.” The comment was mean, I knew that, but these spats were infectious, as soon as Emma started, it latched on and pushed out the worst in me.
Emma looked away from her reflection and I met her eyes in the mirror as she said, “What guys Lola?” And with that stupidly simple sentence, I looked away and shut up. Infuriated, because she was right.
I swallowed my retort, though I wanted to spit it out, it was burning my mouth, instead, I opted for staring at the ceiling. “Just please tell me you won’t get wasted this time?” I half pleaded with her, remembering the party we went to two weeks before the summer started. I was sober but she left my side for 20 minutes and returned not knowing her ABCs.
“No promises.” She looked up from her eyeshadow and winked.
“I can’t believe I have to shave for this,” I sighed, snatched up the dress, and walked out of the room.
***
The house was what I expected it to be, a weird frat wannabe in the middle of beachy nowhere. The poor thing looked like it didn’t remember what a paint job looked like, or a good cleaning. But it was still very much alive, at least the inside was, seeing that the music was blaring and the people were pouring every which way out and into the house. It was already way too loud even before we walked in and I thought I’d seen some guy start to puke in the bushes. I got closer to Emma and half yelled into her ear, “This is insane. Are you sure Movie Guy is worth this?”
She only looked annoyed and yelled, “Yes, and shut up Lola, stop being such a stuck-up bitch!” I let go of her hand, the music was too loud, and my head was stuck between the clouds of miscellaneous smoke and sweaty, sticky bodies in the dark. She quickly pulled me back in, “Listen we look hot and we drove all this way, now I’m going to go hookup, maybe you should too.” As soon as she had pulled me back in, she pushed me back out. And I was alone.
***
I hated it. Every single part of it. After Emma left me stranded between the table filled with bottles and bodies grinding to music that was going way too fast, I lodged myself to the wall, desperate to not get sucked into the sea of dark sweaty bodies. Even the walls were vibrating behind my head, almost as if the house had a pulse. I didn’t want to leave my spot for fear of getting sucked into the crowd. After a few minutes of observing those falling over, arguing, or running outside to go throw up, I pulled my phone out to text Emma, beginning to worry about getting contact high. A stumbling body ran into me seconds later, knocking my phone out of my hand while cold bitter liquid spilled all over me.
“Oh damn! Joshy you’re wasted get over here!” The guy who had tripped onto me and spilled his drink looked up. He looked like his middle name was Stoner. His friends quickly pulled him up while I got on the floor to search for my phone. Once stoner boy Joshy was off the floor his friend kneeled beside me, “Hey super sorry about him babe, he just can’t handle his drinks to save his life.” I looked at him coldly. His friend wasn’t much better, he was just a different kind of wasted. At this point, I just wanted to get my phone and get out.
“It’s fine. I just gotta find my phone,” I said, trying my best not to sound as annoyed as I felt.
“Oh no wait, let me help with that.” He pulled out a joint from his back pocket and lit it right in front of my face. “Can you see better?” He asked, the smoke pouring from out his mouth and into my face. That was the moment I truly started to believe some people did not use the brains they were given. I just looked at him in astonishment. “What? You wanna hit?” He asked, bringing it out of his mouth and closer to my face.
“Screw that”, was all I could get out, I soon felt my phone under my fingertips, and made my way through the bodies and out the back door.
***
I was surprised to see that the patio out back was half decent looking if you could imagine it without all the smoke clouds and empty bottles. I half stumbled through the backyard, still half soaked from the drink spilled on me, and then fully pissed at Emma when I spotted her Movie Guy, both with a drink in hand, leaning against the fence.
This was stupid. All of this. Emma knew I didn’t go out much, and she thought I was a stuck-up bitch for it, but I guess it paid off cause this stuck-up bitch never had anything too bad happen to her– not yet. I’d never seen the appeal, never had the time. And following Emma’s advice was like following directions in a car that always led you down the wrong road. Every way she turned, she’d landed in trouble, and usually being in the passenger seat, I did as well. I surveyed the backyard, there were not nearly as many people outside rather than in. I was thankful for that, and an open seat by the fire pit. But as soon as I found my spot around the fire pit, trouble found me.
He was leaning against the fence and looking across the way, he didn’t look like trouble, not from far away at least. Not in his white button-up shirt and blue jeans, not with his eyes, and with the way his hair sort of curled on his forehead. But I called him trouble because my 17-year-old, underdeveloped brain thought it was exciting. After all, he had dimples and was casually walking over, jacket in one hand, drink in the other.
“Hi” was all he said, and it made me wish I had something to drink to hide the sudden flush in my face. Jesus, all this boy had said was hi and I was already driven to drink.
“Hi” was all I could muster in return. I was never great at conversation, that’s why Emma had more friends and I didn’t. Because she couldn’t stop talking, and I just… couldn’t.
“It’s Liam,” he said in a cool and collected nature, he set down his drink and reached his hand out to shake mine,
I accepted. His hands were warm, the fire reflected off his eyes, and his hair was shifting from light brown to blond in the light, he made a motion towards the empty spot next to me. I nodded, I didn’t wanna let go of his hand.
“Lola” I returned, suddenly wishing I had a hotter name like Mia or Sophie, or Nina, something newer and sweeter.
“Oh, kinky.” He said, smirking.
“Excuse me?” I asked, I finally pulled my hand away, if I had that drink I would’ve choked on it.
“The band, The Kinks, have a song named Lola.” He said, suddenly seating himself next to me.
Right, of course, I knew that band, people would play it all the time to mess with me. But I wondered, looking at him then if I should take Emma’s advice and play dumb. She said it’s what works for her, act like you know nothing, so in the end you get everything you want. But as I watched her hang off Movie Guy’s shoulder, already half wasted and sort of falling, I decided to take a different route.
“Oh right, The Kinks, yeah I know that band, it was just kind of random.” I laughed it off, as I do in most situations.
There was an awkward pause for a few seconds, as he watched me watching the chaos swirling around us. When I looked back, he was looking at my chest. I immediately crossed my arms over myself, trying my best to hide once more. He grabbed onto my arm apologetically, “No no, I’m sorry I wasn’t looking at you like that, I just noticed the stain on your dress.” Guilt and relief washed over me, with the afterburn of embarrassment.
“Right, yeah I was inside earlier and some guy tripped and spilled his drink all over me.” I gestured to the big brownish splotch all over my chest, trying to casually play the whole thing off. “I got offered a joint after the whole thing, so it wasn’t a complete loss.” At that he laughed, it was clear and bright, and it made me want to lean in further, to catch it the next time it happened.
“Well, you win some, you lose some here.” He said, his eyes skimmed over the back door, then back to me. “But we can fix this,” he picked up his jacket and in one smooth, simple motion, placed it over my shoulders, along with his arm. The flush in my face increased 10 fold.
We spent the next few minutes talking about where we were from, what schools we went to, and how we ended up at the party. I described Emma, and how she had to meet up with some rando, and of course, had to drag me along as well.
“Well, I’m happy you came, even if you were dragged here. You know how to hold a conversation better than most of these girls.” He said, and I just smiled at him and tried not to feel uneasy at the comment.
“Is that your friend over there?” He asked, eyeing her as well as her Movie Guy.
“Yeah, that’s my friend, Emma, hanging off some sweaty dude whose name she will not remember in the morning,” I say matter-of-factly, really wishing at that moment I had that drink, or a vape, something, not to drink or smoke, just use as a prop to liven up the image.
“Oh, you mean my friend?” He said pointing to Movie Guy. Damn. Maybe I should’ve stuck to not talking sometimes. He only laughed when he saw the expression on my face.
“No, that was funny. And as for your friend, that’s fair, he’s not very notable.” I got a clear shot of his eyes then, they were pretty. A brown that in the sun might look gold, I would’ve spent more time trying to figure out what they reminded me of if his hand hadn’t started roaming my thigh. And then in a moment, something in his eyes changed. “But I am.” All too suddenly his hands were at the back of my neck and pulling me in before I could say no, before I could close my eyes, before I could take one more big deep breath and hold it before I went under.
I was trapped and could only push my lips together to keep him out. But his lips were all too comfortable in their attacking ways, with too much force and teeth. I wondered if that was how it was always like. If these were all the thrown-out takes to the movie kisses, the way things happened in the dark with no one watching, if this is how all kisses at parties went. But no one had warned me, and all I wanted was for him to stop, to erase it, and go back to the boy who didn’t look like trouble and asked about my name. I pushed at him until he finally stopped and pulled away. “What the hell! I thought you were into it!” He said in an annoyed tone, his face was telling me I did something wrong. But I knew I hadn’t.
“I was never into that!” I almost wanted to start crying, because that was my first kiss.
“Well, I was gonna invite you and your friend over but that’s not happening now.” He said, becoming more unattractive by the millisecond. His hair was oily, his pants were shaggy, his hands were dirty and rough, and I couldn’t believe someone’s mouth could do that. I stood there looking at him, I couldn’t believe something so seemingly sweet turned so bad so fast right in front of me. Like some screwed-up light switch. As I turned away I could hear him calling me a stuck-up bitch under his breath. I didn’t want to dignify it with a response so I kept moving, but I held my middle finger high in the air for everyone to see. I knew it wasn’t enough, but it got the point across. Because screw the party, screw Emma and Movie Guy, and most of all, screw Liam.
I left almost as quickly as I arrived.
