Chapter 3

"Turn right at the next light," Laura commanded me in the passenger's seat. I was so nervous. Not only do I hate driving but I was also grieving having to talk to people I barely know. Let's just say I am horrible at talking, especially with random people.

When we finally got there, we saw the house was packed. Cars were parked outside in the driveway and lined up alongside the road to several driveways after the house. We eventually got to the front of the line and parked. Being in the front of the line also meant we had to walk the farthest to the house.

Once we finally got to the front door, Laura rang the doorbell. We could hear people talking to each other and occasional cheers and laughter from what I guessed were from people playing games. In the background of all of that, music was blaring from somewhere in the house. Just then the door opened and we were face to face with one of our classmates, Caroline.

"Hey, Laura and Melony! I'm glad you guys could make it! Please, come in, make yourself at home. There's soda in the fridge and food on the coffee table."

We made our way in and were almost greeted by the stairs leading upstairs. To our left was a grand open space. From where we were I could see couches and I immediately saw where the laughter from board games was happening. There were people all around in the open room that I assumed was the living room, couples cuddling, friends joking around, and groups sitting around a card game that seemed to resemble Cards Against Humanity.

We continued through the living room taking everything in. It seemed like a clean yet popping party. There were tons of people and no one that I could see was carrying any alcohol. That surprised me since I have always watched those movies where teenagers get wasted at parties.

I can't do big crowds and especially can't socialize. This was not my thing. Just standing there in the kitchen with Laura while she brought out drinks for the two of us was making my palms sweat.

"Let's go. I saw some people playing Cards Against Humanity, let's go join them!" Laura exclaimed.

"Uh, sure I guess," I said. "You know I am horrible at that kind of stuff. I don't have a sense of humor." That part probably wasn't completely true but I know I can't talk dirty or even talk about anything remotely 'inappropriate'.

"You'll be fine. You can be funny sometimes!" She said, trying to lift my confidence. It didn't work that well though. My hands started shaking as we walked closer to the large group. "Hey, can we join?"

"You came just in time, we just started a new round," a guy I assumed wasn't in any of my classes since I didn't recognize him at all. He started counting out cards and both handed us a stack.

"Thanks," I said when he handed the cards to me.

"The prompt is 'And the Academy Award for blank goes to blank."

Oh boy. I don't have anything good. Well, I don't even know what would be considered good since I've always overthought things and never knew what to say.

I decided to go with 'And the Academy Award for A lifetime of Sadness goes to A zesty breakfast burrito'. Not too great but with my skill of failure, it's the best I could come up with. I handed in my cards to the person who I needed to and sat back on the couch trying to think of something less stressful.

I ended up technically not winning but in my head, I won a few rounds by making some chuckle with my lack of humor. After a few more rounds, I ended up drinking all of my drink due to the stress flowing throughout my body so I decided to ditch this game for a few rounds to go to the bathroom. The bad news about going to the bathroom was I had to ask Caroline where the bathroom was. I found her outside with a group of people around the bonfire. I went up to her and quietly asked her where the bathroom was. At first, she didn't hear me but once I cleared my throat and tried a little louder she jumped clearly startled, and turned around to look at me.

"Jesus! You scared me! Here I'll go show you," Caroline said still panting with the burst of adrenaline that I gave her. "I'll be right back guys," she said to her friends, and with that, she put her soda down on the nearby table and got up motioning me to follow her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. And you don't need to leave your friends, you could've described where the bathroom was, I would get there eventually," I tried to explain.

"That's okay. I was hoping to get out of the boring discussion about football teams anyway." I felt relieved by that statement of reassurance.

She showed me the bathroom and went back to where her friends were, leaving me to do my business. After I did, I got out and noticed a guy with his head down strumming a guitar softly in the mudroom across from where I was. At first, I decided to walk back to Laura but then I thought I recognized him and I stopped in my tracks trying to figure it out.

All of a sudden he looked up from his playing to stare at me with a confused expression. It was then that I realized that I was staring at him.

"Uh hi. Sorry I didn't mean to stare. I like your guitar playing. It's nice," I said trying to stay calm.

"Thanks. Wait, you're the customer from my work. The one who wants water?" Oh, shoot. That's where I know him from? I immediately felt my face heat up and I knew my face was turning 5 shades of pink darker.

"Ha! Yeah I guess that was me. I was not in the best state that day. It was a long day," I said, thinking I needed to have an explanation for my weird actions that day.

It was then that he gave me a warm and sincere smile. "That's okay. I feel that a lot of the time. You caught me off guard with your request for water so I'm sorry I probably looked at you like you were crazy."

"Pff! You shouldn't be sorry about that! I was crazy. Still am but that's... uh... I don't know," I said with a loss for words. I blushed even more with my lack of vocabulary and decided to look down at the ground to hide it.

"That's amazing. It means you're human. As Norman Bates says, 'We all go a little mad sometimes'." I had to laugh at this. The movie he quoted was one of my favorite movies.

"I'm glad to know you've seen Alfred Hitchcock's Pschyo! That's my favorite movie... well one of my favorites," I expressed. He smirked at me even more at this statement but this time it was more of admiration than weirded out.

"Finally someone that I talk to has great taste! I feel like everyone that I talk to don't even know who Alfred Hitchcock is, much less Psycho!" I nodded in excitement. Someone who expressed exactly how I was feeling was what I needed and for once my dreams were granted.

Then it was silent for what seemed like ten minutes before I decided to say something to break the awkwardness. "Nice guitar playing. What have you been working on?" I asked, hoping it didn't sound too weird. I hated talking, especially starting a conversation.

"Thanks," he said looking down at his guitar. He seemed to be blushing, was he embarrassed? "I haven't been working on anything huge. I've been trying to write some songs but the inspiration for what I should write about hasn't come to me yet." 

"That's amazing! Good for you," I exclaimed. "I can assure you, you'll figure it out soon. You sounded very talented a few minutes ago."

"Thanks," he said as he grinned up at me. We stood there for a good amount of time, me smiling all cheesy and quite possibly dreamily and him showing his straight, white, and beautiful teeth shining up at me. Not to mention his hazel brown eyes behind his cute square glasses. Some guys can't master the look of glasses but this dude was one of the few that could actually look hot in glasses. Maybe it was his dark brown hair styled neatly back without looking greasy that made his glasses blend into his beautiful face so easily. Even when he probably had bad eyesight, he was still perfect. 

Finally, I got out of the trance of staring at him and began to hear laughter and music blasting in the background once again. How long have I been standing there just staring at him? "Okay, well it was nice talking to you. I'm gonna go now," I finally spoke. As I did so, I whirled around and started to march out of the room. 

"Wait!" The guitar player called suddenly as I was just about to make it to the kitchen. I spun back around to look at him. My heart started thumping fast again at the look of him walking closer to me. He stopped when we were about a foot apart. "Can I get your name? I'm the type of person who likes to know who they are talking to."

"Oh right! I'm sorry I didn't say my name earlier," I apologized. "My name is-"

"No don't tell me, let me guess," he interrupted. He shut his eyes in concentration while scrunching up his face. "It's... Melony... Isn't it?"

I looked up at him in surprise. "Yeah. How'd you know?" I started smirking. "Are you stalking me?" 

"Ahh yes. I'm actually an undercover cop here to arrest you," he said laughing. I chuckled with him and stopped as he moved on. "But really, I remember your friend saying your name a thousand times in the restaurant when I was serving you. She was trying to get you back on Earth from your daydream." 

"Okay fair enough. Well, I still don't know your name. You didn't do anything stupid like I did to cause your name to slip out of one of your co-worker's mouth," I explained. 

The mysterious and potential undercover cop laughed and then spoke, "You didn't do anything stupid. Everyone has those days. It's normal to zone out. My name is Nolan."

"Well, it was nice to meet you, Nolan. I hope to see you around sometime," I said while secretly hoping I wouldn't embarrass myself anymore and not actually wanting to see him again in those weird situations I get into. Every time I see a cute boy, it's right when I'm doing something dumb or my brain decides to do something dumb to counteract the normality of the situation. That's one of the many reasons why I still don't have a boyfriend as it is my senior year of high school. 

"Nice to meet you too, Melony," he said so gently as if he was holding a sleeping baby in his arms. 

At that, I walked back into the heat of the party regrettably and sat with Laura as she interacted so smoothly with everyone there. I said nothing after my best interaction with a boy for the rest of the night.

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Thank you to all who have read through this work in progress! I am so entirely grateful for all who are reading this. 

Again, please comment, vote, and rate this story! I love all who are reading and please don't be afraid to comment on mistakes in my writing or things I should do better within my writing. This is just a rough draft and I probably won't read through this after I'm done with it because I would probably just delete this whole thing since I am a perfectionist at everything. Reading this over again will get me to think it's trash which will cause me to throw all my hard work out in the garbage instead of just fixing it. Anyone else like that or am I just crazy?

Anyway, thank you again to whoever is reading this!