Some Other Way to Continue

I sleep through my alarm the next morning. My mom is down stairs drinking a cup of coffee while I throw bread in the toaster dressed only in underpants. “Agh, Frank! Dress and hurry up I’m leaving in five minutes,” she says averting her eyes. Granted, my underwear is kind of old and has kind of a lot of holes in it.
I throw my clothes on, accidentally putting on my plain grey tshirt backwards and having to take it off and put it back on while tripping down the stairs blindly. I kick my school bag down in front of me, I think I will fall and die. This will be my end. My mom stands by the door tapping her watch. I grab the dry slices of burnt toast and shove one in my mouth as I pile into the car, dropping crumbs down my front.
I choke as my mom gives me a lecture on how I don’t care if she’s late and if this happens again she’ll leave without me. Oh what the fuck ever mom.
She drops me at the school gate and drives off literally before I the door is closed. It slams as she pulls out dangerously fast on to the road. Good thing literally no one lives here or drives past this road at 9:03.
I slip and stumble up the icy death trap that is the school car park. I slide on a step leading to the main doors. My hands come up to protect me as I land hard on top step. My hands slide across the course ice made rougher by sand and salt. The school’s attempt to stop people slipping is to put sand on the platform where the door is but literally nowhere else. I try stand up, a tad wobbly. Both my palms are now red raw and parts are skint. I rub them gingerly off my jeans as I take careful steps toward the school. Its march in almost a week, I wish the ice would just give up.
The teacher sighs and says “tardy Mr. Iero,” before gesturing to some girl to continue reading from her copy of Othello.
“… O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green eyed, err, monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on,” the teacher stops her their just as I sit.
“Highlight this quote! It is one of the most famous and you can use it in most exam answers when referring to the plotline. I encourage you to use it when doing comparative studies too. Now, can anyone tell me what Iago means by this?”
Half the class turns to stare at me. Dave raises a daring eyebrow, willing me to give him a reason to call me a cocky bastard. I decide I’ll stay silent.
The teacher seems shocked no one gets this really obvious question. “Oh come on,” she says making a wide arm gesture, “It’s not even really a metaphor!”
I feel the answer rise in my throat like bile but I say nothing. The teacher sighs dramatically, “If you can’t even answer this… you’ve exams in a few months and if I don’t see massive improvement in your results I’ll have to talk to half of you about moving down a class.”
I see Dave stiffen in front of me. I’m not too worried, my grade in this class is good but I can see a lot of nervous expressions around me as the teacher begins to explain the quote. I just hope moving people down will entice Gabe to look in the classroom.
It doesn’t.

I sit at the lunch table, scratching my skinned palms. The guys are shovelling in food while Pete talks about a huge party he’s got us all invited to on Friday. “It’s this guy I know, Josh, you know him? Anyway his parents are away and they own this detached house on the outskirts and I invite him to all mine even though he’s twenty so he’s invited me but says I can only bring two to six people so I’ll bring you guys. Other than you, Mikey, our form is full of immature idiots who’d ruin my chances of getting invited ever again.”
“What about Robby?” Mikey says, scraping up the last of his cafeteria standard grey lasagne.
“What about him?” Pete says with his water bottle in his mouth. He complains about others maturity as he dribbles trying to drink and talk at once. I shake my head at him. “What? He’s a good friend and everything but I don’t trust him around older girls.”
Mikey grins and pushes his food tray away. Gerard pics something out of his teeth and Bert says, “Will we need to bring something?” Gerard’s head shoots up and stares at him like he’s telling him to stop.
“Uh I don’t know,” Pete hesitates, “There’ll be a lot of drink their like… but you can bring more if you want.”
“I can get more vodka?” Bert says, eyeing Gerard.
“Like you need more vodka,” Gabe laughs.
I spend the rest of lunch with eyebrows raised at Gerard, begging for him to explain without actually saying anything. He notices but pretends not to. I feel like I’m not in some big not funny private joke.

Friday I get a lift out to the house with the guy’s friend from Pete’s. This area is really weird. It’s like an unfinished suburban hell. Paved streets, white picket fences and a lot of building sites free of houses. There’s actually only four buildings here on a straight road and two of them seem to be unoccupied. We get out of the guys car, five of us squashed in a backseat. It’ was degrading that I ended up sitting on Gee’s lap but I don’t care too much because I can feel him hard just behind where I’m sitting. I blush as we make awkward conversation with the random twenty year old dude.
Apparently he shares a music taste with us so we just compared favourite Iron Maiden and Misfit songs for the twelve minute car journey.
I still haven’t been to that many parties but they almost feel natural now. I follow Pete and the others into the house. Within seconds I have a plastic cup of vodka and coke and am being introduced to Josh.
“Yes I still live with my parents but what the fuck ever man, I mean look best place for a party!” he says loudly to Pete over the music. Pete just grins and downs his drink. “Wanna do shots with some of these guys? Before they drink all the straight tequila,” josh says beckoning Pete, Mikey and I into the kitchen. Gabe is talking to a giggling already drink girl by the window. I can’t spot Bert and Gerard but we all split up after getting a drink, Pete just wanted to introduce me and Mikey was always awkwardly next to him anyway.
I follow him through the held open double door to the kitchen. Two guys and a girl are standing around an island counter as one guy unsteadily pours the clear drink into plastic shot glasses. “Wanna join in Josh?” the girl calls with a flirty and drunk expression.
Josh grins, “let me and these guys have two rounds to… catch up?”
The guy spills more tequila into another shot glass. I drink the last of my vodka and coke before we each pick one shot up and knock it back. It burns and tastes incredibly vile. Don’t spit it out you’ll ruin any chance you have of being cool I think to myself. I hold my breath as I put the little plastic glass down.
Pete shakes his head and grins as Josh grabs the bottle and pours another round. “On three this time. One, Two, Three!” We choke it back again. It’s in burning the hell out of my throat, numbing my tongue and fuzzing my brain that I wonder why the fuck people drink.
My brain begins to feel the effects as the last of the bottle is poured into everybody’s shot glass. Three, Two, One and I think I can go back to normal drinking but the girl produces another bottle of tequila. The following shots all blur in together but in the end no one’s hand is really steady enough to not spill the tequila and the girl, Lily, ended up drinking it off the counter.
After that bottle we’re released back in to the rest of the big house. I lose Pete and Mikey immediately and find myself in one of the two sitting room type places sitting on a couch with a new drink. I don’t remember getting it or being given it. It probably isn’t even mine.
There’s two guys next to me on the couch and three girls kneeling on the other side of a coffee table. They all introduce themselves to me but I can’t hear them over radiohead being blasted from speakers next to me. The only name I hear is “Dylan”. “Hi, I’m Frank!” I slur/shout. The room is small and the walls are cramped with books and bookshelves. There’s a fireplace which’s mantle is decorated in photo frames and golf trophy’s. So this is upper class Middle America.
Another guy turns up and the friend group I’ve found myself next to greets him ecstatically. “Oh sorry man, fuck, did I take your place?” I say up at the new guy. He looks really off his head.
“Nah, nah it’s cool man,” he says and falls down on the ground next to me. He then very conspicuously takes a bag out of his jacket pocket that’s filled with white powder. Shit I think that’s hardly washing powder. The guy spills it in a little pile on the table and a girl claps her hands together in impatient excitement. The guy takes out a piece of card and starts lining it up. “Would you like some Frank?” Dylan shouts over 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins.
“Uh no thanks, I’ll pass,” I manage to say.
“Suit yourself, this is good proper stuff though,” the already high guy says from the floor next to me and scoops the line he’d done out for me into the lines next to it.
I stand up and say “I’m going to go find my friend, it was nice to meet you,” in my most relaxed way. The girls wave and the guys shout something that was probably “see ya” but sounded Spanish.
I stumble back into the hall. I really want to find Gerard now.
The hall is actually pretty cramped and when I swing open a door assuming it’s the bigger sitting room only to find the stairs down into the basement. The light’s on so I start slowly slinking down the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister so I don’t fall down. I seriously can’t even see straight at all anymore. This is why people drink I guess, so they don’t have to do or be correct anymore.
I find Gerard, Gabe and Bert sitting with a bunch of other older people. They’re laughing while music is blaring. Gee spots me and jumps up.
Suddenly he’s running the short few steps between us and jumping at me. We slide down the coarse wall and sit together at the foot of the stairs. No one pays attention to us sitting on the floor. After a while we start to kiss and someone steals my drink.

I wake up lying on Gerard. I panic for a minute not sure where I am or why I’m here. My brain had prepared me to wake up either at home or in Josh’s house somewhere but this is neither. I blink and realise I’m in Pete’s basement bedroom. Why does everyone in this town have a basement?
I’m fully clothed thankfully but I can’t move in case I wake up Gerard. My mind races, fighting the fact I’m still a little drunk, to try remember why I’m here.
And then I remember. Last night around three am the cops came and broke up the part. A few people were taken off to the station for possession of drugs and someone was sent to the hospital to have their stomach pumped. Pete’s cousin gave us a lift home while we were all incredibly drunk and tried to silently put us to sleep downstairs. He said he won’t tell anyone as long as it never comes up. I look around and see Mikey asleep on a yoga mat his glasses at his side. I know I’m still drunk but not too drunk because my vision has been restored. I snuggle back into Gerard and decide to sleep again so I can wake up extra tired and hung over.

Notes

Hey guys! I've updated today but don't know if I'll be able to again for a while because tomorrow I'm going to a concert (eek excitement!!!) and it's around Halloween that I make an effort to pretend to have a social life... I'll try update again soon! :)