Chapter Seven

Abby stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom for a good forty-five minutes just working on her bangs. They were suddenly too long where only a moment before they had seemed too short. She tried putting it up in a half dozen ways and rejected them all out of hand. She finally settled begrudgingly for leaving it down. She brushed her teeth one more time and then ran back to their room.

While she had been in the bathroom Laura had come back from dinner and was sitting on her bed, flipping through a magazine.

"Frick, awkward changing time," thought Abby. It was one thing to slip into PJs simultaneously, both of them facing different directions, if was a whole new level of discomfort to change clothes in the middle of the evening with Laura sitting there watching. Abby decided that she just couldn't do it.

"Oh for crying out loud, just change! Laura doesn't give a damn about what you do in front of her." Abby swallowed hard and pulled out the pair of black pants that she had decided on. She quickly slipped out of her jeans, silently blessing herself for the fact that she'd already changed into the underwear that she'd planned on wearing that night. She didn't look over at Laura because whether or not her roommate was watching her, she didn't want to look like she was embarrassed about it. Switching between her t-shirt and her borrowed top was relatively painless.

Abby stood in front of the mirror on the back of their door, and looked herself over. She ran her fingers through her hair to put it back where it was supposed to be and straightened her shirt. Not too bad. Not too bad at all actually. She turned and looked over her shoulder at her back and then crossed the room to fetch her jewelry box.

The thing was light wood with pink flowers painted on the lid and a pink faux velvet lining. On the front of each little drawer there was a tiny knob decorated with an even tinier rose bud. She'd had the box for almost as long as she could remember. It had been a Christmas gift from her grandparents when she was a little girl. As juvenile as it looked, Abby still liked it. But she didn't know if Laura would understand that it had sentimental value, or if she would think that it looked stupid.

"Screw Laura. It's my jewelry box."

After much deliberation Abby decided on a silver necklace with a crystal pendant and a pair of dangly silver threader earrings with tiny feathers hanging from the ends of them. She looked herself over in the mirror and finally added a couple of silver bangles as well. There, that looked going outish.

"At least, I think it does."

Abby turned around to find Laura studying her.

"Going somewhere, Abby?" she asked.

"Yes!"

"Uh yeah, I'm going to a party actually."

"Cool."

"Yeah, some guy I know invited me."

"Well have fun."

"I'm sure I will, he's pretty cool."

"Sweet."

"Yeah."

"Ok Abby, you should shut up now," she thought to herself. "Looking less cool by the second here."

Abby turned back to the mirror to check her make up one more time. She glanced at the clock. She still had a good 20 minutes before she was supposed to leave. She sat down at her computer under the pretense of checking her email or something. Her stomach had suddenly begun to feel very sick.

"Why the heck are you so nervous about this?"

"I don't know! Does it matter?"

"Yes! Maybe it's a bad sign; maybe you should listen."

"No, I'm just a little jumpy because it's my first party. I'll be fine!"

Unable to force herself to kill any more time, Abby jumped up and grabbed her purse. She would walk slowly, or take a turn around the block if she had to, but she couldn't just sit here anymore doing nothing.

"I'm going now, see you later."

"Ok, have fun," Laura murmured, turning a page of her magazine.

"Thanks, have a good night."

*****

As Abby walked East and South towards Harrison Street she tried to calm her nerves with deep breaths.

"Maybe I should call Mom after all. Someone should know where I am in case something were to happen."

"No, Cath knows, and besides, you have your cell phone. And nothing is going to happen anyway! You're just going to hang out with Nick for a while, meet a few people and then go home again. Simple as that."

When she finally reached the address that Nick had told her to go to she stood out on the sidewalk for a few moments looking at the townhouse. It was a bit further of a walk than she had estimated from the Google map she had looked at. She could hear music coming from the open windows and light spilled out onto the brief lawn like welcome mats. She swallowed several times to try and calm her stomach and then steeled her nerve and strode up to the door and knocked. It was a stranger who opened it, after a very long and uncomfortable wait.

"Um, hi there. Is Nick here?" The guy looked her up and down and then nodded. He waved her through the door with his beer bottle.

"Yeah, come on in."

Abby stepped though the doorway and paused to look around. The place struck her as a very stereotypical college student apartment. Seriously mismatched and conspicuously stained furniture was grouped around a large television that had several gaming platforms spilling from it, causing the entertainment center to look like some sort of huge, disemboweled beast. At least a dozen people were packed into the smallish living room and Abby could see more through a passage that presumably lead to the other rooms in the house.

She quickly swept the faces in the room looking for Nick and didn't find him. She turned back to ask the guy that had let her in where Nick was, but he'd already drifted off and joined a small group of people talking by the stairs. Abby decided that rather than approach any more of the strange people in this strange house, she would just take a look around and see if she could find him herself. She threaded her way through the shouting people all the while wondering why they didn't just turn the music down if they wanted to talk.

When she got to the kitchen she literally bumped into Nick who was just coming around the corner.

"Abby! Hey, glad you could make it! Find the place alright?"

"Yeah, yeah it was fine. Thanks for inviting me, I appreciate it."

"Of course I'd invite you! Now what can I get you to drink? We have beer and Smirnoff and some Mike's hard cider, and I think we've got some rum if that's your thing."

"Oh um..."

"Shit!"

"Just something light I guess..."

"Haha, light? How about we start you off on some Smirnoff or a Blue Moon?"

"Um, ok."

Nick opened the refrigerator and handed Abby a cold bottle of something clear, twisting off the metal cap for her and tossing it on the counter. Abby noticed that it was already strewn with quite a few others.

"Thanks."

"You've had Smirnoff before right?" For a moment Abby panicked. If she said yes and she hated it, what would she do? But if she said no... Well she'd look really lame. She decided to go for that. She forced a little laugh.

"Um, no actually, I haven't." She smiled apologetically. Rather than kick her out of the party immediately, Nick just laughed. He leaned back on the counter and folded his arms.

"Well take a drink!"

Hesitantly Abby did as she was told. Tipping the bottle up she let the liquid flow past her lips. At first the ice cold drink burned in her throat and all the way down into her chest, but then the burn seemed to diffuse and dissolve into a pleasant warmth that pooled in her stomach. For some reason she had expected that it would taste like beer, but it didn't at all.

"Well of course not; that was stupid. Not all alcohol tastes the same."

She took another sip. It really didn't taste too bad; tasted kind of like strawberry in fact. A glance at the label revealed that it was indeed "Mixed Berry" flavored.

"What do you think?" asked Nick.

"It's pretty good," said Abby, slightly embarrassed at how surprised her voice sounded. Nick laughed again.

"Well I'm glad you like it. Help yourself to any other drinks that you want. I think there's some chips and stuff going around if you're hungry."

"Thanks, I'm ok for now."

"Alright."

For a moment they stood silently looking at each other. Finally Nick spoke up.

"So, Abby, tell me something fun about yourself."

"Oh, something fun, well geez... Um, well, when I was 12 I busted out two of my teeth on our mail box. So I'm 18 and already have two false teeth."

"Really? That's what you choose to tell him? That's really sexy, Abs. Way to go."

Nick burst out laughing.

"Really? How the hell did you lose two teeth on a mail box?"

"Oh, I guess he did find it entertaining."

"Well we were riding bikes on the sidewalk and this little kid that lived next to us threw this big stick right in front of my tire. I probably could have ridden over it in hind sight, but I was going fast and I swerved without really thinking and just rammed right into the mail box post. The bike stopped but I didn't. I just flipped over the handle bars and smacked my mouth right into the box."

Nick grimaced through his chuckling.

"Well at least you got a good story out of it."

"Yeah, I guess there's that." Abby took another drink of her Smirnoff and smiled at Nick. She didn't know why she'd been so worried; she was really feeling very comfortable around Nick.

"This could be a lot of fun after all."

--------------------

Word count: 1,704
Total word count: 11,759