“Guess the party started early,” Rowena remarks as we dodge them to head inside.
“Nonsense,” Bekka from our shared Art History class calls out. “It’s only starting now you’re here.”
She gives Rowena a hug and nods to me, friend of a friend style. I move into the kitchen, helping myself to a drink from the shared keg. There are a few faces from my various classes, and I wave and nod, searching for an empty seat.
I’m still awkward at parties, a trait I’m determined to conquer before year’s end. The back of my neck tingles with the gaze from a hundred imaginary judgmental eyes.
A trauma response, my counsellor tells me. One that will take time to overwrite with better memories.
The sensation usually eases within a few minutes, but tonight it grows stronger. I choose a seat in the living room and stay in one place, talking with a group that changes topics as its membership alters. People drift in from other rooms, joining, while others leave to wander elsewhere.
Several times I turn, breaking off my conversation while I try to pinpoint the cause. Half-expecting to see Joseph glowering at me for the cardinal sin of being done with him before he was done with me.
But there’s no one. A half dozen times, I shiver, then find my place in the chatter again.
Rowena is being her best extravert self, and as the party careens onwards, I catch glimpses as she flits from group to group, bringing her particular brand of joy with her wherever she goes.
I deliberately trail her into the kitchen to interrogate where this supposed new sporting hero has got to, but she just shrugs and levels a carrot loaded with dip in my direction. “Promise me you’ll stay till you meet him. I’m pretty sure this time he’s the one.”
With a smile, I cross my heart, searching for another drink that won’t promote burping as much as the beer. There are some single serve bottles of wine in the fridge, and I take one of those, enjoying the rush as the alcohol hits my head, so much stronger than what I could get from the foamy keg.
“No,” Rowena scolds me as I try to hoist myself up to sit on the bench. “Only rejects hang out in the kitchen during parties. Get out there and socialise.”
I tip my hand in a cheeky salute and wander back to the main rooms. A gigantic television broadcasts some boxing match and, given the noise level, I guess a lot of people invested money in the outcome.
Rowena runs off to chatter with a girl from the lower levels who I barely know, and I get that creepy crawly sensation running up my spine again, making my shoulder blades tingle.
No kitchen, but nobody said anything about not lurking out of the way upstairs. Just for a few minutes to recharge.
I wander away from the loose groupings in the foyer and sneak up the side of the staircase, pausing when I hit the landing where rooms break off in each direction.
Noise from one tells me it’s a bedroom and very much occupied. Another is a bathroom, a third a study that, judging from the serious tomes of legalise on the bookshelf, belongs to Tarryn’s dad, an acclaimed barrister.
I examine the shelves for long minutes, daydreaming what it would be like to be in the profession. I’m a senior and still don’t have the foggiest about what course to study in university next year. Law seems good. Stable. Respectable.
Unless you get caught in one of those law firms where the handsy treatment of the junior associates by the senior partners ends in the courts and the column inches.
There’s a stuffed owl on the faux mantelpiece—or is it a real mantelpiece above a faux fire?—and I pick it up, staring into its large plastic eyes, wondering what meaning it holds.
My brain sends out a warning signal that it’s in danger of sobering up and I take another long swallow from the wine, the crisp notes making my tongue zing. Leaving the mantel and bookshelves behind, I drift to the large window and stare at the view.
It’s while looking down at the enormous back yard, which features a grass dance floor, large speakers dragged onto the rear steps, and precious little consideration for any neighbours within earshot, that the prickle on the back of my neck comes again, stronger than ever.
A floorboard creaks behind me and I yelp, spinning in terror, my hand clasping the bottle so tightly the glass squeals against my hand.
“An entire house to make use of and you find the one room that’s off limits.”
Fear explodes in my chest, burning through my oxygen in an instant. A starburst dazzles my eyes, brilliant points of light contorting and morphing while the rest of my vision dims. Each beat of my heart feels like a punch.
I drag air into my lungs, but it’s like breathing through a heavy cloth that filters all the good stuff, leaving them unsatisfied, heaving.
Sebastian Clarkson.
My nemesis. My bully. The lead actor in my worst nightmares stands in the doorway, scowling.
CHAPTERTWO
SEB
