A/N: I hope you guys are appreciating this! Again, if the profanity/themes are not your thing, feel free to ignore this story, and let me know if I should up the rating. And please review, it motivates me! - Ell

Time is a very strange thing. Especially when you're a teenager. Moments and weeks and memories all flash past, and you can't concentrate on them even though you know they're some of the most important times in your life.

The final weeks of school were just like that. If you were to ask me what exam I took that morning, I wouldn't have been able to tell you. You could have pointed out the window towards the sizzling hot pavement and said we were having a freak blizzard, and I wouldn't have seen anything wrong with your statement. Because the present slips by like shimmering ether when all you're focused on is an intangible point in the future.

I didn't have a fucking clue if I would win the Maiwand Scholarship. But the hypothetical thought of Jackie Watson three months in the future, off to chart the new and unstable terrain of a private, high end school was nothing if not exhilarating.

The evening of June 4th, Ellis and I were surrounded by boxes and rolls of exposed packing tape that were being ruined by drifting hair and lint. I was leaning at an absurd angle trying to examine myself in our full length mirror over a stack of boxes full of clothes and books. Miles Perry, playboy extraordinaire complete with a mansion, was holding an end of school bash tonight, and Ellis had insisted that I go.

She had stuffed me into a tight fitting black cocktail dress of hers, which hung very awkwardly on my frame. Ellis' shoulders were broad and muscled, and the straps of the dress bunched and kept falling down on my shoulders. But what I lacked in shoulder, I made up for in hips and butt, and the skirt stretched over my curves, giving my hips almost no movement for walking.

"Relax, Jackie!" Ellis assured me about my shoulders. "If the straps slip a little, it looks like you're having fun dancing!"

"Ellis, how the hell am I supposed to dance? If I move my hips this thing's going to split!"

"We need to show off your curves! You haven't had a date since the end of freshman year!"

I didn't want to show off my curves. In fact, most of what I was critically examining in the mirror was how uncomfortable the shape of my body made me. I always tried to hide it as much as I could, in loose shirts and jeans. My bosom was more ample than I liked. I had been told firmly by various sources that it was a blessing, and that I would someday grow to love my "luscious" B cups. But no matter how much I studied my figure in the mirror and tried to learn to accept that it was what I'd been given, it felt wrong and foreign, like it was someone else's body I was looking at.

Still, I hadn't been to a single house party in my three years of high school, and Ellis decided I was an awkward fledgling who had cowered in the nest for far too long. I was willing to humor her, at least this once.

The party was decidedly underwhelming. I'd never been to the house of someone whose family made six digits or more, and I don't know exactly what I was expecting. A 60 inch curved TV screen? A swimming pool on the third story balcony with a glass bottom? A high-tech intercom system equipped with video chat in every room? All those things were a part of the Perry's luxurious setup. But it wasn't as glamorous as people always make it out to be, especially with swarms of less rich teenagers quickly consuming every accomody.

Each level of the house had a drink table, with a variety of beers and liquors and vodkas. Truth be told, I'd never had a drink in my life, and I eyed the bottles and punch bowls suspiciously as I watched everyone around me becoming increasingly intoxicated.

It seemed to me that alcohol was best left in its cold, glass bottles, which served as a harsh barrier between the fermented liquid and the sober world outside. I supposed something could be said for people seeking solace in something to numb the pain of life, but like all forms of self destruction, it only caused more pain in the long run - just look at my brother. Henry was 15 years my senior and had started drinking with friends after he started high school and fell in with the wrong sorts on his soccer team. My parents paid for repeated rehab visits, but each time he took a half step forward, his addiction took over his brain again and he took two steps back. Henry was the reason my parents could barely afford to send me to Maiwand, let alone Musgrave. I had to win that scholarship, and better my chances at success for the only real child my parents had left.

I shook myself out of my reverie at the sound of a familiar laugh.

Ellis, tall and broad, stood leaning against the waist high iron railing of the balcony, flirtatiously tipping her shoulders back as she chatted up a tattooed goth girl from the school across town. She clumsily ran a hand through her carefully gelled and sprayed blonde pixie cut, the drink in her other hand wobbling slightly. As she brought the hand down to steady it, the girl she was talking to bit her lip and grabbed it impulsively. I rolled my eyes, knowing that Ellis was already on her third drink, and vowing to keep an eye on them if they made to disappear.

Some feeling of bitterness and jealousy came over me the longer I watched them, even though I knew Ellis was the most notorious flirt in town - if you were absent a penis, that is. Before I could reason with myself, I had taken two strides over to the drink table and was fixing myself a medicated punch.

It didn't occur to me that the punch clearly wouldn't be uncontaminated on a table full of alcohol, so after I poured my punch I grabbed a bottle of vodka and poured some in. It was probably more than I should? I had no idea how to measure these things.

"Whoa there," said a girl with a button nose and nasal voice who I knew solely from the halls in school. "The punch is already pretty spiked, y'know."

Fuck. I glanced down at my red solo cup, my stomach flipping once as I considered whether or not I should ditch it.

In the end, a surge of courage came over me, and I squared my shoulders and took a forceful gulp. It took everything I had in me to not turn and retch in the punch bowl. Okay, strike what I said before: I had no idea why people drank to temporarily numb their misery. The stuff was vile. I wondered if it was only the unorthodox combination I'd made, but after I separated the taste of the vodka on my tongue, I knew it wasn't.

Apparently I hid my nausea well, however, because the girl laughed and whistled. "Damn. I never pegged you as the rebellious type. I was shocked to see you here at all. But I mean this obviously isn't your first time." Her voice was haughty, like she assumed witnessing me gulp alcohol told her every detail about my personality.

I looked around desperately for an escape, and only when I couldn't find one did I try for small talk. "So...Miles' parents obviously don't know about this party…" I tried to sneak an invisible question into my ellipsis, wanting to satisfy my curiosity about where they were.

"Oh, they're on a second honeymoon on the Ivory Coast. They're in Cairo or someplace like that." She waved her hand dismissively, like the city was of no importance, even though she'd bothered to mention it. Or...not it. I mean, who didn't know where Cairo was? The kids at Maiwand weren't dumb, by any stretch.

"What? Don't you know where Cairo is?" Asked the obnoxious girl, eyebrows crinkling at the confusion on my face.

The alcohol was giving me an unprecedented amount of courage. "Yes," I replied. "Do you?"

She tipped her nose up at me, huffed, and walked away.

I rolled my eyes and took another swig. I had no chance of another sip without vomiting, so I pinched my nose and chugged the whole cup. When I finished, my eyes blurred, and not from lack of oxygen, for there'd only been three large gulps left in the cup. I shook my head to clear it and crumpled the plastic in my hand. My impulse control was gone. Parties tended to do that. Now I remembered why I avoided them. A couple upbeat songs and you're taking off your dress onthe balcony and grinding with some stranger, letting them feel you up in front of everyone, the only thing urging you on being the rowdy crowd around you. Alcohol hardly needed.

When my now intoxicated gaze found the far corner of the railing again, Ellis and Goth Girl were both gone. Dammit. Time to start checking bedrooms and bathrooms. Unless I should just let Ellis have some fun, the more than tipsy voice in my head suggested. No. Absolutely not. I cared too much about Ellis to let this happen to her again. She had a history of poor romantic choices when parties and alcohol were involved. I had to watch out for her after the morning after incident. Two years ago - the last time she'd been with a guy - she was nearly blackout drunk and woke up with a stranger the next morning. She checked the trash for a condom and didn't find one, so she snuck out while he was still asleep and called me frantically to come get her so we could go get the morning after pill.

I dropped my mangled solo cup in the trash and set off into the house, breathing hard as my stomach rolled with every step.

"Have you seen Ellis Murray?" I yelled to several different people inside, but no one seemed to hear me over the laughter and music. I yelled louder, and my head spun. Was I even yelling out loud, or was it in my head? What else was just in my head?

I stumbled towards the hallway with the third floor bathroom and bedrooms, and some vaguely recognizable voice laughed in my direction. "Guys, look! Jackie's drunk!"

A chorus of agonizing adolescent jeers rose up from the crowd, and I tried to give them the finger as I charged towards the first bedroom. Who knows, maybe I raised my pinky instead. It wasn't relevant.

Some random freshman was asleep on the floor of the first bedroom, so I moved on to the second. The door gave me some resistance, as if someone had tried to lock it but given up halfway through. After a couple of pushes, it gave way, and I bursted in the room in time to see Goth Girl on top of Ellis, slowly pulling down her dress straps. When she realized the door had opened, she gave a yelp and jumped off the bed, stumbling backwards to retrieve her shirt from the floor.

Weirdly enough, I didn't even glance at Goth Girl's boobs, nor did I grace Ellis with more than a glare as she pushed herself upright and pulled up her dress. My eyes were drawn to the mahogany bedside table, where Goth Girl in her haste had knocked over a candle. The flame was slowly edging sideways towards the table's surface. No one seemed to notice it yet. I didn't know why I wasn't saying anything. The alcohol-induced fog in my brain made it look kind of...pretty. Elegant. I just stood there slack-jawed, staring.

Goth girl shrugged her plaid shirt back on and buttoned it crookedly. Ellis looked dumbly and guiltily in my direction before following my gaze. She leapt off the bed in a panic. "Shit! Shit! Oh my God!"

She grabbed Goth Girl's hand and pulled her out of the room, and they both ran down the hallway yelling for help, likely assuming I'd be right on their tail.

I wasn't. Something kept me there, rooted to the spot while chaos sprouted somewhere behind me. Why didn't they just pick up the candle before the flame reached the surface of the table? I had no idea, but I didn't do it either. I made to, ten seconds too late, but after taking one step forward I froze in my tracks again. Meanwhile a crowd was gathering outside the door.

"Don't you guys have sprinklers?"

"No, they're broken!"

"Where's a fire extinguisher?"

"Someone call the fire department!"

And I just stood there, looking like a pyromaniac.

"Oh my God! Jackie's still in there!" I heard Ellis' panicked voice over everyone else's murmurs. I heard her elbowing her way through the throng of teenagers packing the hallway like a somber mosh pit, and before I knew it she was at my side, tugging on my arm. "Jackie, come on! We have to go!"

The fire was engulfing the table now, and one tongue of flame caught onto the sheer curtains of the canopy bed. Miles was in the doorway, trying to push everyone back. "Guys! Zach called the fire department, they're on their way. Right now we all need to get out of here before it spreads!"

Spreads? It looked to me like it was taking its time, and it was so beautiful. Then again, Ellis yelling and pleading with me was being played out in slow motion, too.

I was so rooted to the spot, Ellis' swimmer's body couldn't move me. Finally, Miles turned away from the crowd and took ahold of me roughly, pulling me back. "Jackie! What the fuck are you doing? Get out of here!"

I whipped around my head, studying the immense panic on Miles' face. He was terrified. I turned to the fire engulfing the room slowly. Or was it quickly? The noise of the crowd was fading away, they were warning people on the balcony and stampeding down the stairs towards the exit. Ellis was still loosely tugging on me out of desperation. She was sobbing. I looked back at the fire and at last came to my senses. I turned and ran, this time pulling Ellis behind me.

I only glanced behind us long enough to see Miles rounding up the stragglers with genuine fear in his voice. He busted open the first bedroom and picked up the passed out guy by the neck of his shirt. "Come on! We have to leave!"

"Dude, waz goin on?" The guy slurred drunkenly.

"There's a fire, dumbass! Get out of here!"

"Oh, a fire. Yeah, whatever, asshole."

"I'll fucking carry you out of this house if I have to. Now go!" Miles' voice was dead serious.

"Dude, okay, fine," the guy grumbled, and stalked out of the bedroom, pushing past us on his way to meet the throng on the stairs.

Have you ever been to a really crowded sporting event? I'm not even talking a regular professional sports game. They're crowded, but usually pretty organized. People are mostly in lines, and then they casually filter out at the end. No, I don't mean like that. I mean when it's a beer sale night at a Yankees game and there's a fight in the bleachers and all the disgusting drunk guys press together to get in on it, and suddenly someone's stepping on your toes and the smell of sweat and beer is in your face, and you just can't seem to find your way out of it. That's what it was like trying to get down that staircase.

By the time we reached the bottom and got out onto the front lawn, the fire truck was pulling into the driveway, and everyone was hurriedly making their exit. The kids from the other town schools had driven, and they clumsily drove straight through the Perry's perfectly manicured yard to get around the fire truck. Everyone else had walked from the Maiwand campus two neighborhoods over, and we started walking slowly after them.

Ellis' tears had stopped for the most part, but she was sniffling and hiccuping as we stumbled down the sloped driveway to the sidewalk. I couldn't stop shaking all over. What was wrong with me? Why had I just stood there? I was going to be sick. Not yet, but I would be soon, I could feel it.

We walked down the street in stunned silence, watching as groups of people trailed past us, murmuring and laughing. Once we were well enough out of earshot, Ellis turned to me, mascara streaked down her face like she was some kind of slutty raccoon. "What the hell, Jackie? You could have been killed! What's wrong with you?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and stumbled for a bit before regaining my equilibrium. I glanced behind me. There was no crack in the sidewalk.

"Oh my God! You're drunk!" Her voice was accusatory.

"I'm not! I'm just really freaked out!"

Ellis pulled me closer and sniffed me. "You are! You're drunk!"

"And you're not?" I shot back.

She ignored me. "How many drinks did you have?"

"Just the one!"

I heard her let out an almost-laugh. "Oh my God! You are a lightweight!"

I was too angry to tell her just how much alcohol had ended up being in that one drink. "Who fucking cares, Ellis? What were you thinking? Do you want a repeat of that guy Jake?"

"Come on, Jackie! It's not like I could have ended up pregnant this time! I'm not even that drunk."

"Well I'm sure you weren't done drinking!"

"What is your deal, Jackie? I was just having fun! She's a really nice girl!"

"Oh yeah? What's her name?"

She faltered. "Roxy? No...Ruby?"

I snorted in disgust. "Unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable. You should be glad I came in there when I did. I'm trying to look out for you and your stupid decisions, Ellis."

"Oh, my stupid decisions. You're the one who stood there watching the fire. I mean, you just stood there. People are going to think you started it!"

We were stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, two crying inebriated girls having it out. Another small group came up behind us. Most of them walked around us, but one guy seemed to go out of his way to shove into me on his way past. "Psycho bitch," he muttered bitterly.

I turned and threw up in someone's front lawn.