John Bender was in Jev's garage when Travis suggested crashing a party being thrown tonight.

It was Saturday night, and after a long day of smacking his head against his desk in detention, he'd never felt freer in his whole life.

Vernon had been right. It was just the two of them in complete solitary confinement in the school's library. There wasn't a point during the whole day where he didn't feel like he wanted to claw his own eyes out or make a break through the window to save himself from the torture.

"Whose is it?" Ronnie asked between a sip of his brown paper bagged beer. He had originally bought the drinks for himself, seeing as he was the only one of the group with any sort of ID—despite it being fake—but when the guys turned up at his door, he found it hard to refuse giving them a couple of cans each. That, combined with the fact that they had all taken them anyway, without asking permission.

"What's his face, Stubby," Travis replied.

"That dumb fuck," said Bender.

"Yeah, overheard about it in the hallway on Friday. Figured it gives us a motive for the night."

"But it'll be full of a load of rich shits."

"No way, man, apparently his parents are gone for the week so he's pretty much made it a free-for-all, provided you bring your own drinks."

"Which Ronnie has gladly taken care of," Jev said, slinging his arm around his friend who was seated in a worn-out looking arm chair. Ronnie immediately pushed him away, but they both laughed it off.

John stood up from the floor.

"But if it's a free-for-all, there's a very high chance of the cops showing up. And I don't want to be around for that," he said, holding his hands up in defence.

"So we'll go for an hour and if it blows, we'll leave. If it's the greatest fucking party we've ever been to, we'll stay for two, maximum. Every man for himself, and all that."

"You're so fucking persistent, Travis. Are you, like, totally in love with Stubby?" Ronnie said, putting on his best high pitched voice to mimic some of the conversations he heard the girls around school having.

"Yeah, I want to have his babies. So let's go now so I can see ol' lover boy," Travis replied.

"I'm in," John began, "but if any of you pussies get kicked out or arrested, I'm not helping you."

Bender and his friends arrived at the rich neighbourhood of Shermer just as the party was in full swing. None of them knew where Stubby lived, but the music coming from a house closer to the end of the street was so loud that it could be figured out easily.

"Lets go crash a fucking party!" Jev said to his friends, earning glares in reply.

"Don't be such a homo, man," replied Ronnie, knocking him as they walked along.

Once inside, the group split up quickly as they began to mingle in with the rest of the party. Travis was right; it pretty much was a free-for-all. There were guys in expensive suit jackets talking to girls in jean shorts and beat up heavy boots, and people in the kitchen who looked like they'd never been outside in their lives drinking from a keg. Bender opened his other can of beer and downed half of it quickly. This was going to be interesting.

He carried on around the house, scoping out the rest of the situation before deciding his plans for the night, because so far it didn't look hopeful. In one of the many living rooms Stubby seemed to have, there was someone attempting to climb up onto a chandelier from a table with a group circled around, cheering him on. In the corner of the room, John noted, was Stubby himself, passed out with a lamp shade on his head.

"This is like some cheesy fucking college movie," he muttered to himself, and carried on towards the backyard. Just outside the door, John was stopped by a younger guy who couldn't have been much older than 15.

"Dude, dude, hey," he said, putting his hand up to John's chest to stop him. He was extremely drunk.

Bender only raised his eyebrows in reply.

"Look, man, I'm really desperate, do you got any weed on you? Pills? Anything?"

"I'm not sure that's a good idea, pal, given your current state."

"Please, I'm so desperate."

"Have you ever taken any of that shit before?"

"No, but dude, seriously, I just feel like I'm craving it so bad, you know?"

Bender nodded, looked at him a moment longer, then started to walk again.

"Stop, no, don't go!" Both of the boys hands were now on Bender's chest. "You seem like a cool guy, man, where you going? What's your name? I'm Craig!"

"Bender. See ya, Craig."

He barged past, seemingly not fazed when Craig grabbed at him again to get him to stay. Once further into the garden, John glanced back briefly and Craig was already introducing himself to someone else, and presumably trying to start up another drug deal.

Upon finding a wall to lean up against, John's hand went into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette from his carton. He lit it, inhaled, and blew the smoke out into the dark sky.

A few minutes later a girl came out of the house, completely ignored Craig's attempts to befriend her, and headed into the backyard, storming past Bender like he wasn't even there.

"This party is a load of shit," she said as she passed, one of her hands knotted in her hair as if ready to pull it out in rage.

"Agreed," Bender responded, causing her to jump around to the culprit.

"You scared me. I didn't know you were there," she said.

"I seem to have that effect on a lot people."

"I wish I did. Then maybe some people wouldn't think they could take certain liberties with me. Like, you'd think because I'm wearing practically a suit, it would be a boy repellant. Right? I've tucked my shirt into my pants, so surely that would stop someone from attempting to put their hands up it, correct?"

"No offence, but I-" Bender was just beginning to tell her that he really couldn't care less about whatever she was rambling on about, but she interrupted him.

"I was so wrong, about everything. My friends were all like, 'oh, you should see how it goes with Andy, he's a cool guy, you've never had a boyfriend,' so I think, what's the worst that could happen? I could start dating an alright guy or at least get a decent few kisses in. But Andrew comes up to me just now, drunk out of his mind, and pulls me aside saying he wants to talk to me. The next thing I know, his hands are all up my shirt, on my bra, he's trying to stick his tongue down my throat or at least all over my neck, so I slap him and I get away, and you know what Heather had the cheek to say to me afterwards? 'Why are you so frigid?' Can you believe that? She thinks I'm frigid because I don't want to get felt up in the middle of a party!"

Finally, she stopped speaking, and seemed to be attempting to regain her breath. Although it was dark out, John could see that he cheeks were bright red. He took another drag from his cigarette.

"You've never had a boyfriend?" was all he said.

"That's besides the point! Do you not understand how…how awful that must have been for me? How… violated I feel right now?!"

"Sounds like you're feeling sorry for yourself."

"Oh, what do you even know? You're just some guy stood in the yard. Who are you anyway?"

Bender's mouth twitched into a smile. She was feisty and confident, but maybe that was just the alcohol talking. He knew he'd have no chance with her, though, because the Heather in her story was right. She sounded way too frigid.

He stepped forward as he put the cigarette back up to his lips.

"Who are you?" he said, raising his eyebrows at her. Her face seemed to falter slightly, as if she recognised him.

"You're the guy who set off the fire alarm, aren't you? The one who climbed the flag pole?"

"Sounds like something I'd do."

"And the one who lit up a joint in the middle of the homecoming game."

"Now, you got me there."

The girl began to laugh, and Bender allowed himself to smile in response. He couldn't help it, he was a funny guy.

"I'm Claire," she said.

John knew he recognised her as well. He knew her kind, at least; she was one of the rich shits he had wanted to avoid while at this party.

His mind was immediately filled with insults, witty one liners, ideas to tease her about her getup that made her look like a prepubescent boy, or the fact her name belonged to a fat girl. But in that moment, with a few beers down him, he didn't want to make her night any worse than it already was. Call it his good deed of the day.

"John Bender."