Maya McNaulty

August 28th 2009

"Why the fuck are we here?"

"Because... you know why."

The driver side car door slams and I climb out of the passenger side. When I start walking towards the huge house with the smoke and loud music, I realize that Lily is not at my side. I turn to see her getting herself together. She teases her hair a bit with her hands, rolls the hem of her skirt up once more and turns to me.

She points up, "How's the hair?"

"Looks fine."

Points to her torso, "Outfit?"

"Yup."

Points to her face, "Makeup?"

"Perfect."

Then to her chest, and she says, "And my tits?"

"Lil, are you kidding me?"

She laughs and shrugs her shoulders right before she pulls her shirt down a tiny bit more to reveal her cleavage. As we're walking in, I just keep thinking about how stupid this is and how many other things I could be doing right now. Instead, I'm going to a party, playing the 'BFF' of Lily Deville who has herself convinced that Tommy Pickles will fuck her tonight.

It's pathetic how much she goes out of her way to be some random hook up. I know for a fact that she and Tommy have gotten together countless times, and for the first time around Lil's 16th birthday. I could probably even describe how it happened. I mean, she tells me everything. We've only known each other for a few months, and she's already calling me, texting me, asking to hang out as if we've known each other forever. It's pretty weird but, hey. I feel sort of bad for her.

Whatever. Lil's cool and all, but I hardly consider her anything more than an acquaintance. I mean, it's a wonder we even became friends. You can tell by the way we walk in, how different we are. Lil's in a skimpy black scoop neck top with an open back, covered in sequins and a tight body con skirt that at least compliments her curves. She looks nice, but I'm just in a button down and some shorts, with a beanie over my head. This is no special occasion for me. I don't have anyone to impress.

I take the big camera from around my neck and hold my eye up to the viewfinder, pointing it a Lil. She poses, I snap a photo, and we both share a laugh as we work our way around all of the people.

All of these screaming, laughing, people. You can literally smell the drugs in their sweat. Their energy is almost infectious, and I find myself absorbed in looking around all the fucked up kids, making fucked up decisions. Having fun.

I can't help but take a few shots. All of the action and excitement is cool for a minute but I quickly get annoyed with the atmosphere and I'm like 'I need to put something in my system'.

So I fill a cup at the keg and some kid comes up to me, telling me that he can make me a bomb drink that will fuck me up better than any beer could. I smile, tell him that I appreciate his enthusiasm and turn him down. He nods understandingly and then he notices the camera around my neck. He says, "Oh, shit. You like photography too? Tommy's gonna wanna check you out. Probably compare some shots."

I smile again and nod. I don't really know anything about Tommy Pickles besides the fact that this is his house and that sometimes he fucks Lil, so I keep smiling and I say, "Yeah." But I do know that this boy I'm talking to has peaked my interest. He's got red hair and pretty green eyes. And he dresses well. His white t-shirt reads "Young & Reckless" in black, jagged letters and he's wearing a snapback with a pair of vans.

I offer a hand to introduce myself and instead of shaking it, he daps me up. "I'm Maya, nice to meet you." I say to him.

"That's an awesome name. I'm Chuck- I mean, Charles." He posts up against the counter now and I lean a hand against it. We start talking. "So, did you just get here? You're pretty sober."

"Yeah," I shrug my shoulders and throw a thumb back to my friend at the keg. When I look back, I see Lil standing around looking clueless for a few minutes before a random guy helps her pump. "I came here with my friend Lily. She's looking for someone. That Tommy guy you were talking about."

His suddenly looks surprised and he looks her way as well. "Lily Deville?" He asks and I nod again.

"So, you know her." I say.

He's pretty distracted by Lil, so he doesn't hear me. But he's like,"Tommy's gonna be in some shit tonight." as a smile works it's way onto his lips. And then he turns to me and he goes, "Here, come on. Let's go find him so I can tell him the bad news and you can show off some of those shots." Then Chuck (or Charles) elbows me and winks and the next thing I know he's taking my hand and dragging me through a crowd of people, out towards a pool. Tommy is apparently nowhere to be seen, so we head back.

Then he leads me down to an empty office downstairs, and there's no Tommy there, so we go back up. Then he leads me upstairs, tapping on the bedroom doors like, "T? Where are you, dude?" And when no one named T answers at the final door, he leads me up into another room. It seems like it was originally supposed to be empty, so I assume it's like a ballroom or something. But instead of being empty, it's styled with all this minimalist furniture and art and theres a big glass circle at the top of the ceiling.

The room is illuminated beautifully by the stars, and the moon, and their lights and I'm amazed. I think to myself, 'Damn, how much money do these people have?' and I check out the sky. Distracted, I'm startled when a barefoot guy sitting cross-legged on the balcony calls us over.

"Hey guys," he says when we reach him, then he turns to the redhead. "Chuck, my brother's been running around here looking for you, man."

And Charles, in his excitement says, "I've been running around here looking for him too. He headed off with my sister and I haven't seen him since. But dude... guess who showed up tonight?" The barefoot guy doesn't even need a second to think.

"Lil's here, isn't she," He says, barely containing his laughter. The two guys suddenly burst out together and I'm about to go back into the room to check out the ceiling again when Charles puts his arm around me.

"Yeah, she's here. And she brought a friend with her. This is Maya." I take a sip of my beer and go to shake the guy's hand, but he pulls me into a hug instead. At first, I'm surprised but then, I'm just amused by how chill this guy is.

He greets me with a, "Pleasure to meet you, m'lady. Name's Dil." And then he pulls something out from behind his ear (which I'm a little afraid to take from him), and puts it in my shirt's pocket. "A little somethin' for you there to remember us by. Some fine Cali green, brought to me by Mr. Chuck-man himself. Enjoy."

I dig whatever it is out of my pocket and hold it in front of my face. It's a perfectly rolled blunt, ready to be sparked and toked up. I can't even hide my smile when I look back at Dil. "I couldn't possibly take this, man." I say to him. At my refusal, Dil smiles and takes it from my hands before he puts it between my lips.

"Take it, enjoy it. Get lifted." He says, pulling a lighter from his pocket and sparking the blunt at the end.

When it catches flame, I inhale. I inhale again, and I hold the smoke within my lungs and then I blow out a thick, billowy cloud before I pass the blunt off to Charles, who takes two generous hits. As he exhales, I lift up my camera and take a shot of his smoke rings. Then he passes it off to Dil, who requests that Charles take a picture of the two of us. I smile and move next to him.

We stand together and Dil drapes one arm around me. With his other hand, he takes a decent hit from the blunt and then turns to me, lifting my face to his. He taps my jaw with his fingertips so I open my mouth and he moves toward me until our lips are almost touching. Right then, he shotguns me, blowing smoke into my mouth.

Click.

Both the blunt and my camera are passed back to me and I continue to smoke. At some point during that time, Charles asks where Tommy is and Dil points us back down the stairs. As we say goodbye, I give him one last hug and he and Chuck do some weird handshake.

Then we disappear down the stairs again. I'm pretty high and I realize that the house has emptied up a good amount, but there's still a number of people here. Charles and I have made it a big habit to stick together through the night as he's introducing me to all these people who's names I will probably forget later.

We find Tommy about an hour after our search had originally started outside of the downstairs office, smoking a cigarette by himself. He's nothing like I'd imagined he'd look. When Charles calls his name, he turns around and smiles.

He's tall; about the same height as Charles. And his hair is black, but it's so black that it looks blue in the right light. And he has dark blue eyes to match. He's pale, but what with how dark his features are, it compliments him. He walks our way and hugs Chuck, and you can tell that the two of them have known each other for years.

"Hey," He says, noticing me before Charles can even begin to introduce us. "That's an awesome camera you have there." He leans forward and lifts the camera in his hands. "Can I look at this?"

I say sure, and Tommy starts to go through my pictures. He finds the one of Dil and I and looking at it now, I realize how sultry the whole thing looks. Dil, with his arm wrapped around me, has his eyes closed and you can see a bit of a smile on his open mouth. The smoke coils around the visible part of his lip, around my face, my hair and the rest of the space between us is covered by the thick white cloud. The only things illuminated in the shot are Dil and I, and the background is pitch black.

"So, you know Dil, huh?" Tommy says coyly and I say no.

"I just met him tonight. I'm new in town." I say, "I came here with Lil."

Tommy's expression does a quick transition and he looks over at Charles who shrugs at him. "I was looking for you so I could tell you, man. But you went M.I.A for awhile after you left with Kimi."

At the mention of Chuck's sister, Tommy wipes his hands down his face. "Right... Kimi. She's the reason I'm actually glad Lil's here, but Kimi's still around here somewhere so I've gotta tell her to come find me later."

I say, "Text her." and Tommy nods, takes his phone out and sends her a text.

"This is crazy. I just want all of these mother fuckers to leave now, so we can hang out by ourselves." Tommy says to Chuck. He finishes going through the rest of my pictures and then he hands the camera to me. "You take some quality pictures. I'm impressed." He looks up at me and I can see it in his eyes, despite how drunk he is. "Seriously, you're good."

I nod and I take the camera back from him. "Thanks," I say. "My dad used to take pictures for a newspaper back in the 60s. He has his own magazine and shit now, so I used to hang out with him a lot as a kid." I hold up the camera and snap a shot of him and Charles standing together. "So that's why I'm into this stuff."

Tommy is still looking impressed when his phone dings in his pocket. He digs it out and makes a face. "Lil wants to know if I'm by myself." He says to Chuck, who shrugs his shoulders.

"I don't know man. We can leave if you wanna hook up. It doesn't make a difference."

And for some reason, Tommy looks at me. He looks me up and down, and then smiles before handing me his cellphone. "Put your number in there."

And for a minute, I can already see this turning out badly. I think I can already tell what kind of guy Tommy is. This Kimi chick that keeps getting brought up is obviously his girlfriend - but he either doesn't get enough sex from her or he doesn't get any sex from her. Which is why he's keeping Lil around, although it seems like she annoys him or something.

I'm not about to be the next component of a love triangle, but I honestly feel like Tommy's a cool guy. I'm pretty new to this town and I could definitely use some more people to chill with other than Lil, so I put in my number and hand the phone back to him.

"Maya, huh? That's a pretty name. It's fitting." He says with a smile. Dimples. "What are you doing hanging out with Lil anyway, if you don't mind me asking."

I say, "I mean, she's cool. She was the first person I started talking to when I moved here. Why, what's up with her?" I can't help but wonder what Tommy could possibly have against the girl who practically throws herself at him, so I ask him that.

He holds up his phone, reads the text from Lil again, and then places it in his pocket. A little bit after he does this, I hear my phone go off so I pull it out of my back pocket and see a random number has texted me. Then I read it.

'Hey, it's T (;'

I look up at Tommy, raising an eyebrow and he smiles coyly. "Just had to make sure you didn't give me some fake number." He says.

Before I can get another word in, he's moving us along to the Lil story. "Anyways, about Lil. Um, let's see. Well, we started fucking around in our freshman year, even though her brother has no idea. I mean, we all used to be friends. So imagine how awkward that was, sneaking around and shit. I had to make it stop a few months ago cuz I got with Kimi. But she just kept calling me and hitting me up, asking me when she was gonna see me again and stuff." He shrugs. "It's too hard to get away from her, so I keep her around. Besides, Kimi doesn't put out anyways." He looks at Charles. "Sorry, man."

Chuck shrugs. "Hey, what you guys do is none of my business."

Then suddenly, it strikes me. "Wait... you're dating Charles' sister?" I say, and Tommy laughs.

"Call him Chuck. Charles is for strangers and acquaintances." And Charles nods in confirmation. Then, Tommy gets back to me. "But yeah, Kimi is his sister. Step. She's married in."

I nod and scratch my head, mentally piecing this shit together. "And you said you've been friends with Lil since you guys were young. So... does that mean you know her brother, too?"

"Phil? Yeah, we used to be cool. He's a jock now. Captain of the Varsity football team his sophomore year. If you know him, that's probably how he introduced himself. Am I right?" Tommy asks, rolling his eyes.

He's right. So I nod, still not quite understanding how he can carry himself in such a way. I accidentally say, "Wow, man. That's a tough job, fucking your friends' sisters." And suddenly I look up, too high to actually be surprised.

Tommy bursts out in laughter and shrugs his shoulders. "It's fucked up. I know. But hey, we all do some fucked up things at this time in our lives. I'm not the one to judge." He lays a finger in the center of my chest. "And neither are you, babydoll." His finger slides up to my throat, then up to my chin and I laugh, snatching away.

"Sorry. I was just..." And then I shake my head. "I don't know. This is just too much for me. Like you said though, I'm not one to judge." And then I do the same thing that Tommy does to me, except when I have my finger against his chin, he leans into me.

His eyelids fall slightly, causing a strange air to shift between the two of us. His voice is reduced to a slight whisper. "I'm curious about you," he laughs quietly. "But it's alright. I plan on getting to know you this year. The real you. And I can't wait to know all of the dirty little secrets you have." He closes his eyes and he chuckles, moving back from me now and suddenly I realize that I feel different. "You'll find that you're no better than the rest of us."

I smile politely, despite my goosebumps. I smile, despite the fact that I feel like Tommy Pickles can see right through me. I smile and I tell him not to worry about secrets. I tell him that I'm a pretty straight forward person and that I've got nothing to hide. I tell him that although I'm no better than them, it seems as though I have a little more common sense. And a little more self-control.

And he grabs one of my hands with both of his. He rubs his fingers over my knuckles, over my fingernails. He flips my hand over and traces my palm, and then my fingers. "You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" When he says this, his eyes suddenly meet mine. "It's alright. Trust me, I'm full of secrets too. A few, you've found out tonight." He smiles. "And you've just met me."

"Well, that's your issue." I tell him, not trying to come off rude. "You didn't have to tell me a thing."

And suddenly, I realize the problem with Tommy Pickles. "You're right." He says "But I like you. We'll just leave it at that. Now that you know my mistakes and my problems, I'm even more inclined to figure you out," and he laughs to himself, suddenly reducing the intense atmosphere back to a friendly one. "Maybe we can even make some mistakes together."

I chuckle, pull myself away from Tommy, and I raise the camera to his face.

And the flash goes off.

Click.