Bathroom Girl

On Friday Tom's arrogance pays off; the football team win. For once I don't really care, but seeing as Tom has talked me into attending his little victory party, and I do mean his because he attributes the entire win to his own skill rather than any team effort, I don't have much choice in celebrating.

I feel a little guilty in going because I know full well Grams would hit the roof if she knew I was here, but I convince myself an hour won't hurt. As far as Grams knows the game is still going on.

Because I know I'll have to go home soon I don't have anything to drink, too afraid that Grams will smell it on me when I get home, or just look at me and know I've broken all of her rules. However just about everybody else is drinking copiously because that's apparently the only way they know how to celebrate.

I spend half an hour listening to Lora talking excitedly about Tom and how great he is before I decide I can't take it anymore.

"I'm going to go get a drink," I tell them, standing up. "I'll see you later."

Or not.

People are in high spirits, probably fuelled by the alcohol. Although I recognize a lot of people, there are just as many that I don't recognize. Sadly as I get outside I run into somebody I do know.

"Prue," Tom slurs, holding his bottle of beer up in a greeting.

"Hi Tom," I say, leaning away in disgust as he half falls onto me. I do not have the patience to deal with drunk people right now. "Drunk much?"

"Ah Prue, let me get you a drink…" He looks around vaguely for some more alcohol, and then stumbles forward, too unsteady on his feet to actually carry his offer out.

"No, I'm fine. Really."

"I insist!" Tom says rather too loudly and lifting his beer with a little too much enthusiasm so that both of us get covered with a fine rain of the stuff.

"Oh great, Tom," I say, shaking it off my hand. "Just great." Now I'm going to have avoid Grams when I get home or she'll think it's my spilt beer I stink of.

"Oh loosen up, Prue," he says, sliding his hand around my waist. "Can I talk to you?" He asks as I lean away again. "In private?"

"Yeah, okay," I say with some reluctance, and allow Tom to lead me to the other side of the pool and around the side of the pool house, where it isn't so light, or busy.

"Here," Tom says, thrusting his bottle towards me. "Have some, go on."

I take a small sip because he probably won't stop pestering otherwise. Yeah, beer is as disgusting as I remember.

Tom takes a much bigger swig and puts his hand on my knee. "Prue…Prue."

"What's the matter, Tom?" I ask with exasperation.

"Matter? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! It's all so very, very right…you can't ignore it Prue, I know you've felt it too…"

"Felt what?" I ask, firmly removing his hand from my thigh before it can go any further up my skirt.

"Us," Tom says with a flourish of the bottle.

"Oh Tom…I don't know what you think you've felt, but I…" How do I reject the drunk guy who looks like he's about to pass out on me, or at the very least throw up, gently?

"I think we work better as friends…" More to the point, why am I rejecting the star of the football team, most popular guy in school?

Tom frowns. "Prue, there's no need to be shy…it's only you and me here…I think we should stop playing games. Think about how great we'd be together."

"Tom, really," I say, trying to be firm, because his hand is back on my thigh. "I don't like you like that."

Tom slams his bottle down on the stone floor and literally lunges at me.

"Tom!" I say in annoyance, trying to push him off, but naturally he's stronger than me, and both of us end up falling on the floor because Tom can't keep his balance when he's this wasted. Tom takes this as an opportunity to pin me down with his weight and kiss me. Up until this point I wasn't particularly worried, but now he's scaring me.

"See?" He demands. "You like me too…"

"I really don't!" I protest, trying to kick him off.

"Prue," he says, starting to sound irritated. "You can stop playing hard to get."

"I'm not playing anything! Get off me!"

It always works on TV so I do the only thing left I can think of, I bring my knee up, hard.

"Jesus!" He shouts, immediately rolling off me and I scramble to my feet.

I take the opportunity to run while he's too distracted by the pain to notice or try to stop me.

I push past a group of people mingling in front of the patio doors, not caring as one of them yells, "Hey!" in annoyance after me, and head straight for the downstairs bathroom. Of course there's a queue, a group of people waiting impatiently outside the locked door, probably while somebody throws up in there. I hesitate, but only for a moment, before taking the stairs two at a time instead. I don't really want to distance myself from where there are people, but I also want a room with a lock on the door. It's a lot quieter upstairs, although not completely deserted, but the bathroom's empty so I shut myself in there, locking the door firmly behind me.

I don't really think Tom would actually bother to follow me, but I don't want to take the risk of running into him or anyone else for that matter. I wish I'd never come to this stupid party. It isn't worth the risk I'm taking of Grams finding out and suddenly I wish I was anywhere but here.

I sit on the edge of the bathtub and pull out my phone. It's times like this when I realize how small my life actually is. Virtually everybody I call a friend is at this party and yet I'm choosing to lock myself in a bathroom rather than go to any one of them. Worse, when I scroll through the contacts in my cell there's not a single person to call bar my sisters and I can hardly do that, can I? For all my friends I don't have anybody. There's just me, and I'm not enough.

I reach the end of my contacts and start scrolling through them from the beginning again.

I stop on Andy's name, my finger hesitating above the green dial button. He's not like them. But that doesn't mean I should call him and suddenly he's the only person I want to talk to, so I press the button; after all, I've got nobody else.

He answers after three rings.

"Hi," I say, feeling a little uncertain.

"What's up?" He asks, sounding distracted.

"Nothing much…are you busy? Do you want me to go?"

"No, no," he says quickly, sounding a lot more focused. "Sorry, I was just doing an assignment. But it can wait. So why'd you call?"

"I…I just wanted to talk to you. That's all."

"Oh. Right." He sounds surprised by this. "Wasn't it the game tonight?" He asks then.

"Yeah…"

"So? How did we do?"

"We won," I say dully.

"Well I'd hate to hear how you'd sound if we'd lost!" He jokes.

I smile weakly.

"So I'm guessing you're celebrating?" He guesses.

"Something like that…" I trail off. I have the sudden and overwhelming urge to cry. "Andy?"

My voice sounds small and insignificant.

"What?"

I know just from the tone of his voice that he can tell there's something wrong. He's just waiting for me to admit it.

"Can you come get me?"

There's a moment's silence, then he says, "Sure. Where are you?"

It's my turn to hesitate.

"Tom's," I say in a whisper, as if that'll make it any better.

"Right. Of course."

I hate the way he says that, but I'm not going to start a fight with him. I need him right now, and anyway, he's completely justified in saying that. He's right. Of course I'd be at this stupid party with these stupid people because I'm just as stupid, maybe more for knowing how ridiculous everything is and still going along with it all.

"Fifteen minutes, okay?" He says.

"Okay," I say back.

I wait ten minutes in the bathroom before unlocking the door and heading back downstairs. There's one couple at the top of the stairs, but they completely ignore me, or perhaps they're oblivious, too caught up in their own moment. Unfortunately downstairs is less deserted, but thankfully I don't see anybody that I'm obligated to stop and talk to, although I do pass one of the football team, bowing my head as I pass so he won't notice me, just in case. Just in case Tom asks somebody if they've seen me. Just in case he's said something to someone.

The front lawn and driveway is littered with both people and empty plastic cups. One girl is throwing up in some shrubs near the front door while another girl, who looks pretty unsteady on her feet, holds her friend's hair back. Glad I'm not one of those girls, I go to the end of the driveway to wait, as far away from the house as possible. It's a fairly cold night, not helped by the wind that's picking up. I wrap my arms around myself, partly because of the wind, but partly because I feel self-conscious in my uniform all of a sudden. Uniforms are supposed to make you anonymous, part of the crowd, but our cheerleader uniforms do anything but that. They make us stand out, mark us out as different from most, as part of the elite. Anyone looking from the house would recognize me as part of the team at the very least, if not me as an individual. I admit that I've enjoyed the attention in the past, that I wanted people to look at me and envy me; after all, doesn't everyone want that on some level? But lately that's been starting to feel like a bad thing. Recently I've been wanting to blend into the crowd more and more, be as unnoticeable as most people, instead of having people look at me and talk about me and judge me.

"Prue."

I've been so busy thinking about myself that I haven't noticed Andy arrive (what's new there?). He's standing awkwardly several feet away, looking at me like he doesn't know what to do. Dropping my arms from my shoulders I run at him.

"Thank you so much for coming to get me!" I cry, throwing my arms around him.

"Whoa," he says, patting my back and sounding embarrassed. "It's okay."

I'm not sure if he's talking about the coming to get me, or the fact that I've started crying on him.

"I don't want to go home," I mumble. "I can't face Grams right now." Because she told me I wasn't allowed to come but I went anyway, and now I've got myself into trouble, which is probably just what she wants.

"You can stay at mine," he offers and I nod gratefully, not caring what I'm going to say to Grams or what Tom might be saying to everybody about me at this very moment. All that matters is that he's doing this for me.

Sorry if the ending seems a little abrupt, this was originally going to be longer but I decided to cut the chapter into two after I wrote some more about the party. And the song from the title is by Air!