From the moment I enter the basement lounge, I recognize that Owen and Geoff took care to peruse every cliché of grungy teen party set-ups in preparation for tonight's festivities. The basement lounge is not the largest room in the house at all – the kitchen/dining room area is easily triple the size and contains sufficient seating for all of us, along with refreshments. However, the basement contains a pool table, and whether or not anyone winds up playing, it's not an A-grade locale for a party without the presence of a pool table.

The basement is divided between a room almost reminiscent of a bar – wooden panelled walls, a high table with four stools, and some kitschy artwork on the walls. The other side is more dimly-lit, lined with large leather sofas, and a huge flat-screen television on the wall. The two sections of the basement are separated by a wall that only comes halfway across – there's no door, just a gap in the wall. The stairs are narrow and steep, cutting close to the ceiling at the top. I don't need to duck coming down, but someone taller likely would.

I creep down slowly, Cody behind me, scanning the room to see if others have already come down. The more extroverted of the housemates are already standing around the barstools, chatting with mild restraint. Expectedly, Owen is the first to notice me. I crack a slightly uncomfortable smile and make my way to the bottom of the stairs.

"Noah! Buddy! So glad you could make it!" He gathers me in his arms and clenches tightly. I feel my bones crunch together like tectonic plates.

"Well." I squeak, as his grip stays unrelenting. "I was in the neighbourhood and I'd figure…" I take a breath. "I'd drop by!"

He chuckles. "In the neighbourhood! You're such a jokester." He turns his attention to Cody, giving him a fist-bump and an exclamation of 'hey man'.

I'm startled by a jingling clatter and turn away from the two of them. Duncan has appeared holding a canvas bag, glass clanking sounds made as he slams the bag on the pool table. One by one, he pulls out a mish-mash of bottles, alcoholic beverages. The selection seems random, cheap vodkas I've never heard of and a few of those heart-attack-in-a-can drinks made from alcohol and energy drinks.

"Dude!" Geoff cries out. "How'd you get that?"

"I have connections." Duncan says with a smirk. "But I had to bust my balls to get this stuff, and there isn't much, so if you're gonna drink, make it worthwhile. Don't be a pussy about it, 'ight?"

Owen nabs the single small bottle of chocolate-flavoured liqueur. "Ooh, this looks yummy."

Duncan snatches it out of his hand. "Hold up, big guy, if you want chocolate feel free to gorge yourself on the almond milk upstairs. You'd probably down this in two seconds, bottle and all."

Owen appears completely unfazed and turns his attention to a bowl of cheezies resting on the bar table. I gaze at the bottles lying on the fuzzy green surface of the table. I hesitate for a moment, contemplating my options. I could take a drink, but Duncan seems to be guarding his stash like a dragon at his treasure horde. It makes me question why he'd bring this stuff anyway if he was only looking to hog it. Besides, I've managed to not embarrass myself too thoroughly throughout the season and I'd like to keep that up. In another world, I'd take a small tumbler of the fanciest wine or brandy possible and nurse it with the utmost pretention for the next two hours, but Duncan is not a man of fancy aged wines and brandies, he's the type of guy who would get his alcohol from Wal-Mart if we lived in the states. I glance at Cody. I simply raise an eyebrow as a vague hint of a question.

"What? No, no, no, I couldn't, it's…Duncan would break my fingers!" he whispers

"Duncan would break fingers for lesser offenses." I scoff.

He cracks smile. "Not reassuring." He peers around the wall's edge into the tv room side of the basement. "I think someone made Youtube Poop of our show. Wanna take a look?"

By eight-thirty, approximately everybody in the playa des losers has made their appearance in the lounge. With a total of twenty-one – one newly-razed Asian short of the entire family – the room has become tightly-packed and near stifling. I sit on the corner of the love-seat sofa. Love seats are so named because they are the size for a couple to sit together, but we've somehow decided to accommodate four asses on the seat. Cody sits beside me, chatting up Lindsay and her Tyler-of-the-day, Ezekiel. I sit listlessly, Dr. Pepper in hand.

For much of my time spent at the island, I looked upon my time at school very fondly, particularly the parties, as some kind of condolence to how frankly unpopular I found myself to be here. However, when I think of it closely, parties aren't really that great sometimes. I feel a bit out of place, not sure who to talk to.

After watching Owen slowly polish off the last of the Cheezies, I look over at Cody, who seems to be adjusting rather well.

"Haha, that's soooo funny! We did the exact same thing a few days ago!" Lindsay says to him empathetically. She points to herself and then to Ezekiel. "Remember?"

Ezekiel, who had not had much of a part in the dialogue, stalls. "Um, no. I don't think that was me. "

Lindsay frowns.

"It was probably you and Tyler." Zeke adds.

"I thought you were Tyler!"

Cody, who detects my gaze, turns to me and smirks. "You getting sweaty on this sofa?"

"Honey, you can read my mind." I say, peeling my forearm from the arm of the couch. "At least we're wearing pants." I gesture at Lindsay's bare thighs as Cody and I rise to our feet. "She's probably going to leave an epidermis behind when she stands up."

"This party is poppin'." He says, as we move between Courtney and Leshawna on our way to the other part of the room.

"I've had better."

"You think Duncan is still…by the pool table?" He gives me a meaningful look.

My eyebrows rise with a smirk. "Getting ideas, are we?"

He avoids my eyes and hurries towards the pool table, stopping abruptly the moment he lifts his head. Gwen is leaning up on the other side, kissing Trent deeply. I approach Cody slowly. I utter a tiny 'uhh', but don't say anything concrete. He stares at them. He's staring them down while they make out. I mumble close to silently: "Earth to creepy…" but he remains frozen, watching them.

She continues to kiss him, light, pleasant groans escaping them. He has coloured marks along his neck, as does she – but I know they aren't crude attempts at vampirism so much as a consequence of Gwen's choice in lipstick. They part, their eyes slits, dwelling on one another for a lingering instant. Fortuitously, I avert my eyes before they spot me – they turn their gaze to Cody first.

It takes a split second for him to realize his awkward position. Flustered, he fumbles at the bottles on the table, feigning activity. He knocks over a red solo-cup and puts it upright again. He gropes for the cap of a large bluish bottle and unscrews it, forcing himself to keep his eyes on his hands and not on either of them, though he remains aware of their quizzical assessment of him. He sloppily pours several fingerfulls of the fiery, clear liquid into the plastic cup. He looks at Gwen with a self-conscious grin.

"I." His mouth twitches, then becomes toothier. "I promise, um I propose a toast? To…"

My skin flushes violently watching him flounder. Not since seeing my sister forget her solos at the 2002 school spring concert have I felt so empathetic to somebody's blundering embarrassment. To lessen the tension, I approach him with my pop can in hand, ready to take him up on his toast.

"To, um." He struggles for words.

"To Gwen!" I fill in, with a smile and a nudge to Cody. "To Gwen for being such a…a gracious loser." I say, with a wink. I don't think Gwen likes me, but I hope for all our sakes she is not offended by our little toast.

She looks at Trent inquisitively, then to me and Cody. Her confusion melts into a smile, paired with a shrill giggle. She picks up a shot glass painted with the image of a moose and holds it up. After a short delay, Trent joins in with a can of pepsi, and Owen barrels over with the last fistful of Cheezies as his toast offering. We raise our glasses.

Cody downs the entire cup of vodka, pouring it down his throat like a marathoner guzzling Gatorade. My eyes widen in fear. His adam's apple bobs, his eyes screw shut. He swallows and slams the cup down. His lips are tight. I don't blink, I simply stare at him with a painted look of concern. Simultaneously, Gwen and Trent turn away from him, and he turns to me. Once he is no longer under their supervision, he buckles over with a sputtering cough. "My nostrils!" he moans pathetically. I seize him by the shoulders as he hacks up a sizeable glob of phlegm from his throat. "Why do people do this?" He rasps.

I snicker. "Most people don't drink plastic cups full of straight vodka. And most people don't toast without having something to toast."

"Why should I take social cues from you?" he replies. "You are just a dick to everyone."

"Building walls!"

"Alcohol tears 'em down."

"You see me drinking? Now get up off the floor."

He leans on me to stand again. He thinks I don't notice when he sneaks another sip of vodka into the cup. I act like I don't.

Anyone who wanted to drink has done so by now, and anyone who didn't want to has been naturally loosened up by the atmosphere. I reach a degree of comfort; as much as I can sitting on the sticky, leathery sofa. Maybe it's because I sit alone, feet propped up on the second cushion. Six or seven people are taking their turns at Wii sports, so the extra space on the sofa goes unoccupied. I keep a wary eye on Cody throughout, but he seems to be nimbly chatting up Justin of all people, so I assume he's feeling perfectly on high.

Any degree of comfort attained by my lack of company on the sofa instantaneously fizzles as a familiar redhead approaches me with a grin. She sits on my legs, almost bending them backwards at the knees. I let out a yelp.

"Izzy! That is not a chair!"

"Course I know that, prettypony, chairs don't yell. Chairs aren't sexy either, except for nice antique chairs with carved backings and flowery upholstery!"

"Antiques are sexy." I repeat, deadpan.

"Or chairs with armstraps! Like cuffs! That can be sexy too!" She yells, as if this revelation is new. I would run, but she's sitting on my legs. This is like some kind of Jigsaw situation right here.

"So are you enjoying the party No-wah, that Owen sure knows how to throw 'em! Too bad he's also a fat bastard!" She squeals with an unreadable, manic warble.

"Ah…"

"Izzy is mad at Owen. Though at the moment she can't remember why. She just feels it. Sometimes I wish I chose someone else but no one else is single, sadface! Sadface indeed!"

If I were a sane man I'd have kept my mouth shut, but without thinking, I say: "I'm single."

She expels a sound of 'pfft!' along with a splatter of saliva.

"You can't fool me, you have a lover."

"Um."

"I hear you and Cody through the walls!"

"Doing what, pray tell?" I say, outraged.

"Heeheehee." She responds. I begin to squirm, contorting my legs beneath her.

"Yep, okay, you got me!" I say, desperate to escape. "Cody is my lover! And, um, that's why I need to go! To make sure my lover is okay, so if you can just…get off my legs, I'd really be happy." I continue to struggle and squirm until, in one fluid motion, almost defying logic, she propels herself off of me and my legs snap out from under her with a force nearly sufficient for me to knee myself in the teeth. I roll off the sofa and scan for Cody. Maybe the 'we're lovers' thing was a ruse, but my concern for his wellbeing is sadly not quite such a thing.

At that moment, the third horror of the evening sets into me.

Cody is waltzing over towards the love-seat in which Gwen and Trent sit.

Cody is sitting down between them.

Cody puts one arm around each of them.

I stay frozen in my place, grimace on my face. This is definitely not good. The way he steadied himself before sitting down, the loose, watery smile on his face – all these hints add to a single plausible conclusion: Cody Anderson drank too much.

He runs twirls a finger through a lock of hair on the back of Gwen's head. For good measure, he does the same to Trent. The pair seem too surprised to do anything about it.

"Gwen, you look pretty today." He says. "Do you look…different or am I making that up."

She slowly slips out an 'uhh'.

"Sorry about toasting you, I just wanted to toast you because I like you and you deserve to get toasted. Not like fire though, like bread. You deserve to have a toast dedicated to you." He suddenly directs his attention towards Trent. "And you too! I mean if she chose you, then you must be pretty great, right."

"Cody, have you been…" Trent says quietly.

"I know I don't have a shot anymore but like, if you ever want to have a threesome or something…. Aw, FUCK." I'd never heard him say the f-word before. "Did I seriously just say that? I'm so sorry guys."

I realize that in this moment, Cody transitioned into Izzy-level creepiness, so I hurry over to him and grab his hand from behind Trent's head. For the first time in awhile, I fluster deeply from contact with Trent, but for a very different reason than before. "I apologize in Cody's honour." I say to the couple. I grasp Cody's wrists tightly and pull him up from off the sofa. "You are messing up, definitely need to go someplace else. Okay Cody? Let's sit down." He complies, a look of disgust marring his look of bliss – he knows he said something stupid, and he recognizes that he couldn't filter himself.

He follows me to the bottom of the stairs, where we sit down. He leans his head on my shoulder, ever so slightly. As a measure of comfort, I lean my head against his, as well. "You should watch what you say, you look like an imbecile."

"I am an imbecile. But I'll be more careful."

"You're drunk."

"I'm…buzzed."

I breathe out noisily. "Fine. Keep your filter on though, you fool, when you drink you don't realize you're being stupid until two seconds after you've done something idiotic."

"I wanna play wii."

"You wanna play wii?"

"Yes."

"As long as you tighten the wrist strap."

"Okay. I'll do that."

His face gains a certain softness from the slight inebriation. If I kissed him now, he's certainly sober enough to remember it, but maybe just un-sober enough to blame it on himself. I laugh out loud at the very idea, ruffle his hair, and stand up. "Let's go play wii, then."

One day, quite awhile ago, Tyler, Bridgette, Cody and I spent a good two and a half hours making accurate Mii avatars for everbody in the competition. I select my own Mii, dressed in red with a furrowed scowl on his face. He appears on screen wearing boxing gloves, looking mean. On the other side of the screen, an equally surly, unibrowed woman appears. I beam at the opportunity – the only time I'll ever fist-fight Eva without it counting as some strange variant of assisted suicide. However, I can't overlook the many ways it could go awry.

The bell chimes and I flap my arms frantically. Eva tries too hard to punch in real life, putting all her momentum in her controller-clutching fists and tiring herself out, while I simply rattle my hands back and forth quickly enough to deliver a virtual pummeling. She grits her teeth and squeezes the controllers hard enough to nearly break them. Courtney's voice can be heard in the background to say "Oh my God, it's just a game!"

With a swing of my virtual right, I send Eva's mii careening into the floor. The timer counts down, and my mii is seen showered in confetti. I shake my fist victoriously.

"So, who'd have thought NOAH would be the first person in this house to say that they K.O.'d Eva?" I say. It's met with some snickers. I turn around to face Cody.

He isn't there. He's sauntered back over to the barstools, where Gwen and Trent sit. Oh, no.

"Cody!" I call after him, handing my controller off to Harold. I shuffle over to the bar-table.

"I'm so sorry about earlier" Cody apologizes to Gwen. "Like, I wouldn't ask to have a threesome with you, that's so rude, the couple's supposed to ask, not the three-wheel. I mean, ugh, I mean. I'm sorry, you're so hot, it's not fair. I always really liked you."

"Cody." I say, finally right behind him. He ignores me.

"Like I wanna be a big player but I can't, never can, cause I always like someone too much, like, I couldn't even have a threesome, no 'cause like, I'd fall in love with them and then go insane. Not that I'd go insane from being in love with you. Oh, shit, I'm messing up. I mean, I love you. Yeah, but I don't want to infringe."

"Cody." I repeat.

"I love you." He says to Gwen. Her face warps into a look of monstrous horror. Cody's love confession notwithstanding, I'd not trade places with Gwen at this moment.

"Cody!" I snarl at him.

"What!" He turns to me, a pleading look in his eyes. I melt, and suddenly my embarrassment sublimates into a deeper level of empathy.

"You should take a drink of something, like water. Or go to bed."

"I'm not even drunk, I'm trying to explain myself." I look at him dismissively. My attention turns to Gwen and Trent.

"Is he explaining himself, guys?"

They shake their heads, wide-eyed.

"Yeah, Cody, we should go someplace. Sit down. No more booze, no more Gwen."

He slips out of his seat and paws at Gwen and Trent. "M' sorry, real sorry." He strokes Gwen on the jaw and leans over to Trent, planting an awkward kiss on his right shoulder. "I'll go away now."

We make our way back to the stairs where we'd sat following his last screw-up. He reclines sloppily. "Did I mess up again?" he says weakly.

"Yeah, sort of." I sigh.

"Aw."

He doesn't say any words, but his sentiment is palpable. "Wanna know what."

"What."

"I never drank or went to parties before."

"Huh." I can't say anything that isn't scathingly sarcastic, so I don't say anything.

"Yep, I don't go to parties and I don't have friends and God knows I won't ever date anybody."

"You do have friends."

"Not many, and I don't go to parties, and after tonight I guess I'm going to get party blacklisted or something."

"Ah, come on…" I'm not very good at this comforting thing.

"Yeah because girls laugh at me and everything, everyone thinks I'm a kid, I can't be a player but I can't be in love either, pretty crappy. And I'm not even that drunk, I don't think, like, what if I got hammered."

"Honestly, Cody?"

"What."

"You're making next to no sense right now."

He sighs deeply. "I messed up with Gwen and now she's going to remember me as a loser, and that same thing will continue to happen to me forever because I am a loser."

"Some people like losers." How brave I feel right now – I slide closer to him on the stair, until the entire right side of my body touches him. His eyes narrow to slits.

"Haven't found one yet."

"Don't be so sure." I say, so small but so clear. Why am I so courageous, suddenly? My heart suddenly throbs as his neck relaxes, toppling his head onto my shoulder once again. His blue-green eyes meet mine for a second, lips parted enough to see the narrow gap in his teeth. He looks down and his eyes close lightly once more. He lets escape a small breath and begins to mumble something I can't hear.

"What?"

"I'm not lucky." He says, though I can tell from the number of syllables that this is not what he'd said before.

Beneath us, on the step, our hands find each other, grazing just for an instant.

"Nobody is all the time." I say, slightly choked – this is a meaningless thing to say, but as the raucous sounds of partying fade into the background, I feel the need to fill in the gap.

I don't know who causes it, but our fingers tangle together. I'm holding his hand – or maybe he's holding mine? His head flops to the other side.

We stay like this for a moment of time, I'm ignorant of how long.

"I have to go." He says, rising to his feet. His clammy hand slips out of mine and he unfolds himself, turning up the stairs. I watch him go around the corner, and choose not to pursue him.

I crack open another Dr. Pepper and slouch down on sofa, trying to make sense of the universe. Okay, that might be a bit of a pretentious thing to say – in actuality, I'm mostly thinking of three things: What Cody did, what Cody will do next, and what Doctor Pepper is intended to taste like, because it kind of tastes like a vaguely cherry-flavoured Cola.

Cody is a fool, that much is for sure. He confessed his love to Gwen under the influence of a few drinks. But the tiniest aspect of tonight stuck out to me – namely, the way he fondled Trent. My narrow, Cody-centered mind can't help but extrapolate his attention to Trent to make it mean something. Of course, he confessed love to Gwen, touched her hair, sniffed her as usual, but he kissed Trent, albeit on the shoulder. Could it be some kind of misplaced jealousy, or could it possibly, just maybe, imply a degree of draw towards the male half of the pairing as well? My best bet is that it's a bit of both – misplaced jealousy that masquerades as desire.

Maybe I'm just thinking wishfully. Either way, any opportunity I had to make it with him had been long-dismissed. Dismissed before they even became a possibility, really. He seeks comfort in me, so what? I seek comfort in him, too, and after tomorrow, neither of us will have that refuge. Even if he had some secret, overwhelming crush on yours truly bubbling beneath the surface of his adolescent unorthodoxy, it will all go to waste because time has simply run out.

Maybe that's why I'm distressed by his interaction with Trent. It's not wishful thinking, it's fearful thinking – fearful thinking that I missed a legitimate opportunity, rather than simply accepting my lack of hope upfront.

To be fair, he put my head on my shoulder and held my hand. He's seeking comfort. I don't think I can provide it in this case. He knows he messed up in exactly the way he didn't want to.

My right eye is shut, focussing the left on the details of the pop can tab. I close my left and open the right, then repeat, letting the tab do a dizzying dance before my face. I look up from my busy activity of toying with the can-tab with my thumb, and Gwen and Trent come into the focus. If I could just slip under the cushions like the Big Comfy Couch right now, I'd be very happy with my life, but of course, I can't do that, and unsurprisingly, my new least favorite couple approaches me.

"Noah?" Gwen says with a broken voice.

I look up at them, tight-lipped and unimpressed.

"What was up with Cody?"

"Boy can't handle his liquor" I say, nonchalantly.

"Was he…serious?" She says

"Who knows?" I sigh, righting myself a bit. I glance up at them; they stare back expectantly. "Okay, let me specify: the part about loving you? He was serious." I take a sip of my drink. "Obviously." I add, with a hint of ruefulness. "About the threesome?" I say, arching an eyebrow and giving Trent the once-over for good measure, "Can't be sure, I don't know that side of him well."

They open their mouths to speak at the same time, but no sound escapes.

"So…" I gesture at the two of them. "Why do you care?"

"We don't." They say in unison.

"Really?"

Gwen's shoulders loosen and she resumes: "Seriously, don't tell Cody this, but I give exactly zero fucks about what he says or does. He's a little creep, but a little creep. I don't like him, I don't hate him, his presence has next to no effect on me at all."

I feel a lump form in my throat. "You grow to love him."

She looks to the side, then back at me. "Okay. Actually, he has his good sides. I see something, maybe this shred of kindness in him, this kind of sweetness, but then again, maybe that's just some kind of doormatty, misplaced nice-guy syndrome. Or maybe he is just a creep."

"He's a goddamn wonderful person is what he is." I snap.

Gwen's face goes blank, in shock.

I take another sip from my drink, my eyes never straying from her. "But maybe he's gotta grow up or something. Figure himself out."

She backpedals a little. "Um, yes, I'm not saying no one will ever love him or that he's an irredeemable loser or…anything like that. Just that it won't be me. Seriously. I want him to give up on me. You can even say it's for his sake."

I look to Trent. "What do you think, Mr. Dascenzo?" he recoils the slightest bit, surprised that I addressed him. He simply shrugs, raising his hands slightly. I make a sneer, denoting I'm weighting my possibilities.

"You think I should go talk to him?"

They glance to each other.

"Not about you, of course," I say, leaning forward and taking the soda can into both hands. "Just in general. I've been contemplating going to look for him for the better part of an hour now. Wait, is it really 11:20? Make that more than an hour."

"'sup to you." Trent says meekly.

I sigh heartily and rise from my seat. "Alrighty then, I'll go look for our favorite flightly featherweight A-sap. " I tip my drink in their direction. "I bid you adieu."

When I emerge out of the basement, I'm immediately struck by a front of chilly air. I realize just how stuffy it was downstairs, with the mass of bodies breathing their steamy exhaust into the atmosphere. The ground floor is still, only the potlights of the hallway illuminated. Moths smack against the windows with light 'plonks', ignorant of the glass that separates them from the tantalizing light.

I hear the quiet padding of footsteps in the tiled kitchen area.

"Cody?" I call out.

I slip between the dining room tables and past the smoothie island, over to the small alcove where the snack fridge resides. The fridge door is open towards me, its invader blocked from my point of view.

The door closes. The figure turns to me, and with a jump, shouts. The can of 7Up drops from their hands and rolls towards me. I place a toe on it to stop it from rolling.

"Noah." She says with a scowl. She lowers her near-bald head closer to the ground to reach for her lost beverage. "Don't you have a party to be at?"

"Technically I could ask you the same thing."

"Yes, because I was totally invited."

"Heather, we were all invited."

"As if anyone wanted to see me there." She scoffs. "There's not one person down there who doesn't hate me." She fiddles with the tab on her drink.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you…"

"Stuff it, Noah." She says, as the can's opening ruptures, sending white foam down her forearm. "Ugh!" she grunts.

I snort. "You're missing a hell of a time."

"Like I care." She rubs her sticky arm against her shorts. She's wearing sports shorts, a white shirt with what I guess is the name of her school, and socks. I don't think she's wearing makeup, and she looks awful, very unkempt compared to the Heather that presented herself on television. "Like I care." She repeats, quietly.

"Well." I say, crossing my arms. "Gwen stuff happened!"

"Good for her." She says, trying to be nonchalant as she reaches for a paper towel. I feel guilty, almost like I'm betraying Cody, but I have this urge to cheer up Heather, as a testament to my ability to do something positive tonight.

"Cody drank."

"That's a Gwen story?"

"He told Gwen he loved her."

"Shocking." She says flatly.

"I like your sincerity." I say, ironically complimenting her sarcasm with more sarcasm.

"At least someone likes my something!" She says, kneeling down with paper towels in her hand, wiping up the 7Up.

"Between you and me, I don't like Gwen either."

For the first time since our conversation began, she looks at me with genuine interest.

"And I don't hate you, either. Don't get me wrong, you're pretty terrible, but I almost respect how terrible you can be. I wish I could gouge that low."

"What an incredibly backhanded compliment."

Some vague intelligence is exposing itself in Heather right now, and I have to admit I like it. For an instant, I almost forget my quest to find Cody.

"You're jealous of Gwen, aren't you." I venture. I try to go all criminal profiler on her– I don't want our back-and-forth to fizzle out yet.

"Why would you say that?" She inquires, more curious than offended.

"You are an alpha. A queen bee. You spend your time mocking blue-haired freaks, silently or overtly. And now you're here, on the island, getting one-upped by the kind of person you hate."

"You're going all Criminal Minds on me, Noah." She cracks a smile, the first I've seen from her in a while. "You know a lot about this…being jealous of Gwen business." She says with a twisted smirk, as if she's trying to convey something in the context of her words. She tosses the soggy paper towels into the composter. "Maybe someday, I'll try to be a nicer girl. But not to her, never to her. She doesn't deserve anyone else doting over her."

I laugh. "She sure doesn't."

"And you know what's the one thing I don't get? She's mean! Everyone says I'm mean, but she's mean too! She just isn't as smart about it! She thinks she's so unique, oh please, I'm so sure you're the only goth chick in all of Canada to get aqua rush streaks in her hair."

We spend a moment in silence.

"Are you going to go back to the party?" she says.

"Are you?"

"Nobody likes me down there." She utters flatly. "Polished off two episodes of Gossip Girl, now I guess I'll just go watch Mythbusters til I pass out."

I look upon her with utmost sympathy. What has happened to me? I'm sympathizing all over the place today. "Have fun with that." My tone is sarcastic, but I mean what I say.

She walks past me, towards the hallway.

"Oh and by the way," She turns to tell me before disappearing down the corridor. "Last I checked, he's in that room full of random fancy stuff upstairs. The loft, I guess you could call it."

I look at her quizzically. "Oh…Thanks."

I find him sitting at the piano bench upstairs. The din of the party is faint and muffled from the main floor, and up here it's next to silent – my ears feel cloudy from the sudden absence of stimulus. I stare at his back for a moment

"You had literally about an ounce and a half of alcohol."

He says nothing. He lifts his hands to the keys and pounds them lightly with his fingertips. A faint, slow, toneless dinging echoes from the piano.

"Okay, maybe more. I didn't check after that first chug during your toast."

Still quiet.

"I talked to Heather."

Don't know why I said this.

"Cody."

His notes begin to take the semblance of a simplistic melody, resonating through the body of the massive wooden piano. Up-down, up-down, up-up-up, down…He still doesn't look up at me.

I think he's not so drunk now. He's simply brooding. The alcohol in his system was a sort of self-preservation, to shield him from the immensity of his own fuck-up.

I step towards the bench, quietly. I don't understand the purpose of this room. It's a sort of attic containing various tarp-covered props and furniture. When I look around I can identify the odd prop that made its appearance on the show. Others I don't recognize, but I fear they will be used in the future against some unsuspecting newbies.

Silently, I slip behind him, ghosting a hand against his back as I take my place on the bench by his side.

He stays quiet, recognizing my presence without looking straight at me. His eyes are reddened, lined with greyish-purplish bags. His hands remain still as I seat myself.

"Cody."

He says nothing. He begins to play the simplest of tunes, an improvised minuet. I keep my hands at my sides, breath taut in my throat, holding my shoulders a hair's breadth from his body.

His eyes rooted on his fingers, he begins to incorporate a slightly more complex melody into his playing. He's actually a competent pianist. Some time ago, I'd seen his audition video for the show, in which he plays the keyboard very poorly. His abilities come as a surprise to me.

His notes are harmonic yet sparse, a song that seems so vacant and lonely, sung out through the fingers of one I'd thought so childish. The song is an expression of a longing child, a piano playing a solitary cadenza looking for its symphonic accompaniment. His left hand works over deep and slow notes, a rumble beneath the light and spacious melody worked out with his right. His gaze does not leave his fingers. His eyes never shut.

My throat tightens up as I hear his song, as if I've heard it before.

Or maybe as if I've felt the things the song expresses.

There must be something mystifying in this piece of music to allow me, as sarcastic and biting as I am, to be moved, to feel connected to it.

The notes still have this space in between, empty slots like the space between fingers, where another hand can fit. This seems meaningful. I dare to raise my hands. For the briefest moment, I fear that he will be angry at me if I ruin his song, but taking into account the way he's been acting for the past few minutes, he could very well not even notice my intrusion.

My fingers find the ivory of the piano. I don't know how to play, yet it seems I find the space between his notes to add the smallest twinkling of my own, a rhythmic chime like the triangle or gong in the orchestra – the solid yet encompassing sound that fills the dead air between notes, that accents the monotony with foreign noises.

As he plays his song, my quick and amateurish notes weave their way through his more readily, darting sharply like swordfish. My heart begins to swell with a cloudy anticipation, an anxious fear. My chest is pounding – the millimetre separating us has closed, we sit shoulder pressed to shoulder, hands clamouring together, and I have no idea why it happens.

Our songs have merged into one. My simplistic counterpoint and his vacant minuet have fused to form a sort of concert for twenty fingers. Though the melody is repetitive and rhythmic, it seems to swell in intensity until it reaches a gentle wave-like climactic point.

My hand brushes over his and I divert my eyes towards him.

For the first time, he looks back.

The piano sounds sound blurred and cottony in my ears, as if my mind is suddenly distant and closed off. The room seems darker and the pumping of my own blood in my ears becomes the tiniest percussion behind the song.

We still look at each other intensely. Fearful. I purposefully allow my hand to brush against his again. The song begins to waiver. His eyes avert mine, but he remains oriented in my direction. We're close enough to breathe shared air.

The faint piano melody is no longer a duo of counterpoint, but one simple song, no longer a lonely one. Our fingers place less downward pressure, slowly loosen their bearing on the keys. The last notes still ring in our ears as we kiss.

The song echoes somewhere in my mind, as if the feeling of his lips and the sound of the music are linked phenomena, like the melting feeling and the flavour of chocolate. I don't question that this is truly happening - it is.

It's happening.

We finally pull apart, slowly, as if we're unweaving the song we created. I know that objectively the song we played was no work of art, but emotionally it was groundbreaking. He peels away from me and slides off the bench. He gives me a lingering look and slips out the door.

I breathe deeply, for the first time in a while. I venture to check the time. A few moments after midnight, August 18th.

I should go to sleep.

Relatively short chapter this time, only about 2/3 as long as the previous one (though 6 was longest) My friends moved away, my boyfriend is growing up, writing about high-school-agers makes me nostalgic. I made a small self-reference in the first section, back in 2008 I made a series of TDI poops that got a lot of recognition on Youtube haha, but my account was shut down and they're gone now!

I can't help but think that the end scene is a little too spiritual and corny for the subject matter, but I think it's...pretty? Hopefully readers are pleased that that important moment has occurred at last, but trust me, just like the source show, a little smooch isn't going to spell the end of their teen drama struggles!

Thanks in advance for R&R :)