Chapter 9: Let Me See You Throw It Back.

Levi

Have you ever been drunk?

No? Well, I have.

But then again I wasn’t.

Or I personally just didn’t think I was.

At the time.

Ok.

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-Earlier-

I hadn’t realized how much of a constant reappearance Rosalie was making in my life until she wasn’t.

Ever since the day that Evan asked Ansel and I to go to the Valentine's Day gathering, I didn’t really see much of Rosalie after that. Not just at school but in general. Obviously, I couldn’t ask any of the Royales because I’d rather eat meat than do that. Two days later, 10:45 am and there’s still no sign of her. I swapped with someone so I would be able to talk to Ansel and do anything but pay attention in class. I know it’s not that big of a deal about this Rosalie thing cause no one else is freaking out but me. But still.

We have a school project together so that’s also kind of why I’m curious about her whereabouts. Nothing else. It’s not like we’re friends or anything. I think. Yeah.

“Lev, why do you look like someone just killed your cat?”

His voice distracted me from the unsettling feeling under my chest. “I don’t have a cat.” I’ve always thought about getting one but I've just never had the time.

“Well if you had one and someone killed it, your face would look exactly the way it does now.”

“Why would someone want to kill my cat?”

Ansel shrugged. “I don’t know, you didn’t pay the cat’s ransom or something? Anyways, you’re missing the point darling.”

“I’m not a darling,” I scowled. “I’m more of a babe-”

“You’re still missing the point.”

“What point?”

Ansel stopped scribbling a penis on my notebook and gave me the book back. I started scribbling the penis out with gel pens and drew a flower in place of it. Ansel scowled and called me a homophobe. He grabbed my calculator and started playing with it. “You’re sexually repressed, my sweet friend.”

I made a face. “What?”

“How long has it been since-”

“I’m a virgin. You know I’m a virgin. My mood has nothing to do with-”

“So you admit you’ve been in a shitty mood lately.”

“Well, yeah, it wasn’t a secret.”

“I asked you if you were okay when I dropped by your house this morning and you said you were fine. I asked you again when we got to school and you said you were fine. I asked you again at the start of the period and you said and I quote, ‘I’m fine Ansel, you’re so awesome and amazing for being so caring, such a great friend you are I’ll literally buy you boba for a whole month-”

“I think I stopped talking after ‘I’m fine Ansel’ but sure.” This made me pause for a second. Was I really being that transparent? I know I’m not that great of a liar but come on. I didn’t even wanna go through my phone because I was so bored. But that’s mostly cause I don’t like using my phone in class. Cause it’s against the rules. No one follows it though. Obviously. AP Calculus is so boring. Calculus in general is boring I don’t know why I applied for the AP one. I know why actually I just don’t like it. Calculus. I don’t like calculus. Math in general is also boring. Science is better. By far. Way more superior. Spaghetti.

The most exciting thing to happen to me this week was that road trip. And a history test.

My life is so lame.

I’ve never worried about this sort of thing before but, this was actually bad taking into account that I lived in one of the world's most exciting and aesthetically pleasing places. You shouldn’t have an excuse to be bored here when people would kill to live here. I glanced at the flower. “Ok so maybe I’ve been a bit out of it lately.”

His eyes widened.

Mine also widened. “Wait, I didn’t mean sexually!” I whispered. We were still in calculus and no one was paying any attention to Mr. Samir who’s not only my calculus teacher but my general maths and social studies, all the subjects very few people want to do. I heard him say he teaches these particular subjects because he liked to torture the students and watch them suffer. Something like that. I still don’t know whether he was joking or not.

Ansel laughed. Then he paused. “Not even a jerk o-”

“You know I’ve never and will never do that.” He’s messing with me on purpose. I huffed a breath. “We should do something this weekend.” Don’t say go to the party, don’t say go to the party, don’t say go to the party-

“Well we’re going to the party of course.” fucking bitch.

“Um, said who?”

“Us.”

“I don’t remember saying that. Maybe you did but not me. Not I. No.”

“Can we please go to the party, Levi?” he pleaded.

“Why do I have to go with you?”

“I can’t go by myself! You’re my only true friend and I want you to have fun with me.”

“You just don’t want to go alone cause Laron hasn’t asked you out yet.”

He faltered. “I-I-I would never-yeah ok. But I genuinely do want you to come and have fun with me. You can’t stay at home all the time for the rest of your life.” Yes, I can.

“You finished that history test yesterday right?”

I outlined my flower. “Yeah. Why?”

“We’ll go to the gathering and get wasted!”

“No.” I smiled.

“Hell yes!”

I chuckled. The last thing I need right now is to get intoxicated. I’ve never had a beer. I tried once when I was ten and it didn’t taste very good. I can’t imagine that would change now but who knows. Maybe I should give it a try. I should go to the gathering. What’s the worst that could happen?

Famous last words.

Did someone say something?

“Alright. Let’s do it.”

“YES!” he shouted. The whole class turned to look at us. Mr. Samir paused typing on his laptop and gave Ansel a blank look. “I don’t care about what you’re so excited about just keep it down. It’s the least you could if you’re not gonna take the class seriously.” He went back to typing. He doesn’t like talking much. He doesn't like anything very much.

“Sorry,” Ansel let out. I buried my head on my desk and waited for people to stop staring at us.

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The rest of the week dragged a little less now that I had something to look forward to. And I was dreading it more than ever but I was committed and I didn’t want to let Ansel down. It was day three and Rosalie was still nowhere to be found. Again, I’m not worried, I'm just wondering where she is.

After a long hour of listening to someone make a presentation about how badly we’re treating the environment yet make no effort to do anything about it, the afternoon was over and the school decided to let us go early so everyone could go to the party. Evan probably had something to do with it. The amount of power that guy has scares me. He saw Ansel and I heading out and winked at us before giving us a wave goodbye. K.

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“How does this look?” Ansel held up the green jacket in front of my mirror. “I want you to look good but not too good. Like you didn’t make too much of an effort you know?”

I rolled over on my bed to lay on my stomach. “It looks fine.” It’s been an hour since we left school and in that hour we spent picking what Ansel was going to wear. He was kind of having a mental breakdown cause Laron hadn’t asked him out to the gathering and was covering his sadness up with his love for fashion. That and he also wanted to look good so Laron would realize what he missed or something like that.

I didn’t want to change since I thought what I wore in the morning looked fine but Ansel disagreed and said I was going to make them look bad if I showed up in the exact same outfit. So we’re now currently at my house and he’s raiding my closet like he’s Edna mode looking for something for me to wear that doesn’t look ‘too casual’.

“I need more than fine Levi,” he rolled his eyes. “Give me something better than that. Why does your wardrobe look like someone’s soft boy Pinterest board? Where’s the flavor?”

“The flavor is fine- the flavor is good, there’s nothing wrong with my flavor.”

“Your flavor’s lacking love.” He threw the jacket and it landed on my head. I groaned. “Can’t you just give me the first thing you see so we can leave?” This is exhausting.

“No.”

I groaned some more. I sipped my boba but the ice was melting and it was starting to taste musty.

“I look good Levi, that means you have to look at least semi-decent or there’s no point in even going. I can’t let you look bad while you’re friends with me, that’s just not a part of the friendship’s contract.” To clarify, we didn’t actually make a friendship contract that’s just weird.

“The blue shirt looks good. You could match it with the black pants?” I suggested. The quicker we’re done with this the better.

Ansel grinned. “See, now you’re thinking!”

----

-20 minutes later-

“Do I look semi-decent?” I mocked whilst brushing down my shirt. Ansel decided to give me a simple white shirt which I tucked in black leather pants (I didn’t even know I had leather pants) and covered with an oversized blue shirt, a gold belt, and black retro high jordans. Ansel wore a sage green shirt tucked under dark blue jeans and an 80s jacket with black boots to top it all off.

“I think the eyeshadow was a bit much.” I touched the blue glittery thing around my eyes. I looked like a wannabe character from euphoria.

“It adds to the look! It complements your dark features. Haven’t you ever heard of tall dark and handsome?” I look more like tall white and awkward but I didn’t tell him that.

“Right. Of course. How couldn’t I have noticed.”

He ignored that. “What about me, do I look alright?”

“You look like yourself,” I shrugged.

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” he furrowed his eyebrows.

“Neither, you just look like yourself.”

I went to sit back on the bed.

“You look tense,” he mused. “Does this have something to do with a certain someone whose name could also be used in place of a certain flower?”

I ignored that. “I hate crowds and I hate parties,” I sighed. “Ansel I don’t want to go anymore.”

“Um we have to go we’ve been waiting our entire lives for this!” he tried to do some weird thing on his eyebrow with a pencil. I don’t know why, his eyebrows look fine. They’re great eyebrows. Like actually perfect. He has really nice eyebrows.

“Speak for yourself. I couldn’t care less.” And I meant it.

“Well, Evan probably cares so.”

“What is that gonna do for me?”

He stopped editing his face and went to grab one of my records. I had a collection. A really precious collection. “Um be careful with those they’re vintage and like really expen-”

“You need to loosen up,” he took one vinyl out and put it on. “Tongue Tied” by Grouplove starts playing. I roll my eyes.

“I don’t dance.”

“I know you can.”

“Seriously I don’t dance.” I was not about to quote that annoying movie.

“Why do you have so many records then? Surely they can’t be for show.” He shuffled on his feet.

“I have them because I like to listen to music and pretend I live in the 70s-90’s music era.”

“Come on,” he snaps his fingers. “You know you want to.”

“There will be no moving of the feet thank you.”

“What are you gonna do when you get to the party then?”

I hadn’t thought about that. “Anything but dance.”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me up. I awkwardly moved to the beat before he twirled me around and started to twerk in my face. “Ok fine, fine, let’s just go now.”

“Wait, hold on,” he placed a black watch look-alike thing on my wrist. “Don’t lose this. It’s to keep us aware of where each of us is. Press on it and mine will beep so I know if you need help or something.”

I frowned. “I thought you’d be with me at all times.”

“Of course I will. This is just in case I’m not. Now let me see you throw it back.”

“Throw what back, I don’t want to break something.”

“Nevermind. Let’s go!”

We headed downstairs and were greeted again by my dad putting snacks in a bowl. “Wow, you look...different. Is that what you’re gonna wear for movie night? Pajamas would’ve been just fine Lev.” He glanced at Ansel and gave him the usual smile. “Are you joining us, Ansel?”

“Uh, we’re actually going out tonight,” I said awkwardly.

He raised an eyebrow. “Really? Where are you going?” he placed a handful of popcorn in his mouth.

“Nowhere important-”

“We’re going to a party!” Ansel jumped. “One of the biggest parties of the year. One that we were personally invited to by the Evan Miller! The school’s student body president and most handsome boy alive.”

“That’s really great for you,” he narrowed his eyes as he glanced at me. “Levi never told me anything about a party.”

“Because it’s not important.”

“It’s important to me,” Ansel muttered.

“Ansel’s right,” dad said. “It’s important to him, it couldn’t hurt to be a little more enthusiastic.” he sniffed the air. “Are you wearing my cologne?”

I looked to the side. “...no…?”

He sniffed the air again“And it’s the expensive one, this better be the best party you’ve ever been to boy.” I knew he was joking cause he has a lot of them and he gets them whenever one comes out. He has a cologne collection. It’s some weird obsession he has about smelling good. I’m not complaining though, it does smell nice that’s why I wore it.

“Is there someone special you’re going to meet tonight? You never go out.” Yes, I do. I went out that one time that I suddenly can’t remember.

“Yes,” Ansel grinned from ear to ear. “There’s a girl-”

“It’s no one.” I glared at him. “There’s no one. It’s just a party. A very partish party.” Partish isn’t a word but I don’t care.

“Well if your going to do drugs then be safe-”

“We’re leaving now,” I grabbed Ansel’s arm and quickly headed towards the door.

“And have each other’s backs. Levi, I know this would be your first time so I could hand you condoms if you’d like-”

“NO THANKS! We’re good dad. Bye.”

“Be safe! Use protection-”

“Alright!”

I slammed the door shut but not before hearing the manic laughter of my dad. What an evil man. Who enjoys making someone uncomfortable like that? So evil.

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