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Jax had safely made it to the party. His nerves however were very much still on the edge. While he had ridden with the boys on his way to the party, they seemed to quickly dissolve when they reached the entrance. Or was it more the fact that Jax found a reason to walk away? Who was to say. Jax had managed to find himself alone on a seat in one of the many corners of the party. Not that Jax objected to where he found himself. He found it much safer to be at the edge of the party and not in the chaotic centre. While it wouldn’t be doing any wonders to his reputation to both Rosefell and Liberty students alike, Jax had gone beyond caring. Sitting where he was allowed him to observe the goings on at the party as well as feel somewhat comfortable in similarity.

He did a quick sweep of the party with his eyes, noticing quite a few important figures from the football and cheerleading teams. In all honesty the trip here had already exhausted his social spirit. Jax was used to being a sideline or at times excluded character on the Rosefell social scene. To go from that to being suddenly flung into a party, only helped to create a pressure cooker of anxiety, and right now, the release valve was blocked. Jax could feel all of it bubbling up inside, threatening to possibly explode. Why did his parents think this was a good idea?

Cause let’s be honest right now. Jax wasn’t exactly a welcome addition to a social event. If his previous years at Rosefell had taught him anything is that when he arrived to talk to people, the conversation usually stopped. Moments later the crowd would disperse. While the bullying might not have been as bad as it was back in his early teens - mostly because people were so childish back then - what had replaced it was this kind of hive mind style rejection. While in his freshman year, it had concerned him, by this point he just learnt to roll with the sadness and anxiety inside his heart, and use it to fuel his ambition to do well. 

That isn’t saying that Jax didn’t appreciate what his parents were trying to do. For years they were afraid that Jax was building a wall around himself and the outside world, that way nothing could hurt him. In reality, the wall was there to help him focus, but his parents feared that if he didn’t learn to socialise and to make friends now, being an adult was going to be so much harder. Money might buy ‘friends’, but it could never buy true friends. Jax was going to have to talk to people, learn how to manage different personalities, and acquire the social skill to navigate relationships. It isn’t as if Jax didn’t know this kind of stuff. Afterall he had read countless books and read study after study on teenage communication and social cliques. He knew in theory how everything should go. So maybe his parents were trying to give him practical experience.

Jax drew a long exhausted sigh. That train of thought really knocked the wind out of his sails. Perhaps he needed to just dive in and experience something? Getting up, he walked over to the beer table, grabbing a bottle of cider - since it probably was the weakest drink there. Grabbing the bottle opener Jax attempted to open the bottle. It took him a few attempts to get it right, afterall he had never used one and it never came with instructions. Eventually he got the angle right, but applied a bit too much power and then as a result the bottlecap went flying across the table and landed somewhere where Jax couldn’t see. Whoops??? Putting the opener down, Jax walked back over to his corner, holding the bottle away from him as if it was laced with poison. Well if we were going to be technical, Alcohol is poison, but that wasn’t really the point. Sitting down, for the first few minutes Jax simply observed the bottle, looking at the branding and reading some of the label. At this point he really was doing his best to avoid drinking it. Even if he was the one who got it, he still had some apprehension about drinking it. That angst only increased when he bought his nose to the edge of the bottle. Taking a sniff of the liquid inside, Jax almost immediately gagged and held the drink back out. Coughing slightly as he tried to regain his composure. 

He couldn’t however delay it any longer. He needed to take a sip. Taking a deep breath to slow down his heart rate, Jax pulled the bottle back in, pressing the top of the glass bottle against the bottom of his lip as he leveraged the bottle upwards, allowing a small sip of the liquid to pour into his mouth.

[i]Regret. Instant regret.[/i]

The liquid, while sweet, set his throat on fire. That only got worse when it reached his chest. Jax began to cough, moving the bottle back away as his body lurched over slightly as the coughing continued. Eventually he was able to contain the coughing, but the after taste in his mouth was something he couldn’t quite get rid of, no matter how much he coughed or rolled his tongue. How could people drink this stuff? What kind of person would want that kind of sensation in their mouth and throat? He placed the bottle down on the floor by the side of the chair and shook his head. It was going to be a long night.