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[right][b]Interactions:[/b] Mentions Lupe, Tuyen, & Tyler
[code]Warehouse[/code][/right][hr]

There’s no good way to say this: Vicky hated parties.

Now, wait! Stop, stop, she’s not some kind of monster or, worse, an introvert—Vicky didn’t hate partying. She loved partying. If she could she would party all the time, only that’s how people ended up turning tricks like that psycho’s mom and meanwhile Vicky actually had a future. Still, that didn’t mean it wasn’t nice to temporarily drown out the future’s ceaseless drone with loud music and skunked beers. Anyway, she was fun. 

She was having fun.

She was fun to be around and everyone around her was having fun.

It’s just that when she heard the cheering and saw the dance circle forming on the other side of the warehouse it kind of seemed like those people over there were having way more fun than her and—see! This right here was why she hated parties! Everybody was focusing on Lupe being a fricking idiot and hardly nobody was even aware that Vicky was about to make history. Even Vicky was hardly paying attention anymore, her head tilted towards Lupe as the woman balanced on a folding chair. Vicky’s eyes beamed a signal command directly into the annoying loudmouth’s empty brain, ordering her to fall! Fall! Fall!

Instead there were cheers. Jesus Christ, was everyone over there high or something? She wanted to be high. Right now she wasn’t even drunk. It wasn’t even her fault. The problem was that she was too good and she kept winning and the more she won the less she drank, which ultimately made the competition sloppier. That in turn made winning even easier although, listen,  it didn’t change the fact that Vicky had run the table since she got there and this had to be some kind of record so, like, why the fuck weren’t they cheering over here? 

Out of nowhere, her hand struck out like a cobra and swatted a bright orange ping pong ball as it bounced dangerously close to the rim of a red solo cup, smashing the ball across the warehouse from the potentially record-breaking beer pong game. 

[color=32cd32]“Aw, nice bounce, little bitch. Playing with balls is, like, your entire personality. Shouldn’t you be good at this? ”[/color] teased Vicky as the jock  opposing her chased after the ball. Okay, maybe she was a little drunk, but it wasn’t like she was shit-talking. This was playful banter. She turned her head to her partner. [color=32cd32]“It’s just so embarrassing. Isn’t it just so embarrassing?”[/color]

“Super embarrassing,” confirmed Gwen. 

Gwen dressed and sounded and acted just like Vicky. A couple of years ago Vicky would’ve been the one who was a carbon copy of Gwen, but, well, now Vicky dated football stars while Gwen got dumped by the guy who worked drive thru at the Slappyburger. Imagine getting rejected by the dude who makes minimum wage to ask strangers over a loudspeaker how they would like their meat slapped? Vicky couldn’t, and that was why Gwen now looked like her. 

[color=32cd32]“[i]Soooo[/i] embarrassing,”[/color] hissed Vicky with a little added grunt as she jerked to the side to catch a ball that was nowhere near the table. 

“Fuck!” yelled the center for their school’s abysmal basketball team. 

[color=32cd32]“Oof, just like playoffs.”[/color]

“Shut up, Vicky,” snapped the point guard.

[color=32cd32]“Make a shot, Jackson,”[/color] said Vicky, and she wasn’t talking about beer pong. She sunk her shot. Gwen missed, she was getting sloppy, and when the boys missed too Vicky threw her head back, stomped her foot, and let out a long, drawn out, [color=32cd32]“[i]Uuuuuugh[/i], oh my God, just give up. This game is taking so [i]loooong[/i]. I want to [i]driiiink[/i].”[/color]

Where was Tuyen? She was supposed to get them drinks, so why wasn’t she here? Did she—no! Vicky snapped her head back to the dance floor. This was such utter bullshit, man, first they steal the spotlight, now they take her drinks (and her best friend)? No, no, no, there had to be a good reason for this. Vicky knew Tuyen. Tuyen wouldn’t do that; she’d get the drinks. 

[color=32cd32]“Oh, Chef!”[/color]

Vicky waved at her boyfriend who was already heading her way. He was being weird tonight, really weird, like being a total moody bitch kind of weird. Earlier he’d been annoyingly pushy about her wearing his dumb letterman jacket even though it was massive on her and covered up her cute outfit. Then he kept on trying to hangout with her despite them having spent almost the whole weekend together. It was so annoying, like, he had barely just left for college and now he was already back to visit. Vicky felt like she was being smothered, although that might’ve been just because of all the extra fabric that smelled of Old Spice and Slim Jims weighing her shoulders down.

Since Tuyen had been kidnapped (because it was the only logical reason why she wasn’t back), [s]Brayden[/s] [i]Chef[/i] could get her a drink. And then maybe start a search party. Vicky was actually almost getting worried.

“Hey babe,” said Chef. 

Without hesitation Vicky threw her arms around his neck, stood up on her tiptoes, and gave him a long kiss to really make Gwen feel like a total loser for getting dumped by the burger guy. Around the table, feet shuffled, the voyeurs almost as uncomfortable as Vicky was making out with someone who tasted like an old bowling alley. She could feel him sway backwards. How many Yuenglings had this idiot already crushed? He wasn’t even kissing back right. She pulled back with a loud exhale, as if Chef had taken her breath away instead of merely making her hold it, and moved in for a second assault but stopped short as he asked, “You gotta moment?”

[color=32cd32]“Right now? Babe, I’m in the middle of a game,”[/color] said Vicky. 

“It’s kinda important.”

[color=32cd32]“Kind of means that it can wait,”[/color] said Vicky, missing her shot. Goddamnit, [s]Bray[/s] Chef. He was throwing off her rhythm. [color=32cd32]“Could you get me a drink?”[/color]

But he didn’t get her a drink. He just stood there like a stupid idiot, staring at her, making a face. What did that face mean? His eyes were a bit red and watery. Was he high too? Was everybody here but her on drugs and/or drunk? 

“Vicky, we need to talk.”

Oh. Vicky turned her attention from the game and stared at Chef. Oh, that bastard. That stupid bitch. He was going to break up with her. She didn’t really care about that. She wanted them to break up. She just didn’t want it to go down like this. Not now. Not tonight. Not at a party. Not in front of people who she would have to see for one more year. What a jerk. What a douchebag. What a total asshole. 

Vicky felt her chest tighten. And seriously, were those motherfuckers over there still dancing and celebrating? It was like they wanted this to happen to her. She could feel the heat already starting to rise in the warehouse. Her eyes began dissecting Chef, peeling back the sunburnt skin on his face to crack open his thick skull and investigate the caverns beyond it. She was going to fucking murder him. Scientists would study his remains, unable to determine how a boy could be so stupid.

[color=32cd32]“But I’m winning,”[/color] she said as if that would stop the inevitable.

She wasn’t watching, which meant Gwen had to defend, and at the sudden outburst of excitement from the other end of the table it was clear to Vicky that Gwen fucked it. Vicky turned to see two ping pong balls nestled together in one cup. They lost. They were up six cups and they had lost. It was difficult for Vicky to drink the warm beer that Gwen had passed her way through a clenched jaw, but she somehow managed it. With no excuses left to avoid this, she spun towards Chef with a snap.

[color=32cd32]“What!?”[/color]

They disappeared outside. A few beats later and Vicky was already back inside, storming to the bar, muttering feverishly to herself as she wiped her eyes while fighting to free herself from Chef’s massive jacket and it’s stupid, broken fucking zipper. Defeated by the stuck zipper, the letterman jacket hung off of one shoulder as Vicky snatched a plastic bottle of something from the bar, sent the cap spinning to the floor, took a shot, and made a face like someone who had just been stabbed in the liver. She squinted at the liquor. Why was it so blue? Why was it so sweet? Why was liquor misspelled on the bottle? Oh, 30 proof? Well fuck those other questions, this would do. She was absolutely going to become someone else's problem tonight. She took another shot, made the same face, and turned to scream at Chef. 

[color=32cd32]"God, you’re such a fucking idiot. It was a game. I don’t even like Tyler! I [i]hate[/i] Tyler. Just like I hate—”[/color] yelled Vicky, startled to see that he hadn’t followed her in. [color=32cd32]“—you?”[/color]

Why hadn’t he—what the fuck, was he actually serious? This was so embarrassing, oh man, and everybody was looking at her. In this context, everybody meant the few kids around the drink table who could hear her outburst that was otherwise drowned out by the music, but if even one person saw her crying it wouldn’t be too long before it became local, no, perhaps even state news. She bolted with a sniff. Not here, not here, stop that shit. Oh, god, she choked on her quivering lip, she was like Gwen now. No, worse. What if Chef actually made it to the NFL? Her shoulders shook as she made some kind of horrified noise that most definitely wasn’t a suppressed sob, hid her face, and bolted for the bathroom with an ever so slight stumble because, seriously, she wasn't even that drunk it was just suffocating in here and there were too many bodies and, and, and—

Oh god, she [i]*really*[/i] hated parties.