You check your phone and the time reminds you to make a wish. To be brave. To be bold. To finally get what you want. A late birthday present, yeah? A little liquid courage never hurt anyone.
You don’t like parties. You’d be certain you don’t even like the kind of people who go to parties if it weren’t for the stupid boy you can see grabbing another beer across the room. He’s wearing a fucking leather jacket like it’s not 76° outside and much cooler indoors but you don’t even care because his hair falls into his eyes just right and boom, your stomach is doing cartwheels again. It’s a feeling you can’t deny grows and grows and grows, like it wasn’t already something you could barely stand the first time it happened when you were thirteen.
“Fuck, I’m so wasted,” he says, rushing toward you with his arms outstretched and for a brief but glorious moment, you trick yourself into thinking he intends to hug you. No such luck. “Where the fuck have you been?” He asks, shoving your shoulder like you’re another one of the frat boys he low-key mocks every week to score free booze.
“I guess I got lost,” you mumble, shrugging sheepishly and focusing all your intention on his dirty sneakers to keep him from seeing how flushed your cheeks must be. “I mean, not really, I sorta had a drink and then another one and then one more and then I was, like, get the fuck over yourself, Milo, you’re twenty one now. Live the dream.”
“…Wait. Are you telling me you’ve had… FOUR… beers? In the same semester?”
“You just think you’re fucking hilarious, don’t you?”
He wandered away, claiming he needed to find your sister, but when you lift up on your toes, you find him standing with a disturbingly small space between his chest and arguably the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen. She’s bubbly and laughing and she radiates the kinda confidence you’d expect from someone who always gets the guy and you can’t help knowing there’s no way in hell you can compete with that. Who are you kidding thinking you can pull this off?
But then he looks away, looks right at you, and rolls his eyes.
You want to ask her what the fuck she’s doing talking to him because he’s yours. It’s so obvious he’s yours, isn’t it? Is this not something people know yet? Whatever. You can fix that. You can make damn sure she knows. That he knows. It’s about time you set the record straight.
It happens fast or maybe that’s your heart pounding and playing tricks on you. You blurt out some bogus story about how this bitch won a raffle and she takes a few steps back, overwhelmed with either excitement or confusion. Doesn’t matter much to you, so long as she’s no longer directly in the way of your potentially problematic plan.
‘Cause you’re on a mission, motherfucker.
Stumbling forward, you shove him against the wall behind him, hands gripping onto the collar of that ridiculous jacket and you kiss him. You kiss him like this isn’t the first time. Like you’ve been doing this for years, like you haven’t spent the last sixteen struggling to feel worthy of his supposedly reluctant affection.
Like it’s so easy to tug him in closer, to press your hips into his and then drag him through your open bedroom door conveniently located down the hall. Lack of experience be damned.
You don't like parties. You’d be certain you don’t even like the kind of people who go to parties if it weren’t for the stupid boy who never fails to knock down all your nearly unbreakable walls, the stupid boy you finally found the courage to kiss. You have no idea what you're doing, if he'll remember this tomorrow, if you'll find a way to say you love him, but you don’t even care because his hair falls into his eyes just right and boom, your stomach is doing cartwheels again.
So it's time to be brave. To be bold. To finally get what you want.
"Fuck me."