Drifting into Darkness (12 page)

With that decided, I rolled over on the couch, having no energy to get up and go to bed, and took a nap.

Eight

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness when I finally peeled my eyes open. I grabbed my phone to see what time it was.
Shit!
It was already seven twenty-two in the evening. I must have really been tired to sleep for over three hours. I was surprised my mother hadn’t texted or called to see if I was coming down for dinner. And speaking of dinner, I was famished. I really didn’t want to go down to the main house to see what she had made, so I decided on just making a ham sandwich and grabbed a can of coke to drink.

I turned on the light in my small living room and settled down on the couch to send Lisa a text while I ate.

Me: Hey I was thinking about going to the party at the farm. What time do you guys normally get there?

I only had to wait a few minutes for her reply.

Lisa: Yay! That would be awesome. We’re still at the track but we’ll be leaving in about twenty minutes. Do you remember where I showed you everyone parks?

Me: Yes, but I don’t know how to get there.

Lisa: Instead of turning down the road to the farm, keep going straight. There are reflectors on a tree about two miles down. Use high beams. Turn right down that path and you’ll see all the cars.

Me: Ok, sounds easy enough. I’ll see you in about an hour and a half.

Lisa: Text me when you get there.

Me: K

Texting Lisa got me excited about going out. It had been a long time since I had fun and I was ready to let loose.

I finished my sandwich and strode to the bathroom to take another shower, leaving my hair up in a bun. I didn’t need to take another one, but I always took one after a nap. It helped to wake me up. In the shower, I contemplated what I’d wear. What did you wear to a farm party?

Washing up quickly, I got out of the shower, dried off, and headed to my room to pick out my clothes. I decided on an embellished tank top and a short linen skirt. It was still warm out even though it was at night, so I didn’t want to wear something too heavy and get all sweaty.

After getting dressed, I went back to the bathroom to flat iron my long brown hair and put on a little bit of makeup. Nothing too heavy since my skin was already starting to tan from the little exposure I got from the past two days. I slipped on some flip-flops and I was ready to go.

~*~

I found the tree Lisa was talking about and turned down the path. It wasn’t long before I saw about twenty cars parked in random places. Not knowing where to park, I picked an isolated spot so I wouldn’t have a problem getting my car out when I wanted to leave.

Grabbing my phone, I sent Lisa a quick text letting her know I was there and had already parked. She texted back quickly and said she was walking toward the cars to meet me.

Getting out of the car, I walked toward a path that led to the clearing. I was glad there was a quarter moon or I wouldn’t have been able to see anything. Laughter and talking floated through the trees as I got closer. I knew there had to be more people than the twenty cars led you to believe. I imagined each car carried at least four people out here.

A slight breeze ruffled my hair as I walked down the pathway. It wasn’t as warm as I thought it would be at night.

Shadows danced across the trees at the other end of the pathway and I noticed a figure that was walking in my direction. As it got closer, I could see that it was Lisa. She was wearing another summer dress and she had her hair in a high ponytail.

“Sadie,” she squealed, “I’m so glad ya decided to come out.” She skipped and hopped up to me, grabbing me in a hug. I could smell the alcohol on her as she wrapped her arms around me.

“Hey,” I said as she backed away.

“Come on,” she demanded, as she grabbed my wrist. “Let’s go introduce ya to everyone.” I followed her the rest of the way, not really having a choice since she kind of had a death grip on my wrist.

We made it to the end of the path and Lisa stopped and started looking around. I was surprised at how many people were actually out here. There had to be well over sixty people. Someone had a car parked at the far end of the clearing with the doors and trunk open letting country music pour out from the speakers. It wasn’t my type of music, but I’d listened to some of what they played on pop radio. There were also five metal trashcans in all different areas around the clearing that held fires, which would explain all the shadows I was seeing in the pathway.

Lisa let go of my wrist, and all of a sudden, I heard the shrill loudness of a whistle coming from her lips. It was probably the loudest whistle I’d ever heard coming from such a small person.

“Hey y’all!” she yelled, waving her hands in the air. I was not surprised when people stopped what they were doing to look at her because I would have done the same thing. “This,” she pointed to me, “is Sadie…Sadie, this is everyone!” She held her arm out and gestured toward everyone like she was a game show host showing me my prize.

I could feel everyone’s eyes on me, but I kept my head up and didn’t divert my gaze. It took a lot for me to get embarrassed and Lisa was doing a great job at it. She turned to me clapping her hands with a smile on her face. “Yay, I’m so excited you’re here. There’re so many people for you to meet, but first, we need to get ya a drink,” she said happily as she grabbed my wrist again.

Everyone went back to what they were doing before the interruption, except for Joe who was walking toward us with a smile. “There you are. I was wondering if you’d come out tonight. You missed some great races though.”

“Yeah, you would think I planned it that way.” He looked at me confused, not understanding my sarcasm.

“Not now, Joe,” Lisa said, trying to shoo Joe away. “I’m takin’ her to get a drink.”

He started walking backwards with his arms up in defeat. “All right, all right. I’ll just catch up with you later, Sadie.” he smiled with a wink before he bumped into some guy and got beer spilled down the front of his shirt.

I laughed. Way to be all suave. I arrived to a party full of drunken people. This should definitely be entertaining, but I’d need to have a drink of my own so I could handle it. I knew I had to drive though so I wouldn’t drink that much.

“Here we are,” Lisa stated as she let go of me to lean over a cooler. She opened it up and pulled out a water bottle filled with something red.

“What the hell is this?” I asked, still examining it. I opened it up and brought it to my nose to smell the contents.

She giggled. “It’s spiked fruit punch. Just drink it; you’ll like it, I promise.”

I brought it to my lips and took a small sip. It definitely still tasted like fruit punch, but I could feel the burn of some kind of alcohol arriving in the pit of my stomach. “Wow,” I said licking my lips. “This is really good.”

She smiled, nodding her head. “I told ya.”

“Hey look who it is.” Derek walked up behind Lisa, wrapped his arms around her waist with a beer in his hand and smiled at me. “Did you just get here?”

I took another drink and nodded my head. “Yeah, like five minutes ago. Didn’t you hear her introduction,” I laughed.

“No,” he smiled, “but I was over by the car blaring music, so I wouldn’t have heard anything.”

I nodded in understanding and looked around again. We were practically in the middle of the clearing, so I had a good view of everyone around us. People were gathered in little groups and I noticed there were a lot more girls then guys. “Is it always like this?”

“Like what?” Lisa asked.

I pointed around. “So many girls.”

She laughed. “Yeah, I told ya it was comical.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. She wasn’t seriously suggesting that all these girls wanted a piece of Landon. I mean seriously, he’s a hot guy, but get real. There was nothing special about him from what I’d seen. “You aren’t suggesting all these girls are thinking they have a chance at getting Landon, are you?”

She turned her head into Derek’s neck and giggled. That was definitely an ‘I’m too drunk to talk’ giggle. I looked at Derek for confirmation, but he just laughed. “Most of them are, yes, but not all of them. You’ll be able to tell who is though. They swarm like bees to honey,” Derek explained while Lisa continued to giggle in Derek’s neck. These two really were a cute couple.

I drank more of my drink, noticing I’d already drank half, when Lisa finally got herself under control. She turned around to face me, still in Derek’s arms. “Come on, I’ll introduce ya to some people,” she slurred as she grabbed my hand.

“Do you think maybe you should sit down for a bit?” I didn’t want her falling over.

“Pshhh! No,” she laughed, “I’m fine. We do this all the time. Oh, look, there’s Sarah. Let’s go say hi.”

We walked toward the right to a group of girls where Sarah, the waitress from the other day, was standing. It still surprised me that even though Sarah blatantly flirted with Derek right in front of her; she would still speak to her in a friendly manner. In a drunken state, I’d be putting her ass in her place; although, I didn’t even need to be drunk.

As they noticed our approach, the conversation they were animatedly having halted. Lisa was oblivious in her state of inebriation. “Hey, have y’all met Sadie yet?” she asked as we came to a stop in front of five very pretty girls. The first thing I noticed was they were all blondes. The reason I noticed that was because you could plainly see two of them were natural brunettes by the dark shade of their eyebrows. Had no one told them that look was a thing of the past?

“Hey, Sadie,” Sarah greeted me. “We met at the diner.” She smiled.

I smiled and nodded at her. “Hi, how are you?”

“I’m great. Did you go to the races earlier? I don’t remember seein’ ya.”

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. Leaving it at that.

Realizing she wasn’t going to get any more out of me, she turned to the girl who was standing next to her. “Well, this here’s Jane, Shelly, Maria, and Ann,” she said, pointing to each friend.

“Hi, I’m Sadie.” I felt stupid. I hated the whole introduction aspect of meeting people, especially a whole group.

“Where’re ya from, Sadie?” Maria asked.

I was then bombarded with question after question of where I was from, why I moved, did I have a boyfriend, what school was I attending, where did I live, what was I going to school for. It was all quite tiring.

I was glad when one of the girls interrupted me by pointing in the other direction. “There’s Landon. Let’s go congratulate him on his win.” At that point, I was no longer an interest as the girls flocked in the other direction.

I turned to see Landon across the way standing by one of the five fire pits. It was hard to see in the dark, but the dancing flames lit up his features. It was definitely him. He was talking to another guy, and a girl was standing next to him with her arm possessively around his waist.

“And let the show begin.” Lisa laughed.

I looked down at her confused. “What are you talking about?”

She looked up at me and I could see her eyes were half closed. That made me question how she could even see that far. “I told ya,” she said, pointing toward Landon. “Now ya get to see for yourself.” I looked in his direction again to see what she was talking about. Landon stood talking to Joe and a few other guys but the majority were girls and not just the five we were talking to earlier. There were more, at least fifteen. I looked around at every single girl and noticed they all had one thing in common. They were all blonde.

“What is up with everyone being blonde around here?”

She let out a drunken snort. “Ya noticed that, huh.” We walked back toward Derek. He was still standing by the cooler, but now a guy accompanied him. “If they’re interested in Landon, they bleach their hair. Landon doesn’t date brunettes or so, that’s what everyone says.”

I rolled my eyes. That was just pathetic. Changing your appearance to get someone to like you. What is wrong with these people?

“Hey, baby,” Lisa said as we walked up to the guys.

“Hey, babe. Devon was just telling me about the new video he was making with all the footage he’s gotten over the month.”

“Oh, wow, really?” she said excitedly. “I can’t wait to see it.” Lisa leaned down and opened the cooler to grab another drink. “Do ya want another one?” she asked me.

I looked down at my bottle to see how much I had left and it was almost empty, “Sure.”

She handed me another one while I chugged the rest of what I had left. I couldn’t even tell I was drinking alcohol. I must have gotten used to it or it didn’t have that much in it. I handed my empty bottle to Lisa and she tossed it into the cooler.

“Sadie,” Derek smiled, “this is my best friend Devon.”

I turned toward him and offered my hand. He was tall, not as tall as Derek, but a lot taller than me. His t-shirt and jeans were baggy so I couldn’t really tell if he had a slim build or not, but I could tell that he was skinny by his facial features. He had a narrow face and a pronounced nose, sandy blond hair and brown eyes. He was good looking, nothing I would get excited over, but not ugly.

I smiled and nodded in his direction. “Good to meet you.”

“You too,” he smiled back. “So I hear you’re from Chicago.”

And here we go again. “Yeah, just moved here.”

“Why the hell would you move to this hot-ass state?” He laughed.

I laughed with him. “My dad got transferred with his job. So I moved with them instead of staying behind.” I drank more of my drink and decided to change the subject since I could now see that Derek and Lisa were talking amongst themselves, leaving Devon and I to converse alone. “So what is this I hear about a video?” I queried.