Chapter 7: A Few Days Later, At the Apartment:

I sat on the floor of my friend Lucy's small apartment just off campus drinking a red solo cup of cheap boxed wine. One of her roommates, Harvey, sat on the makeshift couch supplement of an air mattress next to me. Loud Spanish music blared from Lucy’s room as she walked out and asked me, 

“It it okaaay if I listen to Bad Bunny?” 

“Yeah, of course,” I smiled at her. 

I knew I bit of Spanish but it was never enough to keep up with her and her roomates when they got to speaking it around their place. In the past few months I had really started kicking myself for not taking anything higher than a first year Spanish class when I was in highschool. They taught me the basic curse words though and occasionally I would reply to a word or phase I caught them using by saying the English translation out loud after. 

“Where did you say Grace was?” She asked me, grabbing herself a solo cup. 

“She had class until 6 tonight I think.” 

“Are you going back to campus when she gets out?” She raised an eyebrow as she sat down next to me on the cream colored carpet. 

“I’ll probably go back at some point tonight, but I don't have any plans.” 

My Fridays were usually my easiest days because the only class I had was a university wide religious core class at 9:00 AM. It was great in the first few weeks because all of the back-to-school-parties that were taking place, but recently I’d just been doing all my homework on Fridays to leave my Saturdays and Sundays open for any plans that may come up. 

“Welllll,” Lucy smiled, “One of the guys I met at orientation said his roommate was possibly throwing a dorm party tonight in Martin Hall…” She had a tendency to drag out her sentences as a way to show she was asking a question instead of physically asking it. 

I raised an eyebrow in response. 

“Andddd if you guys aren’t busy you should come with me so I don’t have to sit alone before I start to get to know people…” She dragged again. 

“That sounds like so much fun. I haven't been to a party in the dorms before. It’s that a little dangerous?” I looked around the room at her and then Harvey who had suddenly become interested in our conversation enough to lift his head up from his laptop. 

“Who careeesssss?” She finally asked, “It’s going to be a lot of fun, i'm sure.” 

“Okay! Okay! I'm in. Let me text Grace and see if she’s doing anything tonight after class.” 

The music had at some point changed from Bad Bunny to Pitt Bulls International Love. A song that I didn’t know many of the words to, but had a familiar beat. 

A few minutes later Grace responded to my text: 

“She’d down to go too, but uh…” I paused reading the second message she sent. 

“Oh. That guy Rami from your last party asked us if we wanted to hangout tonight, so shes wondering if he can tag along too…” This time I dragged my sentence out. 

“I don’t see why not. It’s a party for a reason.” 

It was a few minutes until 6:00 and I assumed Grace had gotten out of class a bit early. 

“If you want to go get changed now we can walk back to campus  and meet up with them, get some food before the dining hall closes, and then head back to our dorm so Grace and I can change before we head out.” 

Lucy sprung up quickly and dashed off to her room without even responding. 

“Are you coming with us Harv?” I turned to him, seeing he was back to being invested in his laptop. 

“Noooo,” He didn’t look up. “I hove many works to do tonite.” He responded in a weird almost broken English. Of the four people living together in the apartment, his English was the worst. 

“Awh okay…just make sure you save some time for fun.” I reminded him. 

Before he got a chance to reply Lucy ran back into the living room holding her makeup bag, a brush and a pair of white, heeled sandals. 

“I’m going to do my makeup in your dorm while you guys get ready,” She sat on the air mattress an it sunk almost to the ground. Harvey rose up on the other side. 

“Yeah, that’s fine. It always takes Grace forever to get ready for anything anyway.” 

She wore light wash skinny jeans with various rips up the legs and paired it with a white cropped tank top with only one sleeve that tied in the back. The color scheme complimented her olive skin really well. 

After she had put her sandals on we trudged the ten minute walk from her apartment complex to campus, trading drunk stories and alcoholic beverages that had been ruined for us in the past. 

We met up with Grace and Rami in the dining hall. The huge room consisted of a variety of tables and booths, two main course lines that varied in choices every day, a soup sandwich and salad bar, a dessert bar and two of the fancy touch screen drink dispensers. Tonight they served Thi food in the main course lines as the specialty. I don’t care much for Thi food so I opted for pizza and oven baked mac and cheese, but the other three headed straight for the Thi food line. 

When we had all got our food we sat down at mine and Graces favorite booth and started planning our night out. 

“So you know the person hosting this party?” Grace asked Lucy as she shoveled some kind of noodles into her mouth with chop sticks. 

“Well… technically I was invited by his roommate, but I know Josh wont care if I bring extra people. He said “bigger is better” anywayyyy.” She giggled and gave me a little side eye. 

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Rami cut in. 

“Josh? The big guy who is in our, uh. Biology lab?” He asked, using his arms to gauge his size. Rami had an accent that sounded almost Jamaican, which was very weird for a black man who said he was from China.

“Yes! That one. His roommate Devin was my group leader for orientation.” She took a sip of her iced coffee that she had picked up from the Starbucks right outside the dining hall. 

“I play soccer with Devin and I have been to their dorm room a few times. They are good peoples.” He agreed with her, and then not-so-subtlety added, “They will not mind having two extra pretty girls at their party.” And then gave me a little wink. 

Grace was too invested in her food to catch the wink that he’d thrown at me, but let out a giggle to show that she had heard his remark. 

Something inside of me didn’t like getting winked at by a guy that I had kissed in a drunk haze at a party a couple months ago, but I kept the mood light. 

“I’ll be right back.” I noted as I slipped away to take my dishes over to the dish washing room. 

The gang was just about ready to finish as well when I got back, and soon enough we were headed up to mine and Graces dorm room. 

I wasn’t the kind of person to care about locking the door to my dorm, but it drove Grace crazy when I didn’t. Since I was the last one to leave today I accidentally left it open. 

“Casey Angeline Bennet! You know I HATE it when you don’t lock the door. What if someone comes in and steals my Mac-book? I have over a thousand dollars of electronics in here…” She rambled on for a second while she scrambled around looking though her belongings to make sure everything was safe. It was, as always.   

I rolled my eyes and let out a little sigh and then smiled at the other two. 

Lucy had been in our dorm a few times prior to this night, so she just sat down in front of the mirror that hung on the back of our door and started at her makeup. Rami looked around a bit. 

“You girls seem to have very…different taste.” He said looking from one side of the room to the other. 

In his defense, we were very different. Graces side of the room was decorated in mostly black with a few dark red or purple accents. Her desk was set up with tarot cars, incense, crystals and books on witchcraft. Her side of the closet we split was mostly black as well with varying styles of platform boots. My side of the room was a lot lighter and more colorful. My obsession with daises was very prominent whereas my tan bed set was decorated in a daisy pattern and my desk, which was actually filled with school supplies, had an old daisy plant pot filled with pencils pens and highlighters. My large variety of books were placed along my dresser that sat up against the window in the middle of our room, none of them were about witchcraft. And in my closet there were a large amount of brightly colored hoodies, dresses from previous formal occasions and my collection of Converse sneakers to match any outfit imaginable. 

I already knew the outfit Grace was going to pick. She had bought a new black leather skirt a few days ago at the mall down the road and  had wanted to pair it with her black lace bodysuit and a red leather jacket to match her red platforms. She had told me that was what she was going to wear the next time she went out. I had no idea what I waned to wear. 

I pulled open my bottom dresser drawer, which is were I kept anything that could be considered a party outfit. I hadn’t been out in a while and the first few parties I went to I decided to play it safe by just wearing jeans and some form of crop top/ jacket combination, but this time I was feeling more confident. 

I pulled out a two piece dress I had bought over the summer to wear to a graduation party. It was black with white lines that formed squares all over it, and a stretchy body-con material. 

“I’m going to use the bathroom to change…” Grace turned around, remembering Rami was also in the room with us, “You can use it after me.” 

“It’s fine, “ I replied, “Rami can you just turn around for a minute?” 

He did. 

We both slipped into our outfits and I had announced that I was done right as Grace was stepping out of the bathroom. 

We both looked at each other and said, 

“DAMNNNNNN!” and then giggled. 

“You look hot!” I faked checking her out. 

“Not as hot as you!” She repied with a wink, “Buttt there's something missing.” 

And without missing a beat she ran over to her dresser and pulled out a pair of brand new fishnet stockings. 

“Put these on.” She threw them across the room at me. 

“Ooh I like! I’m thinking jean jacket and black Converse? Give it a bit of a punk vibe?”

“That would look really good!” She ran over to start her makeup. Luckily for me I never left the dorm without my signature winged eyeliner look. 

“You guys are going to to look fanTASTIC!” Lucy said standing up from the spot she was sitting in front of the mirror. 

“I must agree.” Rami flashed a look at me. 

He must not have thought it was necessary to change because he had stayed in his same jeans and red SRU soccer hoodie that he’d worn to dinner. It didn’t look bad though, guys always have it easier when it comes to these things. 

It was about 8:00 by the time Grace had finished her makeup and we were all ready to go in perfect timing. Grace was the last person to leave the dorm so she could ensure the door was, in fact, locked.

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