Hardly an hour had gone by when I heard (or thought I had heard) a rather eerie sound. My mind immediately warned me to quit the paranoia and proceed to shut my eyes. That was until I heard the noise again, more audibly this time. Something was amiss. I summed up my courage and stealthily crawled out of my bed.
The sound turned out to be a heavy knock on the door. No sooner had I drawn closer to the door than I heard the voice call out my name. It sounded familiar…
“Greg, are you there?”
I breathed easily, feeling as if a cumbersome load had been lifted off my palpitating heart, which it had. Hadn’t I almost jumped out of my skin in terror when my door was first knocked on?
“Yes I am; is that Joe?” I asked while unlocking the door. It was him indeed. “Don’t tell me you were asleep; I thought you were coming to Nate’s party tonight… It starts in an hour!”
Guilty as I was, I couldn’t respond. This was not the first incident. Many a time had I purposely turned down late-night weekend party invitations. And the expression on Joe’s face proved that he had had enough of this nonsense.
“Oh, Hi little Matt!” Joe greeted my cat; as if the poor creature were intelligent enough to comprehend human speech. The situation was getting awkward; so I had to make a choice.
“I don’t think I’ll be coming this time,” I muttered in what seemed to be disappointment.
Of course, I didn’t want to go. But Joe had been a long-time friend of mine, and I guess buddies shouldn’t let each other down, should they? Out of the blue, Kevin—one of Joe’s friends whom he had brought to fetch me—beeped at us from Joe’s car.
“I guess I’ll come around, as long as I don’t get drunk or something,” I joked, yet sighed in reluctance. I awkwardly dashed to my room to find something better to be in; anything that looked party-worthy!
Soon enough, I realized there would have been quite a stir if I hadn’t said yes. Joe’s car was one of its kind; there was a whole exhibition of spray paintings and drawings in every nook and cranny of the roaring machine. It was funny how I couldn’t tell the exact name of the car- just a Ford. Meanwhile, Joe played upbeat rock music as the four of us sped downtown. A strong breeze of cool air struck my face next to my window. I felt like I was at the top of the world…
As the minutes passed, I could tell fate had something in store. But what was fate anyway? Who had the time to worry about it when no one was predestined for anything…or were we? The endless string of rhetorical questions continuously bombarded my mind like arrows in a duel. Until;
“Oh, come on Greg, we are going to a party; why the melancholy? Cheer up!” For a second, Martin almost startled me. I quickly said I was fine.
“So what have you been up to all week? Studying?” Joe’s was more of a mocking strike. But I could tolerate him.
“Well, I did other things like going to the movies…”
“You only went to the movies?” Kevin interrupted, “Were you at yesterday’s soccer game?”
The grilling was escalating. Now all of them were at me. I kept as shut as I could. After a period of outrageously loud silence—save for the buzz of the city—I revived the talk:
“So where does Nate live?” It had barely been nine minutes into the drive, but I was too impatient.
“It’s in a mile,” Joe replied, rather undisturbed.
His eyes were glued to the ‘circle of life’, or whatever one would imagine of a steering wheel on a weekend night full of tension. In the blink of an eye, the Ford pulled up abruptly in front of a brightly-lit and undeniably deafening house. It had to be Nate’s. And anyone could agree that it was simply a homemade disco—at least for the weekend. All of us jumped out. I could feel anxiety creep onto my skin.
“We’re here for just an hour, right?” I inquired, but the Joe-led trio was already joining the party ecstatically.
This is so relatable!