Seven.....the balcony

Awakened by the sounds of a repetitive doorbell, she felt around herself for her glasses and shoved them onto her face, the room returning to sight with perfect clarity. To her dismay the bracelet was still around her wrist, black as ash.

Downstairs she opened the door to see Eden and Paige standing outside dressed and ready to go.

“Oh crap, Will’s party, I completely forgot, I fell asleep,” she said, slapping her hand to her forehead and looking down at her looney toons tee and tracksuit pants, feeling her mussed up tangled hair she no longer had the time to transform.

“Forgot?” Eden said in disbelief, “How on earth could you forget?”

It was true, there were few things on earth that could make her forget about Will, but what had occurred that evening was undoubtedly one of them.

Back upstairs she hurriedly pulled on black ripped shorts over thick pattern tights and a silver lace top. Pulling on her Doc Martens she asked Paige and Eden if she looked alright.

“You look alright,” Paige replied, brutally honest as always, “You could use a touch of mascara,” she said, pulling out a Covergirl tube.

“No way,” Genny said, backing away meaningfully, “my eyes look large enough with the glasses; I’m not a mascara or eyeliner girl,”

Paige’s face took on her signature ‘thoughtful’ look, “How about bronzer and the smallest hint of red lipstick?”

She smiled at the girl, who was useful as ever, while Eden began backcombing her hair into what she described as an ‘editorial’ look. She tossed on a few more bracelets and rings and, as always, hanging from her neck was her mother’s emerald teardrop. After throwing on her thick leather jacket they headed out to Freddie’s car.

The air outside was not nearly as icy as it had been but still maintained a notable degree of chill, Genny’s teeth chattered as she opened the door of Freddie’s new old red Toyota.

“Hey guys,” she said.

“The idea is to get ready before we show up,” Jay said.

“Yeah maybe I’ll try that next time,” Genny said to him.

After about twenty minutes of Freddie’s cautious driving, they stopped outside of the Davenport mansion. Before it had looked regal, like the cottage of the Queen of England’s personal maid, but now with the bass in the air and already a few beer cans strewn, it looked like a frat house.

Stepping out of the car, they allowed a moment to marvel before walking up to the house, just as a blonde girl with a guy stepped out of the door. Mollie Beckford caught eyes with Genny, and ignored her. At acknowledging the friend of Marni and Antonia, Genny’s teeth ground in frustration.

“He was serious about the whole sophomore class being invited, down to the trash,” Genny commented.

“Don’t wanna look like we’re trying too hard to be cool,” Freddie frowned, taking his eyes of Mollie.

“We are cool,” Jay said, “no question about it,”

Within, it was packed and roasting as Genny began trying to blend in. She recognized other sophomores, Kyle Bridges; enviable actor, Zacharias Klein; stud, Min Jang; prima ballerina. She even saw people she’d never seen turn up at a party before; Suzy Mayfair from algebra was there in a corner with apparent friends holding drinks. But the amount juniors and seniors and what could have possibly been college students, was daunting. Less than half the faces she saw she recognized, they must’ve been from the elusive older brothers’ high school.

Gulping, Genny missed the calm solitude of the park benches they hung out in, but somehow solitude in a crowd worked just as well sometimes, as long as the music was blaring.

After about an hour of hot sweaty dancing she needed some fresh air, so went through the back to the garden. Outside she could only stare, despite the 50 odd people swarmed around, it was much less a garden than a meadow. Seeing Summer standing near a table, surrounded by friends, she went over to her. Someone there was definitely wearing too much of a musky fragrance, it reminded her of Will.

“Hey Summer,” she said, growing envious of her attire, only she could pull off leather pants, “You look gorgeous,”

She wore an up-do with tresses and wisps of hair hanging loosely around her face, and diamantes around her eyes like a haute couture runway model. Genny doubted anyone else she knew could’ve executed that look.

“Gen!” she hugged her, “I was gonna call you make sure you were here. Let me introduce some people; this is Elle,” she said, referring to the statuesque blonde with the pixie cut, “Lola,” she continued as Genny regarded the petit brunette, “Gabe,” Genny looked at the bulky tall boy, who gave her a peculiar stare, “And Chaice, my boyfriend,”

“Your boyfriend,” she repeated, idly fixing her glasses. She smiled, surveying him, only slightly taller than her with an emo cut. “You never mentioned him,”

“It hasn’t been official for long, so I thought I’d tell people in person,” she smiled.

Her friends exuded a certain air, confidence without arrogance, gracility without prudishness, style without trying; she felt entirely inadequate standing next to them. On the upside they were the it-crowd there; the host and her inner-circle, for once she could both be the centre of attention while still blending into the background; it was pleasant not to feel like an outsider sometimes.

“Hey Gabe!” a voice shouted over, to which the bulkier guy turned response.

“What’s up?” he said as the boy got closer.

Genny recognized him vaguely, but he identified her immediately. “Hi,” he said.

She almost didn’t reply, not sure if it was directed at her. “Um, hi,” she replied

“You don’t remember me; I’m Ty, Landon’s friend. You’re a friend of Summer and Will’s I’m guessing,”

“Oh yeah, I’m Genny,” she reminded the wiry muscular senior.

“I didn’t forget,” he smiled. His face was angular and perfectly carved, and his eyes unnervingly penetrating. “You guys were having some sort of movie night?”

“Yeah Donnie Darko and some others I guess,” she replied.

“Too busy getting off to remember the rest?” he asked, maintaining a grin.

“What? No!” Genny cried in alarm.

“Sorry sorry, that was out of line, I’m a gentleman really,”

“Really?” was all she could think to say.

“Really,” Ty said, before taking Genny’s hand and brushing his lips against it with a kiss.

Genny felt the heat to her face and looked around at rest of the group who were too absorbed in the conversation to pay attention.

“Can I steal you for a moment? I wanna show you something brilliant an artistic girl like can appreciate,” he smiled after examining her, even more unsettling.

She looked at Summer for a sign it was safe, not that she really knew why she thought it wouldn’t be. “Sure,” Genny finally said. He poured her a drink before walking away.

The sky was still clear and there was a full moon out, washing everything visible out with a silver shine. She hadn’t seen Will yet and a huge part of her wanted to, but she was with Ty, and he was stupefying.

“So what makes you think I’m artistic,” she said after they’d made it through the hoards of teens on downstairs and were making their way up the steps.

“You go to CAA right? It’s in the name. But I can’t believe you’re a sophomore like Summer, you look like a junior at least, and with those legs, wow I can’t even picture you in high school,” he said to her guiding her up.

“Thanks,” she said as a warning alarm went off in her head. Bullshit, most compliment from guys are complete and utter bullshit, she thought to herself, reminding herself not to fall too fast. “You’re a senior like Landon? Where do you go?”

“Yeah I am, and I go to Jefferson, but I’m thinking of transferring,” he replied, his eyes still boring a hole into her.

“Oh, how comes?”

“Jefferson doesn’t have you,” he said, scrutinizing her again from the top of the staircase.

Fiddling with her pendant she bit down on her lip, not quite knowing what to say. If Paige had been in her shoes she would’ve been kissing him by now, she rarely ignored her primal instincts. But somehow " though mesmerized at how someone could look so incredible and intimidate so much " her head or her heart was pulling her in another direction, or maybe it was her bladder.

“I need to you the little girls,” she said quickly, “Excuse me,”

Going too fast down the stairs she found herself outside one of the bathrooms. It was beyond beautiful inside, everything was modern and chic, everything sparkled, but she doubted completely that it would stay that way until the end of the night.

She had no desire to bump into Ty again, nor did Genny fell like swimming through the crowds of people to find her friends again midst the partiers dancing. Instead she sat on a sofa in the foyer, rested her feet and played with the bracelet. Our world is just that, a whole world... Thinking about Ivory and Crizanto’s words that evening, it was so hard to imagine the world being more than what it was, it was already complicated enough. And then there are other dimensions and meta-realms, next she’d be meeting fairies and finding out that vampires stalk the earth too-

“Just couldn’t keep away from me could you,” a voice said from behind her, breaking her of her thoughts.

As she turned around Will’s electric eyes sent a jolt through her, and she almost forgot where she was. He stood tall in a Ralph Lauren polo, and baggy black Levi’s. He also had his Nikon SLR around his neck.

“Don’t flatter yourself Will,” she said to him, “You practically begged me to come,”

“Why not flatter myself? I enjoy very much, most of the time I deserve it,” he said cockily, “Besides, me begging you to come? That’s not how I remember it,”

As she raised her eyebrows to him he sat down beside her.

“Yeah we were at lunch and I told you I was having a party and you were like ‘please Will please, please let me come,’ and I said yes on one condition, which you agreed to I might add,” he smiled at her, flashing his glimmering teeth; one second from the middle was chipped.

“What condition did I agree to? I sincerely don’t remember,” she played along.

“You pay the entry fee,” he replied without even having to think about it.

“Entry fee?” she repeated, knowing he didn’t honestly want money from her.

“And I will call upon this debt when the time comes,” he said, imitating a mafia don.

She rolled her eyes at him but doubted he noticed.

“They’re in there aren’t they, Paige and Jay and them. Why aren’t your with them?” he asked.

“I’m just tired, and thinking some things over. Why aren’t you in there, this is your party,” she replied.

“It is my party,” Will seemed to say more to himself than to her, “And it’s my job to make sure all of my guests are entertained and refreshed, let me get you a drink,” he offered.

“Nothing with alcohol in it,” she said as he stood up and pulled her back out through into the night garden.

“Why? Are you afraid you’ll get drunk and won’t be able to keep your hands off me?” he said, leaving her to sit in a patio chair.

Genny wanted to retort but wouldn’t have heard her, she hated him having the last line. Instead she observed the social scenes around her. He returned with drinks in a few moments.

“I might strangle you,” she said, taking the cup from his hand.

The look on his face was both puzzled and amused. “What?” he said, stifling a laugh, “Most death threats I get are declared with some rage, and usually I deserve them,” he began to think over the truth in what he’d said.

“You said if I got drunk I won’t be able to keep my hands off you, but I don’t want to get drunk because there’s a chance you might make me so mad that I might just end up killing you,” she explained before taking a sip of the cherry soda he’d got her.

He pulled out a box of Marlboros and lit one up, it was distracting and nauseating.

“I’m willing to take that chance,” he chuckled, not believing her, consequently motivating her to strangle him.

“Six minutes,” she stated.

“And you continue to confuse me,” he said, looking baffled again.

“For each one of those cancer sticks you suck on you lose six minutes of your life,” she clarified.

A look of sadness fell over his face and his hand came to her cheek, her face growing hotter as she hoped to God he couldn’t feel it. “So that’s six less minutes I get to spend with you,” surprisingly he dropped the fresh f*g to the ground, stomping it out.

“So you’re gonna quit smoking?” she asked, maybe a little too hopefully.

“I’m not gonna quit smoking!” Will said without delay, ruining whatever brief moment they were having.

Genny slumped back down in the chair and sipped on the drink.

“C’mon, my smoking can’t bother you that much,” he said, sounding slightly concerned.

She looked up at him. Her thick eyebrows would’ve looked unfit on any other girl, but against her achromatic eyes, glinting in the lunar luminescence, and overblown by her glasses, they looked faultless.

“It looks absolutely disgusting, and it makes you look so unattractive I want to vomit every time I look at you,”

He sat on the arm of the chair, stroked a mock beard and nodded, mimicking a therapist. “And how do I look when I’m not smoking? On a scale of good to stunning?”

She returned with a punch in the arm. “Your ego is an unattractive feature as well, and since you have that constantly I’d say you’re pretty ugly to me all the time.”

“Ooh, that one stung Gen,” Will said, seeming kind of hurt, and she felt a pang of guilt,, “Especially when every time I look at you all I can think of is how beautiful you are,” he said too softly.

“Don‘t flirt with me Will, it’s unnerving,” she lied.

“That wasn’t flirting,” he grinned his powerful grin, “it’s telling the truth, if I wanted to flirt with you I’d do this,” he pushed a few strands of hair from her face behind her ear and let his hand linger, “and tell you how soft and gorgeous your hair is, then I’d look deeply into your eyes and tell you how they shine brilliantly in the moonlight,” she looked down in embarrassment before he took her hands and stood her up, “then I’d come close to you and whisper in your ear, I want to spend every moment of the rest of my waking life with you,”

Her legs turned to jelly beneath her and she almost fell to the ground. Then he laughed. A tidal wave of anger swept over her as she realised she’s eaten up greedily every single word. She pushed him away as firmly as she could and turned to walk off. But before she could get very far he grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“Gen I didn’t mean it,” he tried to apologise.

“That much was obvious,” she said trying to free herself of his vice grip.

“No, I mean I didn’t mean to upset you,” he tried again.

“Well if you didn’t mean it, I guess it’s alright that you toyed with my emotions,” she said, giving him a murderous glare.

For a second he actually didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry it’s just that girls eat this up and I wouldn’t want anyone to do this to you-”

“So you did it to me yourself to try and teach me a lesson?” she snapped, “Just shut up Will,”

She tried to walk away again but with no apparent effort he still held on tightly. “Come upstairs with me, please?” he asked.

Sighing she said, “And why on earth would I do that?”

“Because I’d like to make it up to you, and I won’t even talk if that’s what you want,”

Genny chewed on her bottom lip for an undecided second as he let go of her arm and slid his hand into mine. “Lead the way,” she replied, hardly believing herself.

To get to wherever they were going they had to cut through the party again, which had somehow gotten even more crowded. She saw Paige making out with Keegan Moore who she was pretty sure was a junior; and caught eyes with Eden sitting on Hunter’s lap as she saw Genny being dragged upstairs by Will, she knew she would never hear the end of this.

He led her up to a third floor living room with black painted walls and a mural of a lady with something written under it in a language unknown to her. And she spotted the bed, and realised it must’ve been his room. Her jaw dropped. Will pulled her through to the huge balcony. Smiling, he gestured for her to sit on one of deck chairs as he followed.

“Okay, still can’t believe that this is your hosue,”

“You’re right,” he replied to her surprise, “Me and my family are just squatters, the real owners are in the Bahamas for a year or so,”

She found herself laughing. “So lucky,” she thought aloud, “growing up with all this luxury,”

His smile dropped for a moment, then his expression changed and he spoke, “If you ever wanted anything...”

“Oh so you’re trying to bribe me?” she asked.

His forehead creased. “And again I’m lost,”

“I haven’t forgotten about you ‘making it up to me,’”

“Oh that, yeah, I’ve decided that making it up to you, because of your ridiculously high standards will take a whole day so I’ll be doing that next Saturday,” his matt black hair blew back in the breeze.

“Are you asking me out?” she asked, feeling instinctively cautious.

“I’m not really asking,” he replied, “but yeah, pretty much,”

“Look don’t feel obligated to take me out just because-”

“I don’t feel obligated,” he cut her off, “I want to,” she didn’t believe him, and something in her eyes must’ve gave her away because of what her said next, “I was going to anyway, my original plan was to make sure you were free and just turn up,”

Inwardly she smiled. “And if I wasn’t free?”

“That doesn’t matter now does it?”

“It does because you still don’t know,” she said.

“You just want to hear me ask don’t you?”

A smile Genny couldn’t hold down spread across her face.

“I’ll text you,” he said in clever response.

“I won’t text back,”

“You’re such a pain in the a*s! I’ll ask you out, out loud, if you pay the entrance fee that you still need to pay,”

“I still don’t know what the entrance fee is,” she replied, growing more and more curious.

“A kiss from thy lady’s lips,” he said in a Shakespearian accent while cupping her chin with his hand.

She snorted. Quickly her eyes shot to his to see if he had noticed, and if he had he didn’t show it. “I’m the one taking the acting classes Will, maybe we should stick to what we know,” she said rapidly to distract him from unattractive nasal resonance. Instantly Genny regretted the words as they came from her mouth, more than likely ruining the moment.

His eyebrows furrowed in confusion but still he smiled at her, ignoring her last comment.

“I’m waiting,” he said, hands in lap now.

She wanted to come up with some clever argumentative response, not willing to lose, but forced that feeling down. What counted as losing in this situation anyway? Not everything with Will had to be a battle.

Leaning over she pressed her lips to his, and what was meant to be a peck turned into sweets long dreamy minutes as Genny could finally let herself go to the feelings she had for Will.

Despite the bass treble pounding, and the ferocious noise of teenagers below, she swore her heartbeat was loudest. She was kissing Will Davenport, he was running his fingers through her backcombed birds-nest and she almost forgot her own name.

Although her eyes were closed, she still saw the flash, and feared for a moment someone had snapped a photo of them somehow until she realised that someone was Will.

“What in the hell is wrong with you?” she said, though still smiling.

“There, now you can’t say it never happened,” he said, flashing his devil grin at her.

“You’re not allowed to do that again,” she told him.

“That’s fine as long as I’m allowed to do this again,” Will leaned over, kissing her one more time. “Now,” he said after breaking away, “Are you free to go out with me this Saturday?”

Genny pretended to think about it, “No, no I don’t think so,” she said, taking a moment to enjoy his speechless calculating expression, “Okay sure, I guess I can make time for you,”

He sat backwards in his seat. “I’ll ignore that and pretend I heard ‘sure Will, of course I’ll drop all my plans for you!’”

“Shut up,” she replied teasingly, and to her astonishment he did and they spent the next few minutes in silence listening to ‘S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W/’ blast through the air.

“I have to ask you Will, why have you thrown a party, only to ditch it halfway?”

“Some things are worth ditching for,” he smiled at her.

“Okay,” she said, pushing up her glasses, “why have the party at all though?”

He shrugged. “It’s a family tradition,” he said, as she surveyed him enquiringly, “We never talk about it, but we throw parties every year, no matter what, it’s as natural at breathing,”

“You just randomly feel the ‘natural’ urge to throw parties every year? Is this weekend like special or something?”

He shrugged again. “It’s Summer’s birthday,”

It took Genny longer that it should have to compute that. “You’re twins,” she said hearing how stupid she sounded, “Are you serious?”

“Everybody has a birthday, I’m sure you’re no exception,”

“Who has a massive birthday blowout for their sixteenth like this and doesn’t mention to anyone that it’s for their birthday?”

“My family,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, “we don’t buy each other gifs, we don’t talk about it or make a big deal out of it, we just throw huge social gatherings and literally invite everyone we know,”

“Oh right, that’s completely normal,” she said in sardonic response.

He looked at her. “It is to me,” he said, making Genny realise it really was to him.

A gust of icy early February wind blew in their direction and she struggled to hold down a shiver.

“Are you cold? Sit in my lap,” Will offered. She returned with a hesitant look, “C’mon Gen, I don’t bite,” his eyes went dark, “unless you want me too,”

Rolling her eyes she laughed, but still got up and awkwardly positioned herself in his lap. Will encased her in his arms and inhaled. Being that close to him incread Genny’s pulse and the fear of him hearing it only increased it further. She was cold before, but scorching now.

“You’re so annoying,” she said, and within seconds was wondering why that was the only thing she could think to say, and why she still went ahead and said it anyway.

“So are you,” he commented as if it was nothing at all.

The next thing she felt were his warm soft lips crushing themselves against her own, and hers responding positively, before long they were moving in sync, sharing few words.

Every note of a guitar solo could be heard strumming loudly and clearly throughout the neighbourhood, as the two stayed wrapped up in their own private world. That was until she walked in on them.