III.

Camila's POV

"Lauren! Finally you are here! I thought you'd miss one of the biggest house parties I've ever thrown, dear!" Lauren? Who is she? I whisper to Dinah asking about the new girl.

"Well, I only met her once or twice I can't even remember. I don't know much about her but I heard she's really great at parties and she also seems easy and really fun to be with." I nod and stare once again at this girl they call Lauren. Lauren seems to notice my stare as she stares back at me and smirks. I look away and pretend I'm emptying my drink.

"Remember Dinah? You met like twice before, right?" Lauren nods and hugs Dinah.

Lauren smiles at Dinah. "Hello again, Dinah."

"And this is Camila. Dinah dragged her to this house party. Well practically." They laughed for a moment. "She's her best friend." Lauren looks at me and I don't know why it's hard for me to look back.

I decide to smile at her for like seconds and she almost laughed. "Hi Camila. Fancy meeting you here." She hugs me and it surprises me more than it surprised me when the guy Wesley hugged me. "You're beautiful." She whispers and I don't even know if I heard that right. When she lets go of our hug, she throws me her mischievous smile and I thought: this is not going to be easy for me.

They all start the game and there are times I stare at Lauren because she intrigues me. She wears a black shirt that has a picture of a girl smoking in white as its design. What intrigues me is that this is the first time I see her and Dinah is already friends with her. Does she go to the same university? Does she share classes with me and I just haven't noticed?

"Hey Camila! You wanna try playing with us for a minute?" My thoughts come back to reality as Wesley speaks up. I look at him and shake my head.

"I'm sorry I really don't drink. I'll just watch you guys have fun." I pretend to smile and he just shrugs.

"Let's begin then. I never had sneaked out and went to a stranger's house." I'm not surprised that they all drank and emptied what alcohol or liquid or whatever that's in their bottles. Although the thought of Dinah being this badass version of myself makes me want to slap her face so she'd turn back to reality and just be good throughout the whole year. But she's my best friend after all and I'd just like to see her happy no matter what.

Wesley smiles at me before his turn. "I never had sexual fantasies about a stranger." He winks at me and empties his drink. I just ignore his presence. Why am I even still here?

Dinah says something. "Do we include artists though?" The guys shake their heads. They all emptied their drinks except for Dinah. Maybe Dinah and I have something in common. We only have fantasies about our favorite Hollywood artists after all.

"Looks like Dinah is still a good girl after all." Ally says and shares laughs with Normani. I notice that Lauren doesn't speak much. She just smiles at their interactions and sometimes I catch her looking at me. Maybe it makes her feel confused because in this group, I definitely do not fit in. I'm even wearing a hoodie and sneakers. What am I 5? I just wish Dinah goes home so I can be at peace.

"Lauren's turn! Lauren's turn!" They chant.

She stares at me and I stare back at her. "I never had liked someone I've seen for the first time." She empties her drink as she keeps on staring at me. I shake my head and look away. I notice that Wesley also empties his drink and the others just remain still in their places.

"That's boring! Can we have more sexual issues guys? That's pretty more important!" They all share laughs as Luis speaks up and it's also my turn to smile. Even just a bit. These people aren't terrible at all.

I suddenly feel uneasy. Dinah seems to be having more fun each time passes. I call Ally. "Hey Ally. Where's the comfort room? I really need to pee." Ally then tells me the way to go to the comfort room which unfortunately is located at the second floor of her house. There is one near our place but it's for other people outside and she doesn't want to make me feel I'm just another stranger and that touches my heart.

"Looks like I need to pee too. How about I accompany you Camila?" Wesley turns his direction to me and I can't answer anything. I'm surprised at his confident yet arrogant style of talking to girls. "I can wait for you there."

"Wesley. Give the girl a minute." Lauren looks at me as she says. "I'll accompany her to the comfort room if that sounds better." The girls agreed to her.

Wesley twists his face as a sign of annoyance. "Way to ruin a moment, Lauren."

Lauren stands up and taps one of Wesley's shoulders. "You have to enjoy the moment. You proposed to play this game after all."

Lauren smiles at me. I follow her as she walks through crowds of people. It's shocking how there are still a lot of people partying at this time of night. She seems to know some of them as she greets and hugs people. I wonder how they don't worry about their exams and homework for the next day and they still get to have much time for parties. There are guys who keep on looking at me and give me a sign like they'll wait for me outside and I should call them and such.

"Hey Camila." I stop walking as Lauren speaks to me. "So tell me, why are you even here? Based on your look, you don't seem to be in a party in the first place."

I knew it. It's because of how I look tonight that's why people keep staring at me, including her. They probably make fun of me in their minds. They probably think I'm this total loser who doesn't even have the right to put her foot on his place.

"I'm here because Ally called me saying Dinah's starting to mess things up because she's already too drunk and she really needs to go home. Seems like I got tricked?" She nods at me.

"You seem to be a really good friend although you seem unhappy. You don't want to be here anymore?

I look at her straightly into her eyes. "That's the plan but my best friend here doesn't seem to feel it and keeps on nagging me on why I don't go to parties she goes and why I don't have a boyfriend until now and that sucks so bad." I make sure to give emphasis to each word.

"Why don't you have a boyfriend?"

I glare at her. "Why do people have to ask the same question over and over again as if it's more important than breathing?! I'm trying to be good and living a normal life and just surviving this whole school year. These people here..." I stop at mid- sentence and lower my voice a bit. "These people here don't know what they want and don't care about other people. I'm not like them."

To my surprise, she laughs. It seems so genuine that it makes me want to smile but I hide it. I keep on glaring at her for laughing at me when I'm being too serious talking to her.

"You are interesting." She stops laughing and stares at me. "I thought you'll do something in the comfort room? We are already here." She keeps on teasing me. I open the door of the comfort room and lock it. I look at myself in the mirror. Camila, this is just one night. You can survive a whole school year and this is just one night. After minutes of using the comfort room, I decide to go back to the mini bar. When I go out the comfort room, Lauren is nowhere to be seen.

I open my phone to try to call Ally but my phone is already run out of battery. I hate my life right now. If I don't graduate, I will just waste my time inventing the time travel machine. "Hey." I heard a familiar voice from someone behind. I turn my back to see who it is. Wesley.

"Why do you look so surprised? We already met. What are you still doing here anyway?" He asks me and as much as I want to feel okay with his presence and not to mention we are the only people around.

"Well uhhh... I... uhhh I just finished. I thought Lauren would wait for me b-but... uhhh I guess she.. didn't?" Wesley laughs maybe noticing my discomfort at the whole situation.

"Well yeah she's already back there and told us you take too long. So I decided to go here and see how you're doing." He winks at me and if he's harmless, which I hope, he'll just accompany me.

I'm surprised though that Lauren didn't actually wait for me and she knows that I'm just new here. "Oh that's nice of her. Probably I should get going too." When I turn my back on him, he suddenly grabbed a hold of my hand. "What?! What are you doing?!"

Wesley smirks at me. "Don't play dumb, Camila. You know I like you already and this is just one part of what I do when I like someone."

"Wesley don't do this! Let go of me!" I try to talk to him and resist.

He tries to cup my face with his hands and kiss me but I keep on resisting. "C'mon baby we don't have much time. You'll like it later so stop resisting and just freaking go with it!"

He's hurting me and his strength is overpowering my strength until I kick him and he lets go of me. I run away from the scene as fast as I can. It doesn't matter which path I'm already going and I can't even see clearly because there are already tears in my eyes. I bump into someone and I fall on the floor.

"What happened?! Why are you crying?!" It's Lauren's voice. As much as I want to ask her for help I don't want to. She's basically the reason why Wesley freely harassed me. She left when she said she would wait and when I said I needed company. She holds me by my shoulders. "Answer me, Camila. What happened?" I just ignore her questions and pretend to not hear her and she seems to feel it as she speaks up. "You know what screw it! Let's go somewhere. I'll just text them to know you're okay with me."

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