According to some kid he’d overheard in the other class, it was going to be the biggest party. Like. Ever. Anyone can come, he’d said, and at that, Dakota felt a slight jump in his chest. When everyone else had sleepovers and cool parties, he hadn’t really ever been invited. He’d just spent nights at home, looking up new comics, dramatically reading Hemingway, showering, microwaving Hot Pockets - basically doing just about anything to try keep his mind off whatever party was going on, which was a tad hard considering the music would come astonishingly loud into his ears, since, after all, it was three houses away from his. But this? This was it. This was his chance to finally go to a party and see what all the hype was about. That Saturday, he put on a clean tee (how can you go wrong with Superman?), khakis, and generic tennis shoes and went outside to breathe in the evening air. It smelt different; it smelt of change, of hormones, booze, and swag. This would be it. He’d show up, lay some pick-up lines, maybe show off some dance moves. Either way, tonight was his night to be the king of cool.
When he arrived, he realized that perhaps, he wasn’t ready for this. There were too many people, too much skin showing, too much heat radiating, too much contact. He quickly grabbed a red plastic cup full of something he didn’t bother checking and tried to slip into the crowd to mingle. It turned more into him bumping into people dancing in their clique circles, trying to avoid elbows in his gut and hair whipping his face, and soon he gave up trying to find anyone he knew. There were no single girls to impress who weren’t already clinging to one of the popular boys, no spot on the dance floor left for smooth moves. Holding back a sigh, Dakota weaseled his way back out, pissing off more people while at it, hand still clutching for dear life on his Solo cup.
The party was in the park, and grand oak trees lined the perimeter. The one thing keeping Dakota from getting lost was having the gigantic trees as a sort of marker to go toward, and he ran across the green to settle against one of them. He plopped down softly, and feeling mellow, tried to act like he was in a music video and drink suavely from the cup. Alas, he hadn’t really tried beer before, and he ended up making an obscene face before quietly spitting it out, quite un-suavely. It was getting dark thankfully, and probably no one had seen. Everyone was busy dancing or making their way in pairs toward the edge of the park to have some alone time. In fact, Dakota was probably the only one who was standing on his own there, his only companion a beer that he didn’t even want. He tried to look subtly at who was near by by pretending to look over at the crowd, and by the tree to the left of him he saw that Austin kid with lots of swag, sitting and cuddling with a girl, and to the right… Dakota quickly swiveled his back away, a motion of disgust and fear.
His own goddamn cradle-robbing brother. In high school but lounging around in middle school parties, throwing his tongue down whatever drunk girl’s throats he could get, smushing up boobs and bums. And when he got home, Father would probably give him a big smile saying, “Good job, son" while shaking his head slowly and pathetically at Dakota. What was so good about that anyways? Sure, he didn’t exactly hate seeing that kind of stuff, but he didn’t actively seek out horny females for sex. Dakota cradled his beer in both hands, feeling smaller and quite not present. What was he doing there anyways? Why did he have this stupid beer? It didn’t even taste good. Why did he ever think of coming? Why didn’t girls like him? Why wasn’t he like his brothers? Dakota felt his eyes start to sting, and pinched himself as a punishment. That wasn’t a manly thing to do. Who the hell cried over being a stupid loner? Dakota felt even worse now, felt the questions start to curl into themselves like burning paper; something inside him was starting to disappear again. He couldn’t be here any more- had to get away- gey awya- somethwre- awayawayaway
In a confused, blurry-eyed move, Dakota flung the cup toward the tree where his brother was probably sexing up the girl, and ran off - toward where home was supposed to be.