Playing His Own Games | ✔︎

chapter thirteen | hearing her screams

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"It's scary what a smile can hide."
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Mason

I LET OUT A LONG, exaggerated sigh. Truth to be told, I'm not in the mood for partying but here I am with bass music shattering my eardrums and shaking the floor beneath me, standing in a sea of obnoxious drunk and stoned teenagers, the girls busing dancing drunk and snapping photos for social media, while the boys occupy themselves with drinking games and hunting down girls they might have a chance with in the upstairs bedrooms.

Everything is pissing me off. From the bright lights flashing and spinning around the crowd of screaming, singing high-school students who can't hold a tune to save their lives, to the smell of sweat, alcohol and vomit rising up inside the two-storied house.

Yes, I'm a hypocrite, but right now I'm too pissed to care about hypocrisy.

Lucas stumbles over to where I'm standing—off to the side beside the open window where I can breathe in the cool, midnight air. He has a girl I don't recognise hanging onto his arm, who appears too intoxicated to even speak.

Jason is on his heel and is grinning from ear-to-ear. I could tell when I messaged everyone in our group chat about the party, they were all relieved. Pissed that I'd been avoiding and ignoring them, sure, but relieved they could end their dry spell of not partying.

"Dude," Lucas slurs, patting me roughly on the shoulder. "Loosen up, man. You're so tense."

Jason sniggers, his eyes rolling around in the back of his skull. "Shit, you sound like Carrie."

I cringe at the thought of yesterday morning, of Carrie. The rage, the fury that flowed through my veins until I couldn't hear her screaming, until I couldn't see the speedometer rising dangerously fast.

The only thing I could see was my fathers stormy blue eyes pouring into mine, criticising me, belittling me, hating me. I hadn't felt anything that strong since my mother's funeral and it consumed me. I let it tear me apart, I let it control me.

I'm a monster. Just like my father.

I lift the bottle of vodka to my lips, craving for the oblivion it will leave me in once the liquid enters my bloodstream. I shudder, forcing the alcohol down my throat. My mouth burns and my eyes water.

"Go get a girl," Lucas tells me, swaying dangerously on the spot.

I take another gulp of vodka, relishing the fire that courses through my veins. "Don't feel like it."

"God, you're so boring now," Lucas whines, his eyes red, his cheeks flushed, a joint hanging from his lips. "What happened to the old Mase?"

I scowl, slamming the vodka bottle down on the windowsill. The old me? Whose the new me then?

"Yeah," Jason agrees. "C'mon, Mase, rock your style, man."

I've been told countless times never to give into  peer pressure, but what the hell. What harm could a little fling do?

My eyes catch Melinda O'Brian standing around the bar opposite me, sipping a cup of cider and laughing with her friends. Her long blonde hair is braided down the side of her head, the short dress she's wearing riding up her thighs as she sways softly to the music. Mel is pretty, but not in a slutty way. Maybe that's the reason why I've never hit on her, because she's too innocent and carefree to deal with a broken boyfriend and a broken heart.