Right In Front of Me (Finished)

Chapter 33: Happy New Year's

The next day, we all go to Chic-fil-a for lunch, then go back to my house to get ready for the party. "Let's see, the party starts at 8:00, we are going to be messing around a ton while we get ready- so is two hours enough time? We'll have to leave at 7:15 since it's kinda far away and we don't want to get there first." Lana says, planning out what time we will have to begin getting ready at. "Yeah, that'll work. We'll get ready at, like, 5:15-ish then. Two hours is more than enough time." I answer. It is currently 3:00, so we are just gonna watch a movie.
        When the movie is over, we all go to my room and find that Summer and Dakota have already set up stations in there. There is a station in which all of our clothes are separated by who each outfit is for, and they are in individual piles lined up along the wall in my room. At my desk, there are endless hair accessories. There is a large surplus of bobby pins, three curling irons, two straighteners, and a ton of fancy pins and headbands. On my dresser is a big square mirror which usually sits in Summer's room, and there is all of my makeup, accompanied by all of Summer's makeup as well. All of our jewelry is spread out on top of my shelf. Next to that is a rainbow of nail polish colors.
        "Summer, you are the best." I say, then add, "Dakota you didn't have to help us; you barely know the girls." She says she was happy to help, and that she likes us, so we were worth it. I hug her for that. Then we all get to work. I go to do my makeup, and at the same time, Taylor does hers, since we were nominated to do Yolanda and Lana's makeup, we need to get ours done first. when we are finished with that, Mercedes is already dressed, except for her boots and scarf, since she would get too hot in them with all of the body heat in the room. I turn to see Dakota curling Hallie's hair. Summer is Dutch-braiding Lana's hair. I go get changed, leaving off my jacket and shoes. By the time I am finished, Yolanda calls me over to do her makeup at the makeup station. Next to her sits a skeptical Lana, who is getting her makeup done by Taylor.
        "Are you sure you know what you are doing Taylor?" She asks, worried as Taylor tries to use an eyelash curler on her. "Yes! I use these every day, and all of my eyelashes are still here!" Taylor answers. "Okay..." Lana reluctantly lets her curl her eyelashes. I apply concealer to Yolanda's under eyes, and put a small amount on her forehead and cheeks. I blend it in with my fingers, as they are better than brushes for concealer. I apply some foundation, but not too much. I then use a big kabuki brush for powder. I use some more concealer on her eyelids to act as primer, since concealer has always worked better for me. Lana screams, "Ow, Taylor! Stop!"  Taylor stops applying eyeliner to her bottom lid.
        "What? What did I do?!" Taylor panics. "You poked my waterline!" Lana answers. "OMG, I'm so sorry!" Taylor giggles through her apologies, then continues to do the eyeliner. I return to Yolanda's face, spreading her base color eye shadow. I blend some other colors into her crease, and continue to do her makeup. When I am done, it looks very natural, but still noticeable and very pretty. I let her look in the mirror. She thanks me and says it looks great. I go to the hair station and try to curl my hair, but Dakota convinces me to let her do it while I spray texture spray into Mercedes' hair, since her hair is too curly to really do anything with. I spray it all over and she messes around with it to work the product in. Hallie comes over to me asking me how her makeup looks. It looks amazing as always, and I tell her so. She says thanks.
        Mercedes goes to do her makeup, Taylor goes to dress herself while Yolanda is picking out jewelry. Lana is painting her nails dark red, and Hallie is going to get changed as well. Dakota announces that my hair is done being curled, and I say thanks after checking it in the mirror. I pin the hair at the crown of my head back, but only some of it. When I am happy with its appearance, I go to put on some jewelry.
        By 7:00, everyone is ready and giddy off of the hype of tonight. "Guys, Stephanie Turnblatt just tweeted that Missy's party has male strippers at it. What the hell?" Taylor says, looking off of her phone. "She did not!" Hallie says, sliding one last bobby pin into her hair, walking over to Taylor to see it for herself. "She did!" Hallie gasps. We all go downstairs, carrying our jackets and shoes. Mercedes pulls on her scarf as she leads us down the stairs. "Okay, so I borrowed my mom's twelve passenger van so we can all carpool. How many of us are there?" Lana asks. We all start counting. We say all at different times that there are six of us, but that the guys are still carpooling with us. As if on cue, Hayden's car pulls up with Jackson in it. They walk up to the door and we open it before they can ring the doorbell.
        "Hayden! Jackson!" We all shout. Hallie kisses Hayden, and Lana Hugs Jackson after placing a kiss on his cheek. Greyson just walks in without ringing the bell. I love that. Without thinking, I walk over to him and kiss him, then hug him. Over his shoulder, I see Hallie whispering to Hayden. Oh, right... Hayden doesn't know. Crap. He must feel like I did when I saw him and Hallie at the mall. Mason and Diego pull up in the same car at 7:17. We are behind schedule, so we all pile into the van.

        On the way there, Lana shouts from the passenger seat, turning down the radio, "Okay, we need to make some guidelines for tonight." Taylor says, "Like?" Lana continues, "We need to promise that certain things won't happen. That way we won't be able to say we never promised it, 'cause we have a lot of witnesses. Any ideas?" Yolanda calls out, blatantly, "No sex, kids!" We all laugh and Lana says, "Okay, anything else?" Mercedes adds, "No drugs and/or hookah." We all agree. "And no paying or stripping the male strippers!" I chime in. We all laugh again. "Seriously, guys! I don't want any of us returning to school with something people could hold against us. I don't know about you guys, but I don't want a repeat of-" Lana cuts herself off. "Me. She doesn't want what happened with me to happen." I finish her thoughts, though I'm sure she didn't mean it in that way. She didn't want to single me out, but I didn't care. These were my friends, they already know.
        Hayden adds, "No getting drunk. Hallie." He said pointedly, looking at Hallie. "Whoa, wait, I was not drunk when we in the city! I wasn't! I just drank a little... too much. But I was not drunk." She defends herself. "Yeah, okay, Hallie. Sure you weren't." I teased her. "I wasn't!" She declared.
        We keep driving, and randomly, Hallie shouts, "No hooking up with someone you are not dating." Everyone falls silent and look at her. She looks at Greyson. "It's just not right." She almost whispers. That is her way of reminding herself of how she cheated on Greyson at The Snow Ball. Hayden says, "I agree." He looks at me, and I have no idea why. Maybe he just feels like he sorta betrayed me when he hooked up with Hallie, even though we had already broken up.
        We get there around 8:45, a little late. We walk in and we seriously have to have our names checked on 'The List'. We were on it. "Guys, that was so cool! I've never been on 'The List' before!" Taylor whisper-yells. We laugh at her childishness. Mason puts his arm around her. I see Yolanda fussing with her outfit. "You look great. Way better than me." Lana reassures her. "Are you kidding me, Lana? You look amazing, too! You both do! Don't worry one bit." I tell them. "Now... let's go party our asses off." Taylor says, joining in the conversation. We walk into the ballroom which is full of people all grinding on each other, dancing, drinking, or making out. I'm not too sure this is my scene, but I still go in anyway.
        Greyson and I walk in, side by side holding hands. "You ready for this?" He asks. I nod, eagerly, but scared. I am nodding for too long and he catches how nervous I am. "Hey, hey!" He coos. I look up at him as he tilts my chin up a little. "You'll be fine. Just stick with me, sweetheart." I nod, but look off to the side unsure. "What is it?" He asks me, soothingly. I sigh, say, "I just feel like I'm not ready to face people from school yet. They all still hate me. They don't show it, but it's there. I can just feel it. They all hate me deep inside."
"Hey! How many people did you come here with tonight?"
"Like, ten."
"Okay, that's ten less people that hate you! It just narrows it down to the rest of our school. And not everybody can know who you are. At least half the school has never heard of you, which in this case, is a good thing; not everybody here hates you. Just stick with us; you'll be fine. More than fine. Okay?"
I smile. "Okay."
"Good."
"But that's not all of it."
"What else is there?"
"Peer pressure. There's a ton of pressure to drink and-"
He cuts me off before I get too caught up in my words. "Stop. You won't do anything you will regret. Sure, you can drink if you want. You're young, why not? As long as you are not getting wasted. And you won't. And you are not going to do drugs, because I won't let you go anywhere near those people. And you won't hook up with anyone, okay? You. Will. Be. Fine." I smile and kiss him before dragging him into the party.
        We start dancing as if a slow song was playing, though it wasn't. "You are way too good to me." I say, grinning. "I am just trying to make up for being less amazing and gorgeous in comparison to you." He answers.
My heart.
Melting.
On the dance floor.
"Correction: you are both. You do... the most amazing things that I have no idea how you do it, and you are the most handsome guy in the room. And that's pretty good, considering that there are about 400 others to compare you to." I say.
"Oh, and I won?"
"By a landslide."
"Aww!" He coos. I smile and rest my head on his shoulder as we keep dancing.

        We all dance together for a while, until it is 11:40, Taylor complaining about the lack of male strippers we were promised. By then, everyone was super hyped-up for the new year. A bunch of people were running around doing crazy things to people, and afterward, saying, "FYWB!" Which stood for 'Finish the Year With a Bang'.
        Someone ran up to Mercedes and kissed her, then he yelled obnoxiously, "Ha, FYWB!" He tried to run off, and instead crashed into Diego, who stood there looking seriously pissed off. He stood there with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. The guy was laughing until he realized who he was. "Hey! You think it's cool to run around and kiss my girlfriend? HUH?!" Diego shouted, clenching his fists at his sides. The guy just said defensively, "Oh, she's your girlfriend?! Oh, I'm sorry man, I didn't kno-" He got cut off by Diego shoving him angrily into the floor. The crowd gather and yelled, "Whoa! Ayyyye!" The guy sat on the floor scared, and scooted away as he said, "Hey, look man. Just let it go!" The crowd simultaneously said, "Ooooh..." And Diego lunges forward and hits the guy in the shoulder. The guy scrambles off of the floor and runs out of sight.
        Mercedes walks to Diego's side, giving him a side hug. "Aye! Let this be a lesson to y'all, that you will never, ever touch my girl!" He shouts to the crowd. They all shout in agreement. The crowd disperses and goes back to partying. "You know, Diego, you've never called me your girlfriend before." Mercedes tells him as they begin to dance with each other. "Oh, is that so?" He asks. "Mmhmm." She answers, a sly smile playing on her lips. "Oh, then, I guess it's your lucky day." Diego flirtatiously states. They are really cute.
        Right after, the music stops and the crowd groans. Missy Cercy appears on the stage at the front holding a microphone. Some guys behind her are pulling a projector screen down as she announces, "Hey, everybody! So, we were thinking and... what better to end a year than to wrap it all up with a pretty little bow by recapping all of the most hilarious, embarrassing, cute, and monumental moments of the year?!" She pauses to let the crowd soak it in and get excited. "So... we, as in me and my good friend Marry Whiting and I, say hi to Marry!" Marry walks onto the stage and strikes a pose next to Missy, waving at the crowd to show herself off. "We prepared a little video of all of the greatest moments of the year. Play it boys!" They step aside so we can all see the screen. There is a cart in the middle of the floor projecting the video. Some of her slave-boys hit play and she and Marry watch the video from where they are.
This is weird, I think. Missy and Marry aren't really friends. What do they have planned? Something's off...
        The video starts off with Missy narrating it, saying how great this year has been, and now with it ending, we have to remember the best highlights of this year. It shows some senior pranks, some kids dancing in the hallways, some Homecoming proposes, and a lot more. At some point, it shows Diego pushing that kid on the ground for kissing Mercedes a few minutes ago. Someone must have videotaped it and added it to the video. Everyone is laughing, even Diego.
        Then Marry's voice comes over the video, saying that we can't forget the cute moments of the year. I am shaking, feeling that this is going in a bad direction. "Avalon, calm down. It's just a harmless video." Greyson tells me. I nod, and calm down. It shows some couples kissing in the hallways, in the bus loop, in the parking lot. It shows pieces of Homecoming, then... Hayden.
        It shows Hayden singing to me in the hallway the day he asked me to be his girlfriend. It shows me saying yes, and hugging him. The crowd goes, "Aww..." I look at Hayden, who looks embarrassed. I shrug at him. And he just blushes. Hallie grabs his hand, reminding herself that he is hers.
        Next, it shows me and Hayden holding hands in the hallway. Then us kissing. When did they film this?! Marry's voice says, "They were the power-couple of the year. They had it all. They were both popular and good-looking. But then..." It shows me and Hayden in the park. On the day we broke up. It shows me confessing everything. Everything. Hayden and I share an extremely worried look. I look at Greyson. "Just a harmless video?" I ask. I look back at the video to see Hayden throw the necklace box at the ground. Me crying. Him walking away. The crowd is laughing. This is what I most feared. I knew something like this was going to happen. I just knew it.
        Soon enough, my face appears on the screen as I am walking down the hall with Greyson. This was the day where everyone was bullying me and staring, and when I had a public breakdown. But it cuts out the part where all of my friends defend me. They want to make it look like no one cared about me. They wanted me to be the bad guy here.
        It switches to me walking into Subzero. That was the night I tried to get Hayden back. Oh, how stupid that was. I am better off without him and he is obviously better off without me. I watch in horror as it shows me get rejected and run out in tears. Missy's voice says, "She made a fool out of herself. Why did she think she could be anything different? You know what she really is?" Then my school picture of me from my Sophomore year pops up.
        It is me with my big glasses, no makeup, a retainer, and a turtleneck on. Oh, the horror. I have an uncomfortable smile stuck on my face and my eyebrows are nearly grown into a uni-brow. It is hideous. "She is the loser we all didn't know existed. And you know what? She was rumored to have gotten pregnant and left for a while to have her baby, then returned with a new look. There is another version of that rumor where the pregnant loser just moved away to have her baby, and that this new Avalon was a completely different person. Now, whether either of them are the truth remains a mystery."
        I am in tears. The video continues to show moments from the year, and then toward the end, it shows footage of Hallie and Hayden sneaking out of the Janitor's closet at The Snow Ball. Hallie is walking back over to Greyson in the video, and she gives him a kiss, proving that she had cheated. Greyson looks over at Hallie who sheds a single tear. Hayden comes over and hugs me as I cry a little bit, then I stop. This is what they want. They want me to feel miserable, to hate myself. To relive it all again. I won't give them that satisfaction.
        "This concludes this year, and welcome the new one with open minds and clean slates! Whoohoo!" Missy and Marry's voices shriek over the video, and then the screen goes blank. They roll the cart away and instead hook up a cable box to the projector screen, turning on the New Year's Eve Show in Times Square. Right now Fifth Harmony is performing. I check my phone, which says that the time is 11:56. Four minutes.
        Greyson walks angrily up to the stage and yells, "What the hell is wrong with you?! Did you really need to do this again? You already humiliated Avalon and Hallie; you didn't needed to do it again. Guys!" Greyson calls. Diego, Jackson, Mason, Hayden, and even Sterling walk up on the stage. Without hesitation, Jackson and Mason grab a jug of spiked punch and dump it on Missy's head. She screams and Marry hops out of the way, being careful not to get her shoes wet. Marry is laughing, saying, "They got you! That's what you get, Missy!" Next, Diego and Sterling grab a jug and while Greyson says into the microphone, "Don't worry Marry. We could never forget about you!" They pour the punch down her dress and in her hair. She screeches her head off about how much her dress was worth. Hayden and Greyson had towels set aside. The girls try to snatch them from them but they instead lift them up, using the towels to keep themselves from getting soaked. Hayden Grabs Missy and Greyson grabs Marry and they lift them up and parade them around the Ballroom, showing off what scum they are.
        "Let's hear it if you think what they did was extremely bitchy!" Jackson shouts into the mic. The crowd yells, including me. Mason takes the mic from Jackson and says, "Now you see what we do with bitches who mess with our friends!" The crowd 'whoop's  and shouts in excitement. Marry and Missy are kicking and screaming, trying to get out of the guy's grip. Then, Greyson yells, "Are you ladies ready to play nice?" The crowd laughs. "Whatever, just put us down!" Marry yells. The guys shrug, saying in unison, "Okay." They drop them and walk away. The girls immediately rush to the bathroom to deal with the punch and booze in their hair.
        I run onstage, hugging all of the guys. "Let's count down to the new year, shall we?" I say into the mic. The crowd gets fired up. Sterling stays onstage while we all go back into the crowd. Sterling yells, "Okay, here we go! Ten!" We all count down. "Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!"
        I kiss Greyson passionately. We hold on, just kissing for a minute, as does everyone else. This is the best way to start off the new year.