The Unfortunate Occurence at Shenandoah High 2020 - 14. Chapter 14

"Where have you been?"

We’re in Finn's kitchen, It's me and Keisha and a small group of girls who are busy making Jell-O shots on the other side of the room. Keisha is leveling one of her infamous glares in my direction. Normally I’d wither under such a gaze but right now I'm over it. It's after midnight and all I want is to be in my bed forgetting everything about everything that’s happened tonight.

"I've been texting you. Why haven't you been responding?"
"The reason I haven’t been responding to your texts is because my phone is in a lake right now."

"What?"

I hold up my hand and shake my head.

"Trust me it's a long story and I’m in no mood to tell it."

Keisha frowns and asks, "What's with the attitude?"

"I just want to go home," I whine. "So can we please just leave?"

"That's why I’ve been texting you," Keisha says. "We have to get Andy home."

Before I ask about Andy, one of the girls from the other side of the room walks over and wedges herself between myself and Keisha. Her boobs are basically pressing into my stomach and I think how amazing this moment would be if I were into girls.

"Tristan," she practically screams in my ear. "You should have a shot."

I notice the green Jell-O shot in her hand. It looks like poison. I look from the Jell-O shot up to her. She bats her Disney princess eyes at me and holds the shot up right in front of my face.

"No thanks," I say. I look over her shoulder and see that Keisha looks pissed.

Instead of walking away like I hoped she would, she leans in even closer. I can smell the alcohol on her breath. For some reason it reminds me of my brother. The way she is teetering back and forth I'm afraid she's about to face-plant on the floor.

"C'mon, don't be such a little beeeeee-yotch," she slurs.

It's clear that she has no plans in moving so I reach for the shot, down it and then hand her the little cup it was in.

"Oh my god," she shrieks. She pries herself away from me and wobbles back over to her group of girlfriends. "He actually did it."

I squeeze my eyes shut as the alcohol stings the back of my throat. When I open them Keisha is looking at me. She's no longer looking pissed.

"Tristan," she says in a low voice. "What are you doing?"

I roll my eyes and say, "It's just one shot, Keisha."

"I know but we literally promised your dad we wouldn't drink tonight."

"Technically I swallowed."

Keisha throws both her hands up and says, "Fine - whatever. I'm going to go get Andy and then I'm leaving."

"What do you mean go get?"

"Andy’s currently passed out on the bathroom floor. I couldn't move him so that's why I texted you."

"Wait," I say. "Where's Nick?"

Keisha shrugs her shoulders. "No clue. Andy said something about him leaving and then he threw up all over my shoes."

I look down at Keisha's feet. She's no longer wearing the lime green heels I bought her for Christmas. Instead she's wearing these huge black and red Nike sneakers.

"Finn let me borrow a pair of his sneakers to wear home," she says. "It's gonna be interesting driving in these."

"There's no way you're going to be able to move Andy in those things," I say. "Where's Sheldon?"

"Andy spilled his beer on Sheldon. Sheldon got pissed and called his brother to come pick him up. He's not answering my texts either."

"This really has been a shitty night," I say.

"Well - I guess this wouldn't be a good time to tell you that Andy's coming home with us," Keisha says through gritted teeth.

"With us?” I ask. “My house?”

"You know how his parents are. They'll flip if he comes home drunk."

"What about my dad? He's probably still up waiting for us to come home. How are we supposed to get a six foot two drunk guy up the stairs without him noticing?"

"Look," Keisha says placing her hand on my arm. "We'll just tell him that Andy had a little bit too much to drink and that we're just making sure he's safe."

"Yeah, it's the whole had a little bit too much to drink part that I'm worried about," I say.

"Hey, better him than us," Keisha says. She then grabs my arm and starts pulling me towards the door. "Let's get him and let's go."

When we find Andy, he's stumbling around the front hallway. When he sees up, his face lights up and he rushes over to us. He throws his arms around me and plants a wet one on my cheek.

"Tristan," he yells. "There you are."

"Yes," I say in a much quieter voice. "Here I am."

"Andy, you're going to come with us," Keisha says in a voice mothers generally use when addressing their toddlers. "You're going to stay at Tristan's house tonight, okay?"

"Awesome. I've never stayed over at Tristan's before."

The three of us start moving towards the front door.

"I love sleepovers," Andy says really close to my ear. His breath smells like stale beer.

"Andy," I say. "How many beers have you had?"

"Infinity." Andy starts laughing and snorting and I can't believe I'm about to take this guy home with me.

When we're outside, Keisha and I carefully maneuver Andy down the front steps which are steeper than I recall. Keisha rushes over to her car and opens the door behind the passenger's seat.

"Where are we going?" Andy asks as I lean over to buckle him in.

"To my house, remember?"

Andy slumps down in his seat and says, "Oh - oh yeah."

Keisha is already behind the wheel when I finally climb into the passenger's seat.

"Tristan kissed Finn," Andy says from the backseat.

I swear at that moment my blood turns to ice. Keisha jerks her head back to look at Andy.

"What?" she asks.

"Tristan kissed Finn." This time Andy says it in a very sing-song way I feel like my head is about to explode at any second.

"Tristan," Keisha says.

"Just drive," I say. "We'll talk about it in the morning."

As Keisha pulls off, I look over my shoulder to see Andy leaned over in his seat asleep.

I tug at my seatbelt as I slump down in my seat. The interior of the car is hot, way too hot but Keisha will put me out on the side of the road if I roll down the window.

Andy knows I kissed Finn which means Jon-Jon must have told him. Asshole.

Great. I wonder who else knows.

I go to reach for my phone but then I remember it's sitting at the bottom of Finn's lake. My connection to the outside world is gone. Half of Shenandoah probably knows right now and before Monday everyone will know about me and Finn. Gossip spreads like wildfire on a weekend.

Note to self: I will never go to another party ... ever