The boy had style, I gave him that. And the moment he opened his mouth I was sure I had fallen in love.

He spoke like a gentleman, but not in the way that made me want to hit him, like most boys did. Sweet and charming without any conscience idea that he was tearing at the heart of every girl in the room. But he wasn't really that sweet was he? I suppose that overall he was a little conceited, but the first impression would not have told me that. He was lovely really. Blond hair curled at his temple and around the collar of his shirt and he had eyes that took up half of his face. It worked for him though, in that funny-looking handsome type of way. No, not lovely, but beautiful; the more I looked at him the more I realized that he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. And he was wearing a blue shirt that fit him exactly; I had always admired superior tailoring.

For most of the night I stood on the other end of the room, trying not to make it obvious that I was watching his every move. He noticed me too, which was strange because no boy had ever really noticed me up until that point. And also I was not the best dressed in the room. I wore a plain blue dress and no make-up; Stephanie looked beautiful in a red gown, despite the fact that she wasn't even trying to. And her hair had grown out a lot by then; it waved past her shoulders in the way that looked like she had spent hours getting it to fall right. I paled in comparison, as always. But I looked up more than once to see his eyes on me.

The entire party went by in a flash, not that I was upset by that. I hated parties and this one was exceptionally awful. The lights were colorful and the music was of very poor taste, too many synthesizers and not enough guitar. Stephanie was clinging to a punch bowl, shooting death glances at me across the room. I didn't really know why I wouldn't stand by her, but I made sure that she was on the exact opposite side of the room than I was. I suppose it was because she was quite a downer, especially for having dragged me there in the first place. And she so clearly out shined me in looks that it did cause me a great deal of satisfaction to see that the boy in the blue shirt still looked toward me through the corner of his eye when I moved away from Stephanie.

Stephanie hated parties as well, which is why I thought it so strange that she had asked me to her friend's house one Friday night. Begged was more like it, really. She had come up to me after class and demanded that I go with her. I didn't have the interest or the energy to try and figure out why we were going to some strange boy's birthday party, so I didn't insist on too many details. She looked relieved when I didn't ask, so I decided it was better just to let it be. I didn't want to go; not at all. I hated parties. I hated the idea of standing there awkwardly while bright lights and music pounded down on me, strangers looking at me with odd expressions. This was not unreasonable as the party that we arrived at, decked in dresses for the occasion, was exactly this. And sure enough Stephanie dropped into a deep silence as soon as we entered the door, staring longingly at the birthday boy(a certain Matthew who was in my English class).

I was shocked when I realized that Stephanie had a crush. I will confess that I had thought her beyond that type of typical teenage behavior. I probably would have found a way to explain her strange behavior that didn't involve something so normal if she hadn't of done the last thing I had expected her to do. About an hour into the night, right around the time the dance music faded to plain old pop, she leaned over to whisper to me. It took a few tries for me to hear her, as the music was really absurdly loud.

"Will you go talk to Matt?" I almost dropped my glass of bright red fruit juice. It was too red really, I had been hesitant in sipping it because it looked so much like blood, but it was actually delicious; strawberry, I thought.

"Me?" She looked so embarrassed. I looked back mercilessly incredulous. Me? She wanted me to be her wing man?

"Just-Just forget it," now I took pity on her, her face was redder than the punch. It must have been serious if she was enlisting me to charge any type of social mission. I told her I would if she really thought it was a good idea, but she just walked away and stood with a death grip on the snack table. I soon lost interest, as this was the point at which the boy with the nice fitting blue shirt entered.

He did not go to my school, I was sure of that, and also rather glad of it. And about halfway through the night when he started to walk towards me, I realized that I was not afraid of him like I was of every other guest at the party. I was excited as he drew nearer.

Oh! He was coming to talk to me!

Okay, maybe I was a little afraid.

Really close now...

Oh no, he was going to talk to me- what did I say?

He was stopping in front of me now. He was talking. What was he saying? Stupid loud music.

I looked at him with an awed expression. "What?" I shouted up. He was rather tall, tall enough that he tilted his head down to talk to me as close as he was standing.

"I said that you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen." What? I didn't comprehend the words as he said them, but my heart gave a lurch that told me they were smooth. Shoot.

"um..." My mind was blank, I was staring at him, but he didn't look uncomfortable. He had the most beautiful eyes; big and blue. As deep as the sea, brighter than the sky. Starring right at mine.

"Did you know that your eyes are blue," How did he know that I was thinking just the same thing.

"ah...yah-I mean, of coarse. So are yours," I sounded stupid, so tongue-tied and nervous. Who was he to make me nervous? And what type of person walks up to a girl and tells her she's beautiful when he doesn't even know her? A very, very confident man. At that point I knew I was a goner, though I would never come to terms with it for a long while.

"I'm Sam." He held out a hand. I stared at it.

"Chloe, um" he had taken my hand, his eyes still looking into mine, I could feel them as they penetrated my soul.

"Chloe," he said my name like it was an exceptionally brittle flower, and like speaking too loud would make it collapse into none existence. That was strange; how could he be so overbearing and so gentle at the same time? I was disoriented by how quickly my night had changed, just a moment before I was looking at a stranger across the room. Now I was very close to him and even closer to having my legs give out under me in terror of the boy. And I was thinking too much, because all of this really happened inside of a few seconds, but in my mind I had spent an hour analyzing. He was still looking into my eyes. It made me uncomfortable so I looked away.

"How do you like the party, Chloe."

"I don't." He didn't seem surprised. He seemed a little amused actually. "and I was going to leave very soon." I didn't know why I said it. It wasn't true.

"Well, good I came to talk to you earlier than." He didn't seem to find the situation awkward at all. I did. I wanted to talk to the boy, but I was melting of embarrassment. The conversation was so strange that I would not have been surprised had a rabbit come in and started singing with the birthday boy's awful band that had just started to play. Actually, the band would have been better if a rabbit joined, it couldn't be worse than Matthew singing. I looked over to find Stephanie right in front of the band, just standing with the same blank expression on her face.

Okay, enough was enough. "Are you just going to stare at me? Because I feel very awkward and I think I'm going to go find my friend."

"I was going to keep staring at you actually," he ran a hand through his fair hair and it tumbled lightly about his head. The lights shone on it in the most interesting way, so that it looked almost white against his tanned forehead, "because it doesn't seem like there is anything to say." That was honest. I just stared, because it was so true. There was nothing to say.

I stood there for about a minute before I started to slowly back away. Then I started to walk briskly through the crowd until I reached Stephanie.

"We're leaving." She looked disappointed. I would have thought she'd be relieved by the way she'd been acting the whole party.

"Just...wait a second." Then she walked away from me and right up to Matt. He was still singing, an intent look on his face and his eyes closed as he bent over the microphone in what I suppose must have been passion. She snatched the mic out from under him and he tumbled onto his knees. The band stopped.

"What the-" he opened his eyes and saw Stephanie with her hands on her hips. "Oh, you made it Steph. I didn't see you here-"

"No, really?" her voice was icily sarcastic. I couldn't see her face, but from the cowardly expression on her poor victim's it must have been the face of death. "Because I've been here since six."

He was backing away on his knees, she was standing over him so that he couldn't get up. "Oh, um, sorr-"

"Sorry? Why should you be sorry, it's your party." She sounded hysterical and the whole party was watching them as her voice rose. She grabbed his arm. "Why don't you stand up Matt, you shouldn't crawl on the floor, it's dirty." She yanked him up right and he staggered into her, still looking as terrified as if she were waving a butcher's knife at him.

"I-I-I-"

"You-you-you. Do you even know what you did wrong?"

"No!" he looked relieved, like she had thrown him a life saver. That didn't last long. She gripped the back of his neck and kissed him with obviously incredible force. He looked as if she had shot him, his eyes wide and his arms flailing out behind him in an almost comical way. After a while they both seemed to get into it and it became quite disgusting to watch, yet there was still a crowd circled around them, hooting and whistling and shouting "oh Matt, she got you man!". I looked away to give Stephanie at least a little privacy, but soon regretted it. Because I had locked eyes with the boy in the blue shirt-Sam-staring at me from the opposite end of the circle. I looked down quickly. After about another minute Stephanie pushed him off, her face red and his redder.

"You're band is awful," she said before turned to half run, half walk out the door, catching my arm and dragging me behind her by the elbow.


We had been dropped off at the party by my mom, as neither of us had our own car. However, neither of us brought our cell phones either, so we were stuck walking back. Stephanie's house was closer, so we walked down the main road toward her neighborhood in silence.

After a while I decided that something must be said. "I'm sorry for making us leave." I didn't really know what else to say. I didn't really know what type of Stephanie I was dealing with.

I had been in this situation before. After she had dragged me to homecoming just so that we could stand in a corner and not socialize in much the same way we had at Matt's party. I hadn't thought the night went so awful until we left to wait outside for her mom's Buick to turn the corner and pick us up. She had turned into the nasty Stephanie that I hated to be around, I could only guess at what was going on in her mind. I had thought that the fact she had wanted to go to homecoming was such an improvement for her that I hadn't really thrown as big a fit as I had wanted to, and at the dance she behaved exactly as I had thought she would. But then she shrank into herself and turned nasty. I suppose she thought that all of the hard work she had put into making herself an outcast was slowly disappearing. The next day when she showed up at school, she had cut her hair back up to her chin, even after how long it had grown in the last year. It's effect was not as immediate as she had hoped, I guess, because for the next month or so she had maintained a ruthlessly cruel attitude toward everything. I hadn't let her drag me to another homecoming after that, but when she wanted to go to a party- a true party to which she was invited and excited about- I had thought she would actually socialize. Maybe it was not good of me to think that, but I was at least a little right. She had socialized with Matt...

I looked at the ground waiting for her reaction. She either was totally reserved, very angry as she had been after Homecoming, or anything that might surprise me; I could never tell with her.

"Steph..." she looked up at me and I gasped. "Oh, Steph-" her face was soaked with tears and her nose was bleeding. While I was confused as to how she had managed to get a nose bleed, I pulled her arm to stop her walking ahead of me. She looked at me and then looked away.

"Let go of me Chloe." She sounded so old; much too old for a girl in high school. I was moved by pity for my friend who had been through so much when so young.

"Steph-"

"What is wrong with me?" she was still looking away, but the sincerity of her question broke my heart. I didn't know if she wanted me to answer or not, so I just grabbed her arm gently and led her on. I didn't know what to do but to keep walking. She turned her head and looked at me, her face so sad that I was the one to look away.

"I met a boy." I said it totally to distract her, not because I actually wanted to talk about it. "at the party." I glanced at her cautiously. She looked stable. "His name was Sam."

"Was he cute?" I stopped walking, then realizing it, I carried on. Stephanie had never been so direct, but I suppose that night was an exception. She was staring at the side walk.

"Yah, I guess he was. Kind of a jerk though." I don't know why I said it, but when it came out I realized how true it was.

"They all are." We went the rest of the way to her house in silence, neither of us looking up from the side walk until we reached her street. I stayed for a while to use the phone, and when my mom came to pick me up I looked one last time at Stephanie's pitiful face and prayed that I would never have to see her so ruined again.

Stephanie and I were never very close friends. I never knew what to do when she became so difficult like that besides take her home and distract her. Sometimes I think that she wanted us to be like sisters, as we probably could have been. I think we would have been good sisters. Maybe we were exceptional friends, really. I don't know what my standard of very close would be, but Stephanie and I were probably along the border at that point.

I rode home in the back seat because I didn't want to talk to my mom. I had too much to think about without having to recount the night for her. But I didn't want to think about Stephanie either. Or the party. Or Sam. I found it impossible to sit with a blank mind however. In the end I decided that Sam was the best option of the thoughts plaguing my brain, so I settled on him. The way his eyes penetrated me. The way his hair curled at the back of his neck in a way that made me think if I just reached over to smooth it down...

I woke up in my bed with no recollection of brushing my teeth, the metallic taste in my mouth confirming my suspicions.