The Party

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Work in progress!!

FIXME: This is both really good and utter dogshit. It’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer, and has literally no idea what it’s saying. I need to breathe some life back into it, so I can keep the juice. And tone it down a bit. I will fix you, my beloved.

Why am I here? I know I don’t like parties. It’s so loud. All I’ve been doing is standing in the corner, holding an almost empty cup, watching everyone have a good time. It’s so wierd how people are able to just have fun at parties. Or maybe I’m the wierd one. I check my watch. 11:35. I’ve been here for over an hour and a half. I look around for Allison, my roomate and unfortunately my ride. I catch a glimpse of her, very drunk, leaned over on some guy. Typical.

“You’re scowling” Notes a slightly accented voice to my left. I turn. Like everyone else at this party, I don’t recognize them. They’re short and well dressed, eyes adorned with some admittedly beautiful makeup. They’re wearing a casual smirk that conveys a calm swagger that generally eminates from their entire person. “It’s a party, you’re supposed to enjoy yourself, no?” They say.

“I don’t know you.” I say, looking them over suspiciously.

“Nope! But why go to a party if not to talk to strangers?” They ask. Interesting. I half want to tell them to piss off, but something stops me.

“Because your bitchass roomate bulied you into it?” I offer, glaring daggers at Allison. The nerve on her, finally asking me to do something with her then abandoning me for some boytoy the moment we get here.

“Well I’m sorry to hear that. How long have you been in this corner?” They ask.

“An hour and thirty seven minutes.” I answer. “But who’s counting?”

“Jeez, that sucks. Tried talking to people?” They ask. “You meet all types, case in point” They gesture to me with a slim grin.

“Yeah, unfortunately I bring a certain vibe to the table that people generally don’t love” I say, recalling the many many awkward, silent, or plain failed interactions I’d had with others over the years, the most recent one at that very party. “I’m complete garbage at socializing. It’s a minor miracle that I haven’t yet fucked up this conversation in one way or another.” They laugh. That’s new.

“I’ll tell you a secret” they say. “You can’t really fuck up a conversation when your metric of success is human connection.”

“How do you figure that? I think I could pretty easily.” I respond

“Okay, worst case scenario, let’s say I walk up to you and I say: ‘Hi! You are incredibly ugly, and I thought I should say something in case you didn’t already know.’, what do you do?”

“I tell you to piss off.”

“Boom. There you go” They say, grinning.

“What? You clearly fucked that interaction up.”

“Ah! But it was an interaction, was it not?”

“I mean… yes?”

“That’s human connection! To me, I’ve succeeded.”

“I just told you to piss off! That’s hardly a connection” I sputter.

“Potato, potato” They say with a shrug, pronouncing both words identically. “And consider, It’ll never get that bad because you’re never going to intentially insult a stranger. There’s no way to go but up!”

“You’re crazy” I say, a smile creeping its way onto my face.

“Maybe, but I’m having fun aren’t I?”

“Whatever” I respond playfully.

“So tell me, corner girl, how does someone ‘‘garbage at socializing’’ get bullied into coming to a big party for…”

“One hour and thirty nine minutes” I fill in, almost automatically, then I pause to consider the question. I sigh. “My roommate Allison asked me if I wanted to go.”

“Just asked?”

“I mean, yeah. We never hang out these days so I just said yes. Silly me for thinking she’d stick with her wierdo roommate.” I’m not sure why I’m sharing this with a total stranger, but it’s oddly nice to tell someone how I’m feeling, crappy as it is. My eyes, picking up on the subject matter, drift back over to Allison hoping to find her without the himbo, but I recieve no such luck, catching her in the middle of laugh, one arm comfortably around his shoulders. My stomach sinks and I stifle a gag. I let out an exasperated sigh and sink to the floor, my back sliding along the drywall all the way down. My new friend follows my gaze, their mouth forming an O of understanding as their eyes land on Allison.

“Hey,” They sit down next to me. “I’ve been there. It sucks, but some people are just into men. The sooner you get over her…”

“Whoa whoa whoa! Back up! We’re just friends!” I raise my hands defensively. “I’m not into women anyway!” They pause for a second, their lips pursed into a thin, flat line. Our eyes meet.

“Chika…” They pause. I raise an eyebrow, daring them to finish the sentence. We hold the standstill for a moment. They break into their trademark grin “Eh, who am I kidding, you’ll figure it out.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You’ll figure it out!” They say with a wink. What? I’ll figure it out? I’ve already figured it out! I like men, not women! I’ve had great relationships with guys! Cole was a sweetheart! Adrian was hot as hell! Jake! Uhhhh… Jake was… Umm. Alright Jake kinda sucked. But that’s besides the point! I’m not gay! I’m clearly not gay! Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay! I’m just… not! Women? Ewww! Right?! Allison’s just like really cool and stuff and I just want to spend more time with her and I just get angry when she invites me to a party then spends it with some guy instead of me! Ughhhhh now I’m sad again.

“Hey” My new friend interrupts my derailed train of thought. “In other news, I never got your name.”

“Jen. What’s yours?” I ask.

“Sitio. You can call me Tíe, though.” They pronounce Tíe like tee-yeh. They see the confused look on my face and chuckle a bit. “Is it the name or how you get Tíe from Sitio?” They ask.

“No no, I love it it’s so cool and unique and mine is so boring!” I pause for a second. They raise their eyebrow.

“…And?” They say. I smile sheepishly.

“And I’d love to hear about both of those things, if you don’t mind”

“Well, first off, Sitio in english means place. It’s a bit cheesy, but I chose it because I want to be a place where people feel safe. I didn’t really have a safe place growing up so I want to be that for other people.” They see my face, still apparently confused, and continue “Ah I probably didn’t say that right, lemme try again.” I realize my face has been stuck in the confused look as I processed their words over the loud music. Frustrated I puppet my face into something more positive.

“No!” I exclaim, “I totally get it! That’s really sweet!” Their smile returns. Whew, saved.

“As for Tíe, it’s stupid as hell but my friends started shortening Sitio to Tío, which means uncle, but I wanted something a bit less gendered, so we ended up with Tíe hahaha”

“That’s literally so cool. Mine is just short for Jenny. I wish I had an excuse to choose my own name it sounds so fun and personal!”

“Yeah, that part about it is pretty great.” They look pensively out into the crowd. “The other parts, I wouldn’t exactly give a 10/10 rating though.”

“Oh.” They aren’t looking, so they don’t see the confusion wash accross my face. Parts of what? I’m so confused, and the loud blaring music in the background definitely isn’t helping. Usually I let these moments of misunderstanding pass, to try and seem more normal, but Tíe seems different. They don’t care about being normal. Maybe I shouldn’t either.

“Hey, sorry, parts of what? I’m not sure what you were talking about.” A look of suprise passes over their face. Oh shit. I misgudged. Fuck, here it comes. Great fucking job Jen you fucked up another cnversation, like you always do. Dammit.

“Chika, you remind me of my friend Julio, everything flies right over his head.” They say with a laugh. Relief. Oh my god that was close. A heroic fanfare plays in the back of my head.

“Really? How does he handle it? Because I usually just say nothing and that kinda sucks.”

Tíe scrunches up their eyebrows and puts on a face. In a deeper voice they say “A la mierda con este autismo, say that again Tíe!”

“Autism?”

“Yeah! He got diagnosed last year.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be! He’s actually really glad he found out. He said it explained so much of his childhood to him. For instance, why his social life was so messed up.” They say the last part with a raised eyebrow. Is he trying to insinuate something by that? I can’t have autism though, doesn’t that mean you’re basically nonverbal? I mean it’s not like i’ve talked a lot at this party, but that’s beside the point. I don’t have it, and I’m not giving Tíe the satisfaction of a rebuttal either.

“Oh, cool” I say calmly. They smile and pull out a small business card.

“Here’s my contact information” They say handing it to me. “Call me if you ever take an autism test, I wanna know the results. For science”

“For science, my ass, bucko” I take it, with a smile of my own. I study the thing. It’s black with golden accents, veaturing their name, email, and phone number. Interestingly it also features their major: photography.

“Photography, huh?” I ask.

“Yeah! I…” They start.

“Jeeeeeeeeeennnnyyyyyyyyy!!!” A long slurred call rings out as Allison stumbles through the crowd, alcohol in hand. “Ohmygod there you are! I looked around this entire party for you! Annnd there you are! On the ground!” God she’s pretty. Nope! Not this time, Jen! She left you in the corner! Be cold. Hard to get. I stand up.

“Did your… ‘friend’ leave?” I say, crossing my arms.

“Yeahhhh” She says her smile dropping. “He had planssss.” She looks at Tíe. Her eyes brighten. “Did you find a boyf-” Her eyes narrow. “Girlfrieeeee…” Her head tilts, her beatiful face contorting to look like a deer caught in headlights. “BoyGirlfriend.” She finishes finally, nodding as if she were very satisfied with herself.

Tíe raises their hands. “Nope, I’m spoken for. Allison, I presume?”

“Ooooooh you were talking about me??” Allison says.

“Of course, Jen loves talking about you.” Tíe says. I feel my face flush red. Fuck. Well there goes playing hard to get. Maybe I can make a distraction and hide under the drink table. They give me a wink. Oh fuck off.

“Awww that’s so sweeeet”

2

What kinda fucking asshole invites their friend out then abandons them in a corner? The question is rhetorical; the answer is currently drunk off her ass, hitting on some party boy she met twenty minutes ago. It’s weird how people are able to just have fun at parties. Or maybe I’m the weird one.

All I can hear, between the cacophony of slurred banalities, screeches and squeals of alcohol-laden thrill from thoughtless party games (Cards against humanity? But with shots this time? Like all the other times? How creative!), and billboard 100 hits (EQ’ed horrendously, to the point that they would make a novice producer want to hang themselves), is the regular yet nearly imperceptible tick of the innocent wall clock. The thing couldn’t have costed more than eight dollars, tucked neatly, yet not-so-innocently, into jeff bezos’ wallet. Yet dutifully on it ticked, amidst the hell that unfolded around it.

How had I let myself get tricked into this ordeal? The painting had been making great progress, until Allison had burst down the door to our flat with a group of friends I hadn’t seen before, pregamed the shit out of the cheapest alochol I had ever set eyes on, and dragged me out as the designated driver, to a house party that had pretty clearly been abandoned by the gods. All of them. Even the crazy ones.

How she had got me to acquiesce to this was still a mystery that I myself was still untangling. She literally just plain asked me, and I felt the yes leave my mouth before I could think. We never hang out these days. Silly me for thinking she’d stick with her wierdo roommate.