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The party I'm at isn't great, but it's certainly not one of my parents' super fancy ones in terms of obnoxiousness. I am, however, left by myself at the moment. Angie is absorbed in some political debate with Jefferson and Alex, while Peg is working with Laurens, Laf, and Herc, unsuccessfully trying to pull Alex off the currently-screaming Jefferson.
I sigh and turn the other way, hoping they don't get in too much trouble again. Although to be fair, I'm not sure that they're entirely capable of behaving themselves for longer than five minutes. I scan the rest of the room wishing I knew someone else here. I wish Theo was here. I might even wish Burr was here. I could even settle for Madison as long as he didn't bring Jefferson and their bright purple aura with all those gold sparkles everywhere.
I walk towards the food table, figuring that if I couldn't talk to anyone, I might as well have some of the free food the hosts put out. The universe must have decided to make me have a boring, very blah experience with this whole party thing because that's there are those tiny little tasteless sandwiches Angie loves to rant about while Peg stuffs their face with them. I huff a little and reluctantly take one, turning to find a wall to stand against, to instead suddenly find a wall of not stone, but dark hair. I sputter and blink a couple times to see a girl standing in front of me, standing just a little shorter than I am.
"Oh! I'm so sorry, are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm awesome, don't worry." Awesome. Awesome. You could have said anything. You could have said 'I'm fine' or 'I'm okay' or 'I'm good, thank you' or maybe even 'I'm great'. But no you just had to go and be all over the top about it. "Fine. I'm fine."
Mystery girl, who I could now tell was wearing a shocking red dress that flared out just above her knees with a dark jean jacket, an odd combination but she somehow made it work extremely well, said, "Okay. That's...good."
"Yeah. Good..." I tried to smile at her, but it turned out more like a half-hearted cringe and I could feel myself start to panic a little. "Well, I'm just gonna go if that's alright..." and I ended up trying to do a weird little side-shuffle back towards where I could hopefully find some release from the overwhelming awkwardness. The overwhelming awkwardness that I had of course caused. Again.
I managed to escape to where Herc and Angie were laughing at whatever antics Alex and Peg were up to. I tried to wedge myself into their little circle pretending like nothing at all had happened, but they obviously had to notice.
"Heyyyy, Lizzie," Peg said, trying to put their arm on my shoulder, except everyone always seems to forget that I'm actually taller than both my siblings.
"I told you not to call me that, come on," I said, only half-jokingly, shoving them off of me.
"Really, Betsey," Alex started. I groaned, he only ever called me that when he was going to tease me, but it was at least better than Lizzie. "We all definitely didn't just see you try to talk to Maria over there."
"Who's Maria?" After a minute and then some of silence, "Right. Her. Names are a thing."
"And did I see a bit of color in the air over there?" Angie asked teasingly.
I scoffed. As if she would be able to see through the cloud that is Jefferson and Madison awkwardly waltzing in the corner. With a moment of realization, I turned to Alex and said, "Wait, do you know her?"
"Yeah, she's in my economics class. We also, uh--"
"Alexander Hamilton, you better not have done anything to this poor girl!" Herc put in, finally adding his own little two cents to our conversation.
"No no no! I actually helped her!" We all looked a little dubious at that and our doubt only grew when he mumbled, "Or at least I hope I did..."
"Okay," Angie sighed, "I guess we're going to have to go over there." She grabbed Alex's arm and when I didn't immediately move to follow her, grabbed mine as well. She dragged us both over to where Maria was talking with Laurens, of all people. "Laurens, Maria, so sorry to interrupt, I just need to confirm that Alex here never did anything to hurt you?"
Maria and Laurens glanced at each other and burst out laughing. I can now say without a doubt that she has the most beautiful laugh out of anyone ever, and I'd usually save the extreme exaggerations to Alex but for once I couldn't find it in myself to care. It was so loud and infectious, I couldn't help but smile, even though I was still just a little scared; of her, of Angie, of the cause of the laugh, of everything at this point.
"I'm sorry, am I missing something?" That was Angie for you, always getting straight to the point and completely ignoring the beauty that was a pretty girl laughing.
"No, my apologies, he must not have told you," Maria replied, wiping tears from her eyes. "We actually went on a date once, not long before he finally sucked it up and asked John here out."
I was shocked, and a little disappointed. I can't believe Alex hadn't told me! After all, I thought we were best friends, surprisingly even more so after we had broken up last year. Not to mention he failed to tell me he had gone on a date with someone like her. This also cemented my theory on her being one of those unfairly pretty straight girls.
"Funnily enough, that date was what made me realize I'm really just a giant lesbian."
...Or maybe not. I could feel my heart lifting in hope, but I made sure not to let it get to high; there was no way she would ever be interested in me.
We all turned to look at Alex, who at least pretended to look sheepish about it. I made eye contact with him and could tell he could see right through me to my heart, like normal.
"Well, now that that's out there, no pun intended, can we talk about that Political Theories project, Angelica?" I saw him grab Laurens' hand, pale green swirls immediately surrounding them. It makes me think about how disappointing it must be, for people to never see the true aura they cause. Sure, other people can describe it to them or draw it out, but those are somehow never able to capture the entire beauty of it. It always made wonder what mine would look like.
"So, Eliza, do you dance?"
"I, um, kind of?" I blushed even harder, I can't believe I managed to make that sound so uneloquent. "Also, are we in a class together?"
"Well, that's good enough for me. Off we go!" She took my hand and dragged me out to the middle of the room where about a third of the people in attendance were dancing. It was only now that I could hear what song was playing: Love So Soft by Kelly Clarkson. "And if we are in a class together I don't know how I wouldn't have realized it by now. Why do you ask?"
"I was just wondering how you knew my name is all because I don't remember ever meeting you."
"Oh," she laughed again, "Alex told me about all his friends on the date we had and how could I forget the beautiful ex who was taller than everyone around her?"
Just as I thought I couldn't turn into any more of a mess, she winked at me. She winked at me! I choked out a strangled cough, tripped on my feet, and on hers, before finally righting myself, redder than her lipstick. I managed to squeak out a "Thanks" before asking her how she knew Laurens so well. She was the only person I've ever met that's called him John, so I figured they must be close. Their parents were apparently close friends and had hoped to set them up together before being hopelessly crushed in finding out they were both very, very gay.
We danced and talked until the end of the song, and through the next. And the next. And the next. We only stopped because she had to leave, but not before exchanging numbers with a promise to meet again soon.
That night as Angie, Peg and I were getting ready for bed, they leaned over and said, "lilac."
"What?"
"Lilac. It's your color. It also has these spots of lighter and darker color at random spots."
Let's just say I had a hard time keeping a straight face for quite a while.