If someone had asked me how I ended up in a mansion in Long Beach, making out with a girl with purple hair I would tell them the truth. I have no idea. 

Let me start from the moment me, Jongin, Chan and Baek got to the mansion. Well it was sort of a mansion, closer to a palace with the way the lawn lights gleamed white and soft blue against the cream colored granite of the building. Pillars with deep green vines and budding purple flowers surrounded the entire front entrance, huge wooden doors under an arch of ivory. Baekhyun pushes open the door revealing a sight so much different from the other parties me and Jongin have ever been to. 

“What does Zitao do for a living?” I ask, gazing into my reflection of a platinum vase. 

“Her parents are in real estate.” Baek replies, as she runs her hands against the engraved pictures on the wall, flowers and tidal waves inscribed in marble. 

The entrance to the home is deserted, but the music is playing in the distance. I can hear it echoing off the lonely walls and see distance purple lights flashing in the darkness of a real estate castle. We’re just young royalty headed to a ball. And the ball room is alive. 

The kids here are decked out in designer brands, expensive liquor flows like water and I should’ve anticipated how utterly wealthy everyone would be at this party from the number of sports cars parked in the drive way. But I don’t think this kind of rich kid world  can ever be really understood by anyone from middle class America. It seems so unreal. 

I’m too busy trying to take in the glamour of this party to notice our party host approaching us until of course Baekhyun introduces me. I look at Zitao, she’s tall, barely an inch or so shorter than me with silky purple hair cut just below her ears. Zitao’s face is that of a model, perfectly poised and elegant but a little mean. 

“I’m Sehun” 

“Yeah Baek just told me” she rolls her eyes with a smirk on her lips. Jongin frowns next to me

“Oh sorry” I say a bit sheepishly

Zitao shrugs “it’s no biggie, Baek always brings interesting people to my parties” she actually smiles and her entire face looks more soft, a little younger and innocent

“I hope we live up to our expectations then” I reply

She raises her eye brow “We’ll see” 

We all chat for a moment or two before Zitao runs off with Baek to go take shots with some other girl. Chan saunters off to go smoke so me and Jongin go to the bar. There aren’t any fancy drinks, just shots or beer but it’s all top shelf so we each take pictures for snap chat, Jongin tells me all the other graduates from our school are at lame kick backs. “Thank god we left Casey’s” 

I try not to say that he made an of himself and got himself kicked out of Casey’s party and get both of us a shot of Patrón. It smells like pool water and burns like gasoline down my throat. “That’s awful” I utter

Jongin winces as he swallows but gets another shot anyway. While he slowly but surely gets himself wasted I look around the party a bit closer, still entranced by the beauty of the house. It’s not the kind of heart warming beauty from the poorer house party we where at. Where everyone is just having fun no matter race or social class but here it seems like a kind of cold beauty. Everyone looks gorgeous, perfect clothes and clean cut looks and everyone’s dancing but it’s not sincere it’s like dancing for an audience not for pleasure. Eventually my gaze catches more sinister details of the party. 

A group of kids are doing lines of on a glass table, snorting fine white powder with hundred dollar bills. I notice some guy put something in a girls drink, a needle on the floor. I turn away from the party as I see someone pass out as they’re dancing, their eyes rolled back. No one else seems to notice or care. 

“Jongin some people are out there doing coke” I whisper to Jongin as he downs a shot of Bacardi 

He just shrugs “Look at this place Sehun. These kids have nothing to worry about ever. Cops won’t come shut down this party even if a hundred neighbors complain. These people have no limits.” He takes another shot and spins around “Alright I’m buzzed let’s go dance!” And he marches into the mass of people.

I can’t bring myself to into the crowd of people. It seems so much more scary than the “trap party” we were at earlier. That’s probably why Chan decided to just go out by himself and smoke. Maybe I could go find him and hang out till Jongin tires himself out. 

Unfortunately for me, the vastness of the house lands me lost by a long wall of open glass doors. They all have white satin curtains billowing with the wind. It’s probably the backyard, so I walk out. It’s still kind of chilly but not as bad as Irvine. 

The backyard is spacious, it goes out onto a tan tiled patio leading to a huge rectangular pool, the lights make the water look like the sky during the daytime. I sit on one of the outdoor sofas, they’re so soft and plush compared to the steel of Chan’s car. 

I almost fall asleep until I hear a faint clacking of high heels coming towards me. I look up and see Zitao coming towards me from the doors. “Didn’t like the party?” She asks, sitting beside me. 

“It was okay I just wasn’t feeling it” I reply vaguely, not really wanting to get into the details about how disgusted I was. 

“I’m not feeling it too much either. It’s so boring” she nods, leaning back and kicking off her heels. They clatter on the floor, they’re red bottoms. 

I avert my eyes from her shoes and look into the pool. “Seems like you have parties often, why throw them if you’re starting to get bored of them?” 

“Good question” she sighs “I don’t know, I always think someone will come who’ll spike my interest. Never really happens though.” She glances at me and quickly looks away. 

“You’re probably just looking in the wrong places.” I comment, giving her my honest opinion. I felt bad for her, her parents where probably always gone and I assumed people like her didn’t have real friends. A lonely rich girl. Seems like a sad story to me. 

“Really?” She asks, turning her whole body to look at me. 

I turn slightly to look at her and notice two new things.

1: Zitao is very, very close to me

2: Zitao’s pupils are the size of moons

‘Oh .’ I think ‘she’s coming into me.’

“Uh are you high?” I ask, trying to divert her attention from our closeness, scooting away from her

“A little. I took some ecstasy like thirty minutes ago” she replies offhandedly “Do you want some?” She rifled through her pockets and pulls out a bag of white pills.

“Um no thank you I think I’ll ju-“ 

“Oh come on it’ll make you feel great!” She takes a pill out of the bag and holds it up right to my lips

“No I’m fine Zitao. I need to find my friend” I start to babble, becoming increasingly nervous. 

She shuts me up by pushing the pill past my lips. My eyes widen as I instinctively swallow.

I gape at her, my panic suddenly replaced by her boldness. And also shock that this girl just technically drugged me. “What the f-“ 

My speech gets cut off again, this time by her lips. 

My eyes stay wide open as she continues to kiss me, it’s slow and sweet but earnest. I can taste her loneliness on my lips and I kiss her back more timidly. The drug kicking in and making the kids feel like rounds of fireworks against my skin. 

I can’t tell you how long we sat there kissing before I started to realize what I was doing. I pull away and look at her remorsefully “Zitao, I-I can’t” 

“What do you mean?” She asks, her eyes looking up at me pitifully 

“I just.. I” I trail off feeling stupid. Here was this beautiful, rich and kind of sweet girl practically begging me to kiss her but I only felt sorry for her. 

She leans back towards me, trying to kiss me again. 

“I can’t kiss you because I’m in love with my best friend.” I spit out, immediately looking back down at my own shoes. Slightly beat up black and white vans, there’s a ketchup stain on one of the stripes on the side. 

She doesn’t lean back into me, she just leans against the couch “You should tell her.” 

“Him.” I reply

She doesn’t shift or change her tone “The guy that came with you?” 

I nod, feeling stupid “I know. It’s hopel-“

“You should tell him anyway. Especially if you love him.” Her voice is melancholic and I wish I could just put Jongin on the back burner and just love Zitao if just for a moment to make her feel better. 

But I can’t, so I excuse myself and leave.