Hunter Williams’ Taboo Adventure Twelfth Chapter

❝A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.❞

– Albert Einstein

[ H U N T E R   W I L L I A M S ]

The rest of my birthday happened to be pretty uneventful, my friends and I went out to a restaurant, had dinner and split up. Only because we had classes in the morning. 

Everything seemed to be going well and without any difficulties, even sleep came over me pretty quickly – without the aid of melatonin pills. It felt like all of my worries had vanished at once and I was living a happy life once again. Something in the pit of my stomach told me that this wouldn’t last long.

It was already time for soccer practice on Friday. I had decided that I was going to go to the Halloween party happening that night, Evelyn – being the disastrous angel that she was, would join me.

Practice, just like everything else went swimmingly, the coach was surprisingly easy on us today, less yelling than usual.

Okay, this was definitely the calm before the storm.

I showered hastily, dried off and put my school clothes back on, figured there was no time to waste. I didn’t have to meet with Blake today, so I was going to get some more food before going to get ready for the party.

I couldn’t quite decide on what to wear for the party. Perhaps, I could put the fake horns from my eighth-grade performance to use and become a devil for the night. It was a costume party after all.

As I was walking through the hallways on the way to the front entrance of the school, I spotted a light coming from under the English literature classroom door. What was Blake still doing at school? It was almost four in the afternoon and the halls were practically empty at this time.

I decided to pop in and check on him, you never know, what if the man had a heart attack and nobody noticed?

When I opened the door, I figured I’d met by my teacher’s usual voice, but all I heard was silence. I popped my head into the classroom to see if he was even there and no surprise – he was. Blake’s hair was more dishevelled than it was at the start of the day, earphones comfortably resting in his ears, his attention directed to the table – completely oblivious to the fact that I had entered the room.

It took a lot more work than I had previously anticipated in order to catch his attention, I was practically sitting on the table in the front row. Blake hastily looked up with a sort of disoriented expression and cleared his throat. “Hunter, I thought I told you to have the day off.” He muttered, his voice husky from the lack of talking.

“I was about to leave school but saw that the light was on from under the door, thought I’d check up on you,” I explained myself nonchalantly.

Blake huffed. “Should’ve just gone home, I’m just catching up on some work.” He buried his face in his hands and let out a drawn-out sigh.

I raised an eyebrow at him in confusion. “Can’t you catch up on work at home? It’s Friday after all… kinda odd of you to be at school this late. Is something wrong?” I asked with a genuine, caring tone. Blake Carter, my English teacher, had become somewhat of a friend of mine. He cared about my issues when I was at my lowest, figured I could do the same for him. The value of moral support was immeasurable.

“I’m sort of avoiding people right now,” Blake responded.

“And why is that?” I pressed forward, I knew I was getting close to a real answer.

“I just don’t want to go to any birthday dinners or clubs like my friends are forcing me to, so I figured I’d just stay in late and finish up some work.” He sighed in defeat and something inside of me clicked. Blake Carter’s birthday was November first – one day after mine, what were the odds?

A smirk suddenly crept up to my face. “Aha! I see what this is about. You should follow your own advice and relax a little, old man.” I teased him. He had told me to value and keep the friends who supported me close, but he didn’t seem to be doing the same.

“I’m not an old man. I’m only twenty-seven!” Blake frowned, faking hurt.

“Twenty-seven? Sheesh, man. That’s pretty old.” I continued, cracking a small smile at him, thankfully, he realized that I was just playing. “Come on, old man. It’s Friday afternoon, go home and get ready to go out with your friends, it will be fun.” I pressed him to finish his work for now and unwind a little. 

Blake sighed again and nodded. To be honest, the fact that he complied kind of surprised me, I was fully expecting for him to shrug my request off and continue onwards with his work. Guess the man wasn’t as much of a workaholic as he appeared to be.

“I guess you’re right.” He said as he packed his stuff. “I’ll make sure to tell my friends that a very demanding student told me to hang out with them,” Blake smirked at me and I stopped in my tracks.

“I’m only a very demanding student? I thought I was your friend.” I remarked. Slightly more upset about the statement than I should’ve been. Sure we hadn’t agreed that we were actual friends yet, but I don’t think these kind of conversations were a regular occurrence between a teacher and his student.

“Okay then, friend. Need a ride home?” Blake offered, cracking a small smile that made me feel warm all over. His laptop case comfortably rested on his shoulder as he stood up and made his way to the door, where I was already waiting.

I wasn’t about to refuse a ride home from a friend. I smiled to myself, hoping that he wouldn’t notice.

The ride home wasn’t a long one. Blake and I parted ways and I rushed inside my house, ignoring my mother’s stare and started getting ready for the party.

I didn’t need to do much apart from picking out an outfit. I went into my closet and rummaged through a ton of boxes until I found a pair of plastic devil horns. I was feeling kind of feisty and decided that for today’s party, I was going to be a sexy devil. Literally.

The party was supposed to start at eight, but I still had to find myself a ride in order to get to it. I asked a couple of my classmates and finally found my way to the party.

I looked at myself in the mirror and was kind of surprised as to how unlike myself I was. Plastic devil horns resting on my head, shirt off and ripped black jeans. I should probably grab a sweater with me, didn’t actually want to freeze to death. Autumn weather is ruthless.

I waited outside my house for my ride to pull up. I was carpooling with Troy and Evelyn, they seemed to have been getting awfully close as of late and I was happy for them. Troy Beckett was a good guy from the soccer team, he wasn’t problematic, didn’t involve himself into scandals and had an overall pretty charming personality. I sort of feared for him, cause in the pit of my stomach, I knew Evelyn would corrupt him.

Eventually, a car pulled into my driveway, we exchanged our greetings and moved onwards to the party. Evelyn, Troy and I were the only ones in the car, so I had all the space I wanted in the back, the last thing I wanted to be right now was squished.

You’d imagine a high school Halloween party to be eventful and full of surprises, but it was honestly just like any other party. Some guys had completely ignored the dress code, nothing new. There were a lot of girls who dressed up in revealing outfits of their favourite superheroes, guess that was about the only difference. 

The music was loud, drinks were being chugged and tongues were being tied. 

Evelyn and Troy had gone away somewhere, leaving me alone to enjoy myself – which was exactly what I was going to do. After the last few weeks, I for sure needed an escape from the world. 

I couldn’t remember how much I had drunk over the course of the night, but it was for sure an unsettling amount. I was practically giggling at everything, drunk and high off my mind. Some girl hooked her arm around my bicep and I turned to her, a small drunken smile resting on my face.

Guess it was time to finally let go of Bailey and have a little fun. The girl motioned her head towards the staircase and I nodded, knowing damn well what I was getting myself into.

Unfortunately, when we opened the closest room to us upstairs, I wasn’t met by hot and casual sex. Instead, I was met by my ex-best-friend, Eli Woods, railing my ex-girlfriend.

Suddenly, I felt sick and soon everything faded to black.