"Hell yeah! More people have arrived! Come in and join us! Don't be shy now!" One of the guys in the hot tub yelled, his voice sounding like he was stoned out of his mind.
You felt your hot becoming extremely hot as you briefly made eye contact with Mark. You then found yourself sinking down into the hot tub so that Mark wouldn't be able to see your chest.
"Hey, what are you doing?" One of the girls asked you. "You were perfectly okay with sitting up before those two came in. What's up with you?"
"N-Nothing." You managed to muster out as you forced yourself to look at the water rather than at Mark and his girlfriend. "I'm fine. D-Don't worry about me."
"You don't sound like you're fine."
You shook your head. "Trust me, I'm fine. Just give me a few moments."
"Mark? Why are you hesitating? Get in the hot tub and relax."
You forced yourself to look up as you heard Mark's girlfriend speaking to him. Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Mark's obvious nervousness and hesitation about the whole situation.
Was it because you were here?
You sure as hell felt nervous because he was in the room.
For a very brief moment, your eyes met Mark's. you felt your heart skip as you stared directly into those big brown eyes of his. You also felt breathless as he stared back directly into your (E/C) eyes. Not wanting to make things any more awkward that they already were, you forced yourself to look away.
"Mark! Stop standing there and staring into blank space and take your clothes off so that we can get into the hot tub!"
You slowly sat up as your back started to hurt from being in the position that you were in in order to hide yourself from Mark. You made sure that no one, especially Mark, couldn't see your chest and that it was underneath the water.

You tried to force yourself to shift your attention away from Mark when he walked over to the large pile of clothes that was already built up before he began taking off his shirt. His girlfriend had already taken off her clothes and gotten in the hot tub. She was sitting directly across from you, still wearing the flower crown that had originally been made by you as a gift for Mark. Not wanting her to stare you down, you glanced away from her. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw a now shirtless Mark throwing his shirt down on the ground. You closed your eyes and repeatedly told yourself over and over again to not look at him.
Suddenly, the night where you had walked into Mark's room and saw him shirtless for less than a second. You remembered that you swore up and down that you saw something black on the side of his body and that you hadn't gotten the chance to study it long enough to see what it was.
A moment later, curiosity got the best of you and you glanced over at Mark. Thankfully, he seemed to be stalling getting into the hot tub by being very hesitant about undressing. Because of this, you could carefully study his shirtless figure. Your eyes were immediately drawn to the left side of his body. You were surprised to see that he had a tattoo of something that was most likely written in Korean since Mark was actually half Korean. Since you didn't speak any Korean, you had no idea what the tattoo on the left side of his body actually translated to in English.
When Mark turned and the right side of his body faced you, you could see that he had another tattoo that was written in Korean. You began wishing that you could speak Korean so that you'd know what exactly Mark's tattoos translated to in English.
"Mark, I'm not going to sit here all night." The annoyed sigh of the once pretty boy's girlfriend rang throughout the entire room. "Hurry up and get in here. I'm already saving a space for you."
You immediately turned away when you saw that Mark was beginning to unbutton his jeans. You already felt bad about looking at him shirtless. The last thing you wanted was to look at him in his boxers and you definitely didn't want to see him naked if it was at all possible to avoid it.

You closed your eyes as you heard and felt the water moving as Mark got into the hot tub. After waiting a few moments, you opened your eyes and, much to your dismay, your eyes met his once again. You felt your heart leap up into your throat when you saw those big brown eyes of his. After staring at them for a moment, you realized that there was something off about them. Sure, they were the same brown eyes they had back when he was actually your friend, but they looked different for some reason. You suddenly recalled your mother telling you many years ago that you could tell a lot about how a person is feeling just by looking into someone's eyes. Upon remembering this, you began to examine Mark's eyes. As you looked closer into the once pretty boy's eyes, you realized that they lacked the bit of sparkle that they used to always seem to have a few months ago. Instead, they looked dull and almost tired. You thought back to the few times where you saw Mark and his girlfriend together. Instead of focusing on the interactions that they had, you focused on Mark. You remembered how you saw Mark when he and his girlfriend had given August money for playing his guitar. Now that you were replaying the moment in your mind, you noticed that the tiny smile that Mark had on his face while he was taking some cash out of his wallet looked fake.
Why though?
Why would he have a fake smile?
Even though you thought that Mark's girlfriend was a complete bitch, you assumed that he was happy and that his decision to act as if you two had never been friends was for the better.
Was it possible that Mark wasn't happy?
No, (Y/N). You immediately dismissed the possibility from your mind. This isn't true. This is simply you reminiscing over a lost friendship. Mark is happy. You're not. You don't want him to be happy because you aren't happy. How many times do you have to remind yourself that your pretty boy turned ugly?

"Oh my God, are you two going to kiss or something?!" The annoyed voice of Mark's girlfriend pulled away from your thoughts. "You two have been staring at each other for so long!"
At the same time, you and Mark looked away from each other and you stared into the water because you didn't want to see the faces of the other people who were in the hot tub.
"Hey! Don't you dare look down at the water! I've got some things I want to say to you!"
You looked up at Mark's girlfriend, thinking of things that you wanted to say to her after she said what she wanted to say.
"Look, I understand that you and Mark had a history." She let out an annoyed sigh as she rolled her eyes. "I guess you two were like best friends or something. I don't really know because I'm basing this off of what I've heard from other people. I don't really care anyways." She shrugged.
"If you don't care, then why are you bringing this up to begin with?" You questioned, smiling a little on the inside as you gave her a look of confusion.
"Why am I bringing this up to begin with?" She echoed as if she hadn't heard what you said. "I'm bringing this up because I don't want you looking at Markie the way you were just looking at him. It's so obvious that you miss him. A person from a mile away could tell that you miss him." She paused for a moment as she flipped her hair over her shoulder. "Well, let me tell you a little something. He's mine now. He traded his friendship with you for my love. The sooner you realize that, the better."
You shook your head, refusing to believe what she had just said. "No, it's not true. I'll accept that he threw away my friendship, but there's no way that he threw it away because of you. There's another reason why he left. There has to be."
You looked over at Mark to see if his face would give any indication that your assumptions were correct.
But his face told you that he felt really upset.
"Y-You..." You trailed off as you felt tears forming in your eyes. "You stopped talking to me, tossed me to the side like a piece of trash, and acted like we were never friends because of her?" You blinked and tears rolled down your cheeks. "All this time, I thought I did something wrong. But no, you did all those things for someone else! I can't believe this! I thought you were better than that!" You started to get out of the hot tub, not longer caring about anyone seeing you. "Mark, I really thought that we had a genuine friendship. I thought you were different from everyone else! I thought... I thought that we were going to be friends for a very long time." You turned your back towards him and grabbed a towel that was hanging on top of the shower due to the fact that you really didn't feel like getting dressed right now since you felt like it would be extremely awkward if you got dressed in front of everyone during the current situation.
You quickly wrapped the towel around yourself and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind you once you left the room. You silently prayed that the room directly across from you would be unlocked before you bolted over to it. You felt a huge sense of relief when you turned the knob to discover that the door was unlocked. You then proceeded to basically throw open the door before quickly stepping inside and closing the door behind you. You really didn't want anyone to bother you so you locked the door.

After you had locked the door, all sorts of emotions hit you at the same time like a few people had teamed up and had started to repeatedly punch you in the gut. The first emotion that you felt was betrayal. While it was true that you had felt betrayed in the past because of other people, this time around, the betrayal you felt because of Mark's choices and actions felt ten times worse than they did when other people had betrayed you over the years. The second emotion that you felt was sadness. Of course, since you were a normal human being, there were times where you felt sad. From the time that your old group of friends suddenly shut you out and never wanted anything to do with you ever again to the time that you realized that the abuse you were experiencing from your father was way too much for you to bear, there were plenty of instances where you felt sad. But, for some reason, finding out the truth as to why exactly you had lost Mark's friendship made you the saddest that you felt in your entire life. You realized that you much rather continue to experience abuse from your father than lose Mark as a friend. Even though you had known the once pretty boy for less than two months back when you were actually friends with him, you were starting to realize that, even though you hadn't known him for that long, it felt like he had been someone that you had known for your entire long. In fact, it also felt like he had been a childhood friend rather than someone you had met by helping him pick up his books after Julian had knocked them out of his arms.

The next thing you knew, you were hugging your knees to your chest and crying your eyes out while your head was resting on your knees. You desperately wanted to go home, but you didn't want to leave this room and get dressed because you knew for a fact that everyone, including Mark and his girlfriend, would still be in that horrible room. You thought about calling Troy before you remembered that your phone was in your jeans pocket.
"Damn it!" You cursed as you wiped away your tears. "I just want to go home and completely forget about this night. Is that really too much to ask?"

*****

You woke up the next morning and immediately groaned as sunlight flowing into the room from the room made direct contact with your eyes. You closed your eyes and rubbed sleep out of them as you slowly sat up, instinctively holding the covers over your body, even though you knew that you were the only one in the room. The towel that you had wrapped around yourself laid down on the ground next to the bed and you sighed as you realized that at some point, you would have to get out of bed and grab your clothes from the bathroom with the indoor hot tub in it. You looked away from the towel and pushed the thought of you having to do that to the back of your mind as you decided that you would wait a little bit before you forced yourself to get out of bed. Funny enough, how comfy the king-sized bed that you had slept in for the night was the highlight of the party last night. You honestly would be completely fine if you did nothing but lay in that bed all day.

You felt your heart skip a beat when you heard a knock on the door. As you tried to come up with something to say, a voice called from behind the door.
"Don't be alarmed. It's just me. I just want to see how many people are left from last night so I know how much food to make your breakfast."
You heard your stomach growling upon hearing the word "breakfast." You laughed a bit as you realized that having breakfast in the massive house that you were in right now mostly likely meant that there would be really good food and a lot of it. "It's just me in here."
"Who exactly are you?"
"I'm (Y/N)."
"(Y/N)... You were the one with Troy last night, weren't you?"
"Yeah, that was me." You suddenly remembered that Troy had told you that he had planned on staying the night here. In all the chaos and emotion that occurred last night, you had completely forgotten about him. "Hey, speaking of Troy, have you happened to see him recently? He told me that he was going to stay the night here before we got here."
"No, I haven't seen him. But I know that he's here. In my drunken haze at about three in the morning, I remember seeing him go upstairs with a girl. I also remember feeling pretty proud of him because that's the first girl he's managed to take to the bedroom at any party that I've hosted or at any party that we've gone to together."
You ignored almost all of what he was saying and asked, "When you find him, will you let him know that I'm still here? He's my ride and he also has the keys so if he leaves, I have no way to get home."
"Well, if it really comes down to it, I can take you home."
"Oh, thanks..." You trailed off as you tried to remember the name of the guy who was the host of the party.
"Brandon. I know that you more than likely met a ton of people last night to the point where it was hard to keep everyone's names straight."
"Yeah, sure, we'll just go with that." You muttered underneath your breath.
"I'll come and get you once breakfast is done. I'll also tell Troy where you're at and he'll probably come up here."
"Okay, sounds good." You replied as you realized that now would be a great time to wrap the towel around your body and go and grab your clothes.
"See you at breakfast."
As you heard Brandon's footsteps gradually become extremely far away, you wrapped the towel around your body and walked towards the door. You waited for a few moments before you unlocked the door before you opened it. You slowly peered out into the hallway and checked both the left side and the right side of the hallway at least ten times each before you nervously stepped into the hallway. Once you were in the hallway, you made a break for the door of the bathroom with the indoor hot tub in it. You prayed that there wasn't anyone in there before you took a deep breath and opened the door. You felt relieved when you saw that it was completely empty. You stepped inside, making sure to close and lock the door behind you when you did so. Afterwards, you removed the towel from around your body and threw it into the hamper that was sitting right next to the sink. You then walked over to where your pile of clothes were. Somehow, even though they without a doubt buried underneath countless other people's clothes, they remained in the very same place as last night. Although, when you took a closer look at them, you realized that the pile of clothes didn't even belong to you.
Someone had stolen every item of clothing that you owed and seemed like they just left theirs for you to have.
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" You asked angrily. "Why the fuck would someone even do this? I wasn't even wearing anything cute."
Sighing, you realized that you had no other choice but to wear a complete stranger's clothing until you got back to Troy's house and could change there.

*****

"I sure love wearing a bra that's a complete cup size too big." You muttered sarcastically as you finished getting dressed. You brushed your hair for a few minutes before you left the bathroom and went back into the bedroom where you had spent the night. Almost as soon as you sat down on the bed, you heard a knock at the door.
"Who is it?"
"It's me." You almost immediately recognized the voice as Troy's. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah, sure."
At that moment, Troy opened the door and stepped inside. He closed the door behind him and sat down next to you. "I'm really surprised that you're here. I didn't even believe Brandon at first when he told me that you told him to let me know that you were still here."
"Yeah, I'm still here..."
"What's wrong? You sound upset."
"I am upset." You decided to not lie to Troy about how you were feeling because you knew for a fact that he wouldn't leave you alone until you told him what was upsetting you.
"What happened?"
You sighed. "So many things."
"Well, we've got time. Brandon's the slowest cook you'll ever meet. But his food is really good so it's okay." Troy ran a hand through his messy hair. "But anyway, tell me what's making you upset."

*****

"I can't believe that asshole!" Troy crossed his arms angrily as you finished telling him everything that had happened the night before. "Well, good thing that there's plenty of fish in the sea, huh?"
"Yeah." For some reason, August suddenly popped into your mind when he said that. "Sure is." A few moments of silence passed between you and Troy and you decided to be the one to break it. "But anyway, I heard from Brandon that you had a pretty great night last night."
A smirk formed on Troy's face when you said that. "Yeah, I actually had a really awesome night last night."
"So, who was the lucky lady of the night?" You teased.
"God (Y/N)." Troy laughed a bit as he rolled his eyes. "Well, if you must know, her name was Mary."
"That's a nice name." You smiled. "Now, tell me more about Mary."
"She was super nice." Troy smiled as well as he recalled the previous night. "She had a really beautiful smile and a really awesome laugh. I always found myself laughing whenever she was laughing. Also, believe it or not, I was completely sober for the whole night. I didn't want to have a drunk one night stand. I figured that if I was going to have a one night stand, this would be the only one I would have and because of that, I wanted to remember it. Anyways, we ended up talking and laughing about all sorts of stuff. I think it was around three in the morning when she made the first move. I don't really remember what she said, but I ended up grabbing her hand and taking her upstairs. And I, well, you know, gave her the full package."
"Nice." You lightly punched his shoulder. "So, did you wake up next to your lovely lady?"
Troy nodded excitedly. "She woke up a few moments after I did and we ended up making out with each other until Brandon knocked on the door and asked if anyone was in there. I was really hoping to introduce you to her, but she said that she had a few things to do today so she ended up leaving after Brandon knocked on our door."
"Oh well, maybe I can meet her one day if this one night stand of yours turns out to be more than that." You shrugged. "Did you get her number?"
"Yeah, I did actually." The smile on Troy's face grew. "She gave it to me right before she left. I told her that I would text her later."
"Troy, you're a ladies man now." You lightly punched his shoulder again. "The next thing you know, you're going to be going to parties and girls will form a line in order to give you their numbers."
"I don't think it's going to go that far, (Y/N)." Troy laughed. "But I had fun last night."
"I'm glad." You smiled. You were really glad that Troy had ended up having fun, even though you had a terrible night. You cared more about Troy having a good time than you did having a good time yourself. "So, I've gotta ask. What does Mary look like?"
"Oh, she look like the definition of the word "beautiful.""
"I'm serious, Romeo." You teased. "What does your Juliet look like?"
"Okay, I'll tell you." Troy laughed lightly. "She had this really beautiful blue hair that was the color of the ocean. It was really long too, which made it even better. It went all the way down to her hips. The fact that her hair was wavy made her hair look like it was an ocean. I loved it so much." He paused for a moment. "She also was wearing a flower crown. It had magnolias, a gladiolus, and a red daisy. It was such an odd combination, but I think it held some very special meaning." He paused for a moment again. "She also had these piercing blue eyes that matched her hair. She was... She was just really beautiful, (Y/N). She was really kind and funny too. I'm really hoping that our one-night stand turns into something more than that."
"Oh my God..." You whispered as you realized who Troy was talking about.