Simon stands at the other side of the room, his back straight and the black suit and tie clinging to him perfectly. My heart attempts to escape my ribcages whenever I look at him wearing such a thing, but I'd much rather he be wearing jeans and a T-shirt, just because I know he'd be more comfortable. He nods and smiles every now and then in response to the nonsense leaving the mouth of the man that stands close by him.

I know the smile is fake. It's tight and hard and doesn't touch his eyes. I watch in adoration when he licks his lips or bites down on his bottom lip, or runs a hand through his hair, I know he's not even aware he's doing any of these things.

Simon I both strongly dislike either of our parent's parties, in fact, we spend many nights laid in bed and suggesting all the scenarios we could create that could get us out of them. But here we are. Again.

"Oh, Amanda!" A voice bellows from the crowd of people dressed in fancy outfits, all of the faces secretly turning their noses up at everyone who so much as brushes their shoulder up against their own.

The voice is nasally and I would assume whoever is calling my name currently has the misfortune of a minor illness if I didn't know the voice all too well.

"Kasitlyn," I say through gritted teeth. "How are you?" I ask while turning to my right to face her.

The woman stood before me is a close family friend. She thinks just because she happened to be close with my parents at one point in her life, she has the responsibility of making conversation with me whenever our paths meet. Her hair is cut perfectly and hugs her face. The deep red colour shines through every strand and sways almost in slow motion when she moves her head.

"I'm wonderful," she slurs. "What about you, dear? What's new with you?"

Even as she says this, I can guess she's lying through her teeth. There's a high chance her husband is cheating on her, and her, on her husband. She's probably drowning in debt and her children wish they'd never been born. Despite this, she hides it with a smile.

"I've been fairly good, thank you," I say and smile politely. "Not much is new but I'm just trying to appreciate every day." I try to hold the smile on my face as she nods with a bored look in her eye.

"Rumour has it, you've got yourself a boyfriend," Kaitlyn grins and reaches an arm out as though to touch me, but thinks more of it and withdraws her claws.

"I didn't think that was so hard to believe but yes, I do." I shift uncomfortably in my heels and feel my hand sweating around the wine glass. I alternated it between my hands and wiped my palms against my dress.

".. Tell me about him," she says quietly and sips her wine. I can see a red lipstick stain around the rim.

Simon pops into my mind without me having to make an effort. I suppress a smile and find the floor to be quite interesting. "Well, his name is Simon and we met a few years ago at work. He's somewhere around here, actually."

"I'd love to meet him." She's glancing around the room, and it's painfully obvious she's searching for a new target to make her own. I stay quiet and wait to see how long it takes before she disappears.

Eventually, I see her catch sight of her husband at the bar. She waves me off with a forced smile before her heels are click-click-clicking across the floor and through the crowd.

Sighing, I look around the room. People are smiling, laughing and enjoying themselves, sipping wine and making conversation. I tap my nails against the glass and enjoy the sound.

My shoes are the next to click against the floor while I make my way over to the long length table backed up against the wall. All sorts of food has been spread across it and I can feel my stomach rumbling at the sight.

"'Scuse me, kind woman," someone says - with a distinctly fake-posh accent - from directly behind me. "Would you mind joining me in a delightful conversation about the ten different yachts I own, and how I went backpacking through Antarctica last year? And let's not forget about how I own five houses in five different states in America."

"You suck at accents," I laugh and crane my neck to see Simon grinning down at me. "What even was that?"

"What? That? Oh, just my imitation of just about everyone in this room." He rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his half-empty glass of wine. "I'm surprised to see muffins and cookies being served here. I thought it'd be all scones and fancy cakes."

"Me too," I say while taking a cookie from the silver platter. I break it in half and feel crumbs fall into the palms of my hand. "Want some?"

Feeling Simon's closeness, I turn to look at him once more. His mouth is parted and it allows me to see his tongue laying low. His breath is hot against my face. I break the cookie into smaller segments and drop a piece into Simon's awaiting mouth. Crunching noises ring through my ear, and a sweet kiss lands underneath my right ear after the sound comes to a halt.

"I don't care how stuck up these people are, they make good cookies," he mutters quietly and it causes a buzz through my neck that lingers for a few seconds.

While he's busy crunching down on the remaining cookie, Simon is dragged away by a man I've never seen, but is apparently familiar to Simon because I see a small sigh leave his lips. Simon kisses my cheek and squeezes my hand before letting go and making his way through the crowd with reluctance.

I'm left alone once more, surrounded by bodies and feeling out of place. I stroll around the room and listen in to small segment of different people's conversations; they range from cars to time shares to housing, to holidays in the Caribbean. I end up leaning against the wall in the far side of the room.

It takes another hour or so before I see Simon again, having been dragged into encounters of my own with people I barely know.

When Simon makes an appearance, he comes in close and grips my hand with his. I'm pleased to see him and I smile instantly.

"Let's go," he says and I frown in confusion.

"What? Whe-"

"Let's leave right now, anywhere you wanna go. I can't stand another five minutes with these people. This isn't us. We're not classy or fancy; we sit at home eating pizza and watching Netflix, we hit the stores at midnight looking for cookie dough, we sit on hotel balconies and feel each other up. I want all of that, not this."

He didn't have to say anything else to win me over; I'd been feeling the exact same all night.

"Are you in?" he asks and watches me hopefully. I waste no time and nod, and before I can comprehend, my hand is prisoner to Simon's and we're gliding in and out of the crowd. I manage to drop my wine glass on the buffet table without spilling anything as I glide passed the it.

Thankfully, we manage to make our way to the door without being noticed or stopped as I thought we would have. I can't see either of our parents ready to stop us from fleeing either, and this causes a rush of hope to shoot through me that makes me grab the door handle and slide out before Simon does the same.

Almost in a flash, all of the commotion and noise I had to endure over the course of the night disappears. I wonder if I've momentarily gone deaf until Simon coughs gently and crushes my rising worry. The night is cold and I can see our warm breath escaping into the night. Simon's hand keeps my own warm while the rest of my body shivers.

"Where to?" I ask while he's already busy pulling me down the drive of my parent's house and across the street. It's quite late, meaning there's no one in sight. The street looks frighteningly lifeless.

"Anywhere, just somewhere we can be together," he replies and his breath flies towards me but disappears before it can touch me.

We end up at a 24-hour store by Simon's request, his argument being he was hungry, despite having just scoffed anything he could find on the buffet. I didn't object because I knew I had just enough money in my bag for a drink; my throat was burning for something other than overpriced wine.

The store was the only source of light on the street, it was getting darker by the minute and the streetlights were either broken or not on a schedule and had been abandoned for the night. Either way, I had that familiar thankfulness you feel when you see artificial lights and life after all you've seen is darkness for a long period of time. It was comforting.

Behind the counter however, was a man who didn't seem very happy he was working the night shift. He looked half-dead as we walked through the automatic doors and made no effort to adjust himself to appear friendly.

Simon's hand had been holding my own all the way to the store, but as soon as we were walking down the aisle full of food, his fingers slid away from my own.

"God, I'm starving," he mutters while grabbing anything in his sight from the shelves. It's not long before he's cradling his items in his arms and walking towards the counter.

Meanwhile, I grab a bottle of water from the chilled section while trailing Simon like a puppy. The packaging crinkles loudly as Simon drops his things and I place my bottle down quietly. The cashier doesn't look impressed and sighs heavily before straightening up.

Once we've paid, and the cashier has received a long, hard stare from Simon after asking him if he'd like a bag, we're back out in the cool air and strolling off into the darkness. The bag rustles and disturbs the quiet but Simon doesn't seem to care.

"Where to now?" I ask.

"Wherever we want, babygirl. The world is ours. I just want to be with you," Simon replies, my heart would have been beating a lot faster if he wasn't busy rummaging through his bag for the packet of Oreos he'd just bought.