Chapter 9

Funless

I woke up first. The sound of the front door closing behind my mother got me wide awake. So apparently she didn't care I had a girl all night at the house, and that the said girl was now sleeping in my bed.

No, none of that matter, because some kid somewhere needed her more than her own son could ever need her, apparently.

Hi, my name is Keegan Bundy and if my mother had to chose between me and a kid, any kid to save from drowning she'd save them first, actually she probably wouldn't even save me if I was the only one drowning.

And to top it all off, I really hadn't slept that well at all. I'd been uncomfortable all night, hyper aware that someone else was in my bed and I was trying to stay still like a statue and I was miserable and I kept waking up and falling back asleep, but like light sleep, not good sleep. 

And now I was just reminded that there was a girl in my bed and that she was moderately attractive. With the daylight peeking through my paper thin curtains, she had her back to me and the light hit her hair in a pretty way and there was something really beautiful about the curve of her neck...

I was snapped out of it when Liesel suddenly turned around and grinned at me, "Hey Bundy, want me to show you a trick I learned in prison?"

I rolled my eyes and turned away from her. "Paxton has already given me a very detailed resume of Orange is the New Black, thank you very much."

"You're no fun," she said and got out of bed.

I looked away from her as she crawled off of the bed. She was only wearing one of my shirts. I didn't want to check her out. The last time I had looked at her legs she implied that I would scream out for help if I did it again. I didn't want to know what looking at her ass would mean.

"Come on, chop, chop," Liesel said, clapping her hands. "Let's get out of bed. We have plenty of time before we need to go to the party. We could watch at the very least another season."

I kind of snorted at that remark. "I'm not going to the party."

"Of course you're going to the party."

"I don't want to go to the party."

Liesel just stood at the foot of my bed, her hands on her hips. "Well, technically, I own your ass now, so you're supposed to do what I say, and what I say is that we're going to the party."

I stared at the ceiling and whined, "How will going to a party not make me want to kill myself?"

"You've really never been to a party, have you?" she asked with a wicked grin.

Sure, but that was totally not the problem. "I've heard enough traumatizing stories to guess it's not a good idea."

"Well, you'll just have to see for yourself because we're going and that is that."

Maybe she kind of had a point. And anyway, I didn't have the energy to argue with her. I was tired.

So I spent most of the day, half enjoying How I Met Your Mother and half dreading the evening. I had no social skills. I spent most of my life making sure I would not be in situations where I was out of my comfort zone. I didn't want people to notice me, so why the hell would I go to a party?

Liesel's idea was bullocks.

Hi my name is Keegan Bundy and when I was in the human factory they skipped the part where they give you social skills.

Around nine at night Liesel turned off the TV and dragged me to my room to force me to get ready. I felt kind of naked as she rummaged through my very pathetic wardrobe to find the perfect outfit. When she finally seemed satisfied with a very rudimentary pair of jeans and a presentable shirt she made me go outside to wait with her. My mother still hadn't come back from work. We were the weekend. If this hadn't been normal at the Bundy household I might have been worried.

"What are we waiting for?" I asked, as I shifted from foot to foot.

"The cavalry."

A car pulled up a few seconds later. "Sit in the front, I have to do some wardrobe changes," Liesel ordered me.

I didn't move at first. Was this a trick to get me in a car to then sell me to a sex trafficking ring? Maybe to harvest my organs would make more sense.

"Come on Bundy, get your butt in the car," Liesel ordered me, leaning on the open door of the backseat.

Well, if she really was about to sell me, I guess it would make my life interesting. took a deep breath and sat in the car.

A middle aged woman was in the driver's seat and greeted us with a, "Hey kids."

"Hi Mom," Liesel happily replied.

Her mother came to pick up us?

Hi my name is Keegan Bundy and I keep redefining the word shame.

"So, did you guys have fun last night?"Liesel's mom asked us, as she started to drive.

I was just freaking out sitting beside a strange lady. Her daughter spent the night at my place? It didn't bother her? She wasn't going to start throwing holy water at my face?

"Very poorly, Keegan didn't try to grope me, not even once."

I almost said no ma'am that's not true, but then realized what Liesel had just said. What in the..?

"How disappointing that must have been for you, sweet daughter," her mom answered, laughing.

Twilight Zone, I stepped into the Twilight Zone.

I had no idea what I was supposed to say, so I just stayed silent during the whole car ride, listening to Liesel and her mother banter, avoiding any mirrors to not look at her changing in the back seat. I felt like a deer frozen in front of a headlight. I was also slightly jealous of the clear closeness between the two. I wished my mother would be okay picking me up at ten in the evening to take me to a party.

When we finally stopped kind of in the middle of the road, in front of a house with too many cars parked around it, Liesel hugged her mother from behind and said, "Thanks Mom," before stepping out.

I also thanked our designated driver and followed Liesel. She'd changed into tight black pants with leather strips on both sides of her legs and a ow cut top. I was trying not to check her out as we walked into the house.

I wasn't sure what I expected when stepping into the house, but it definitely wasn't this. There were no horny teenagers practically having sex on the couch, or half naked people dancing on furniture. There were just a lot o kids standing around the room with glasses in their hands chatting among themselves. Everyone were still hanging around the same people they usually did.

"Ooooh, luck be a lady tonight, honey," Liesel said, nudging me with her elbow. "Check who's right over there, waiting for you to motorboat her boobs."

I froze on the spot. "I'm not going anywhere near Nadia."

"Why not? Don't you like her? Come on, follow my lead," she said grabbing my arm.

"Stop, please stop. I'm not outgoing like you. Can't you see this is making me uncomfortable?" I pleaded, whining.

She looked dead in my eyes. "And what had being comfortable brought you so far aside from suicidal tendencies? What's your track record of not doing things that shake you up a bit? Get out of your comfort zone Keegan. You might enjoy it."

Part of me said she had a point, but another part of me was screaming to run in the other direction. "Please."

Liesel shrugged. "Suit yourself," she replied and headed straight to Nadia. I wanted to stop her, but I didn't want to get too close to the blonde babe, so I stayed behind, but still close enough that I could hear their exchange.

"Nadia, hello, I wanted to apologize for our little altercation. I think we got off on the wrong foot, or well I fell on the wrong boobs," Liesel told her.

Nadia huffed, pushing a strand of hair off her shoulder. "What do you want?"

"To apologize, and tell you it will never happen again, unless you really want it to happen again. I could probably be convinced, if you twist my arm a little, or nipples, who am I to say no to any kind of under shirt action?"

Nadia frowned. "Are you drunk?"

Liesel grinned. "Not yet."

"Are you a lesbian?"

"I prefer not to label myself. But trust me, I'm not interested in you."

It seemed to bother Nadia suddenly, like it was inconceivable that anyone might not want her. Which, obviously was the right way to think. "What? Why not?"

"Oh honey, don't take it personally, you're amazing, but I'm just in a place where I need to focus on myself at the moment. It's not you, it's me." She grabbed the red cup out of the end of some drunk girl passing her. "Well, ta-ta!" she suddenly said and walked away from Nadia, straight to me.

I followed her. "Thanks for not dragging me into this."

"Well, I can give you a break. And I just needed to get on Nadia's good terms if I ever want to convince her to date you."

"She'll never date me."

Liesel stopped walking and ruffled my hair. "Don't sell yourself short, with a better haircut, I could have you date anyone. Don't you already see? More girls are looking your way since our little janitor closet incident."

I looked around when she said that. It was true that a couple of girls were looking our way. "And they probably all assume we're dating."

"No, they see that I'm crazy. They probably all think you're just ready to play in some skirts. Come on, let's explore."

So we walked around the house. I was seeing a lot of people I knew from school but never talked with, but also a lot of faces I didn't recognized. They probably went to another school.

While I just followed her around silently, Liesel was talking with everyone and everyone was talking with her because she was the shiny new thing in town and in a place where nothing ever happened, being a shiny new thing meant you were automatically popular until a new shiny new thing would pop up.

Honestly, I was kind of bored. I had my mandatory red plastic cup with beer in it, but I didn't particularly like the taste and the warmer it got, the more disgusting it tasted, but couldn't just dump it on the ground or in a potted plant, so it just kept on getting warmer.

There wasn't anything extraordinary happening. Weren't all parties supposed to be this epic thing?

When we were done with the house, we headed outside. There was a big fire in the middle of their backyard. There wasn't a pool. Weren't all high school parties supposed to be at houses with pools? Wasn't there kind of an unwritten rule about that?

Hi, my name is Keegan Bundy and I'm beginning to think that Hollywood has been lying to us about parties.

Suddenly, Liesel's nails were digging in my arm. "Oh my god, they have a trampoline! Oooh, don't you just love trampoline," she said with like a creepy kinda raspy voice, like some kind of deranged lunatic.

I snorted at her outburst and answered, "Wouldn't know, I've never been on one."

Liesel gaped at me. "You've... never been on a trampoline?"

"No." What was the big deal? I'd never been to party either.

"No wonder you want to kill yourself," she replied and grabbed my arm, "Come on Bundy."

"Where?"

"To the trampoline of course."

No one was on it, so we both climbed up, leaving our cups on the ground.

I just stood in the middle of it, while Liesel was bouncing up and down happily around me. The thing I hadn't understood though, was that even if I didn't want to jump around, if someone was hopping beside you, you had to jump too.

"Stop sulking and start jumping!" Liesel said, a big smile on her lips.

So I listened to her. Wasn't that what we had agreed on after all?

And suddenly I realized, that this was actually fun. It was like jumping on your bed, just ten times better.

And quickly I realized that Liesel's sole purpose was to make me fall on my ass. Two could play that game. So we were jumping around and stopping abruptly and pushing each other and laughing and just like that we weren't at a boring party where I had no friends anymore.

We ended up lying down on the trampoline, looking up at the sky.

Liesel took out a cigarette, or what I thought was a cigarette until she lit it.

            "Want some?"

            "Where did you get pot?"

She chuckled. "Swiped it off some idiot. Don't worry, it's for medical purposes only. I'm in a tremendous amount of pain and this makes me forget aaaaaaaaall about it."

            "Not sure it's good mixing drugs and alcohol," I remarked.

She rolled her eyes and took a drag. "Live a little Bundy."

She was offering me the joint, but I shook my head. "I'm not taking pot."

            "Suit yourself," she shrugged and kept staring at the sky. And then suddenly she asked me, "So, what would you do if you were married with two kids and you couldn't stand i, anymore, you hated your wife, you and her didn't have anything in common anymore and your kids were kind of blah, anyway you barely ever saw them because you were always working. Now imagine you could go back in time and get with another girl. A better girl who will make you happy. But if you do that, then your real wife dies. She dies in a car accident because you're not together. What would you do?"

I answered automatically, "I'd stay with my wife." I was thinking about my coward of a father. I would never cop out like my dad.

"Seriously? No hesitation? You're miserable here. You hate her. You hate your life."

"Yeah, but that's the life I decided. I can't cheat just because I know the answers now. She wasn't supposed to die. So I can't kill her just so I can have a better life on my own."

"I'd kill her right away."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Of course. Altruism is toxic. It's at the basis of every totalitarian regime. If you think you should sacrifice yourself for the good of the many or of someone else, that's how the Second World War starts. But then, you like democracy? Democracy is the most selfish system. With democracy you're basically saying to everyone that your opinion has to matter, that what you think should be what happens. Democracy means that you think you're relevant enough to have your voice heard," Liesel ranted.

"Is that wrong?"

"Not necessarily, but as beautiful as thinking that everyone's opinion matters is, it's a total lie, Some people have really shitty opinion. Some people put pineapples on pizza. As a matter of fact, we basically all have shitty opinions. What I'm trying to say here is that I think the robots should take over and obliterate the humans. We're a faulty breed."

I couldn't help but laugh at the train of thought. "Were you in the debate team in your last school?"

"Nah, but I did have sex with one of its members."

"You talk very casually about sex," I pointed out.

"I do. Because sex is an inherent aspect of the human experience. Generally speaking we're all the product of it. It's one of the most natural things we living creatures do. So I really don't see the big point in making it into something so hush hush and secret. I'm convinced that if people were more open about sex, we'd have a lot less problems."

"It's an interesting way to see it." Her drunken, probably slightly high rambles were entertaining. There was something actually fun about just lying there on a trampoline, talking with Liesel. The party hadn't really been that life changing. This part of it though, was kind of fun.

"Hey Liesel?"

"Huh?"

Smiling, I turned my head to look at her beside me. "This is actually nice."

She turned her head to look at me too and smiled back.