Hazel was at Wesley Lachance’s party on Friday night. She felt like taking it easy and wanted to spend the night at home with her dad reading together by their living room lamp, but her best friend Katie really wanted her to come with. Katie had a crush on Wesley and needed support from Hazel. Also, Katie had stolen a bottle of whiskey from her parents house and the two of them had poured a bit into coke bottles on their way to the party. Katie had some prior experience with alcohol and was generally more outgoing than Hazel. But Hazel had never drank before. While they were at the party Hazel pretended to drink from her bottle and would secretly pour out her drink when she knew Katie wasn’t looking.
It wasn’t as if Hazel was against drinking or judged people that did, it was more that she desired control over her actions and environment and when ever she observed her friends and classmates drinking she saw all the embarrassing things they did and how they acted and sounded like completely different people. Being with Katie was generally good enough for her. Katie was a lot braver than her and helped her initiate conversations with guys she was to shy to talk to and she helped her see things weren’t as serious as she made them out to be.
Hazel was seated at the edge of the swimming pool with her feet dipped into the water. Katie had gone inside to go to the bathroom 20 minutes ago and hadn’t yet returned: She looked around. there were about 25 other kids at the party, she knew all but 3 of them but was more comfortable sitting by herself. Every once in awhile she smiled at one of her acquaintances and chatted for a bit, but eventually she returned to observing the other guests in silence. She noticed that Danny Bender was being more social then usual. They had shared classes and buses for years but had only really gotten to know each other recently. She had always thought he was a pretentious jock, always brooding in the back and spending most of his time talking about sports with the popular boys.
This past year they were placed next to each other in chemistry class and were lab partners for the entire year. They would also meet up at Panera the night before exams and Hazel would help Danny get up to speed with the material. Danny was a lot kinder than Hazel had previously thought, he was always grateful for her help. He also was quite inquisitive. He would question Hazel on what she was reading or what she thought about different things. A month ago he told her she was the smartest person he knew. And last week he asked to borrow the book, the goldfinch, from her after she explained the basic plot to him. She kind of assumed he’d never actually get around to reading it. But she was happy to lend it to him nonetheless. She also, had made him a Spotify playlist of some songs she thought he might like. But she had decided to just keep it to herself.
She noticed Danny had smoked a little earlier and wanted to keep an eye on him just in case something happened to him. She wasn’t quite sure if he had even realized she was there yet, but she probably would go up to him and say hello soon. After he was finished talking to his friends and was all alone. He was sitting on a lawn chair next to his friend Derrick and three other girls. Hazel tried to hear what he was talking about, but she could not make out anything over the loud music. But judging by the expressions on the girls faces it was something very interesting.
