Enchantment (46 page)

Angry murmurs of protest at me holding up the game shocked me into action. I looked down again at the bottle that pointed at me before sneaking another glance at Maggie. Her eyes were wide in frustration and a hint of embarrassment. Clearly, she wanted me to make a decision and not make her look bad in front of this group of seniors she desperately wanted to impress.

“Take the shots Mercy or give Flynn a big wet one, make your choice,” a voice said that could have been Jay’s. I wasn’t sure. The room was beginning to blur with the commotion and swirl with my emotions over what was to come next.

We of course were playing spin the bottle. The game wasn’t without consequences. The surface ones were to spin the bottle and kiss the person the bottle points to. If you didn’t want to kiss that person, then you drank a shot of Jack. Added to it, if the person took the kiss the shot poured was added to a pool of shots. What sat before me now was a bouquet of four shots of Jack Daniels. If I drank those shots, I wouldn’t just get a buzz. It would definitely get me drunk. I couldn’t afford that. Again it was not only the moral value that stopped me. It also wasn’t only because my mom would kill me, though she would if she found out. Truthfully, it was because I couldn’t afford to lose control. Not with death a possible consequence. Added to that, I really didn’t want to kiss Flynn.

“Don’t make me beg for Mercy,” Flynn said dragging out my name. The slight slur in his voice led me to believe he was on his way to being drunk if he wasn’t already. I’d heard this little joke far too many times to find it funny. In fact it really just ticked me off. Why my mother decided Mercy was a good choice for a first name so I would suffer my teen years as the butt of everyone’s jokes disturbed me. Did she think at all before naming me? Anger at myself for the situation I was in and anger at the boy whose insufferable conceitedness, still sent butterflies in my stomach, pissed me off to no end. So I turned, baring daggers with my eyes at him.

Looking at him I couldn’t help to see how he personified my word of the day, pompous jerk. Well, pompous was the word. I always checked and remembered what my SAT word of the day was. I tried to use it at least once in a sentence the same day. With the test looming in March, I was trying to expand my vocabulary.

I wouldn’t let this pompous, self-centered jerk who thought he was the next thing to God embarrass me. With my cheeks flushing anyway, I faced him. A quick peck on the lips wouldn’t kill him, could it?

His hand came up towards me. He must have assumed my choice with my movement. He swiftly cupped the back of my head and pulled me to him. I didn’t even have time to catch my breath before his mouth was on mine. It should have been quick. Nothing could possibly happen if it had been a quick peck. But he held me there for what seemed like an eternity with his mouth parting mine to explore me. I felt warm, a bit light headed and confused. After a lingering moment of absent judgment, I pushed him back to separate us. He rocked back with a burst of laughter which brightened my cheeks more. I glared at him. Our lip lock should have him pale and unsteady. But he seemed fine and a little flushed himself. I didn’t understand. How could it be possible? He should be lying on the ground unconscious or at least his face should be drained of any color. I shot up to my feet.

“Where’re you going Mercy? It seems Flynn may have found his match?” Brent said with another howl of laughter.

I brushed my hands down my tee still unsure of what to do. With everyone looking up at me still giggling and laughing I hastily turned and said, “Maggie, I’ll be back.” I walked across the room and away from the onlookers still in the circle when I heard a slap.

“Shut up Brent,” Kathy said. She must have leaned over and hit him. The laughter just intensified.

I was out the room in mere seconds. Music pulsated around me as I stood in the empty hallway where I could see everybody else milling about. The make shift dance floor in the middle of the living room was still filled with teenage lust. So I headed the opposite direction. There were only two more doors this direction in this massive hallway before it ended abruptly. I could only pray one of them was a bathroom.

Almost out of luck, I opened the second to last door and stepped into a small bathroom with nothing more than a toilet and sink. Moving to the sink I gripped the sides as I leaned in to look into the gold framed mirror. What I saw in the reflection was a complex mix of a younger version of my mother and my father. Although I looked a lot like my mom, I never felt effortlessly beautiful like she was. I’d gotten a lot of her facial features but my coloring and hazel eyes I’d recognized countless times in a picture my mom kept of my father. And that should have been my sober reminder of my fate. I couldn’t understand why I had allowed myself to be baited into kissing Flynn. If things had gone badly which it should have, how could I have lived with myself?

I pulled back my long wavy brown hair as I bent forward turning on the faucet with my free hand. I splashed water on my face remembering Paul and what’d happened that awful day.

ENCHANTMENT

Book One

by
 

Charlotte Abel

Copyright 2012 by Charlotte Abel

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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.