The Supreme

This party sucked. So much noise and so little space. Normally I would be fine sharing some air with a few strangers, but this place only brings me closer to empathizing with God's choice to nearly wipe out the human race. If he hated us then, what could he possibly think about us now?

I scan the room for the billionth time to look for my friends. All of them have a drink in their hands, and I can clearly tell how wasted they are all gonna be by the end of the party. Cameron, our designated driver, is passed out in a corner, and everyone else with a license is one shot away from forgetting their ABCs. Why on earth did I agree to come here? I mean I know that I was desperate to make some friends, but I didn't need to come to a party just to prove that I was worth their time. Fake friends and fake happiness are the only things I've managed to find in Las Vegas public schooling. After all, when you move halfway across the country following the death of your mother to go live with your douchebag Dad, it's difficult to find anyone to relate to. Being a senior doesn't help either.

"Ayyyyyyyyyyyy! Y/N!" Cameron slurs.

So he wasn't passed out. Great.

"Hey," I reply, playing with the plastic straw of my caprisun. I sure as hell am not getting drunk tonight.

"Did I ever tell you, just how much I loooooooooove you?" he continues, a goofy smile on his face.

"I don't recall you saying such a thing," I smile.

If it were anyone else saying that to me, I would have punched them in their face. But Cameron is Cameron. He is the "gay best friend" of the group, and I'm the "anti-social dyke with daddy and mommy issues". Naturally we've formed an alliance, and naturally, we both have each other's backs; even when drunk. I suppose Cameron is my one exception to the all fake friends thing I've got going on.

"Y'know, we should get outta here, go to a gay bar or something," he suggests, nearly toppling over some wasted jock as he makes his way over to me.

"We aren't 21. They wouldn't let us in."

"Yes they would!" he pouts. "I'd hit them with my best dance moves and then they'd have to let us in," he insists.

"Really? What kind of dance moves?" I prompt, and if Cameron wasn't drunk I'm positive he would have seen my horns.

"These!" Cameron hollers, breaking out into a bunch of Michael Jackson esque dances, dulled and a bit uncoordinated from the alchohol; but damn can he dance.

"Wow Cameron!" I holler over the music. "You are gonna turn me straight!" I joke.

"I'd always go straight for you!" he winks.

Another thing Cam and I have got going for us is our pact. This pact details that if both of us are not in a stable relationship by 35, we will pool our adult money together and move to the Oregon Coast. Naturally, we'd buy a nice big beach house from the Victorian Era and live there with our plants and our 25 different cats and dogs. It's a good plan if I'm being honest.

As I'm about to crack another inside joke, I hear the sound of police sirens, and my brain delivers a massive jolt of adrenaline to my body. The room goes silent, and then just like that it erupts into chaos. Bodies shove past me left and right, and by way of the general movement of traffic, I am shoved out of the front door and away from Cameron and the others. I don't have time to think, and as soon as my feet hit the pavement of the sidewalk, I start running. Cam's smart. He can take care of the others, and he knows I can take care of myself.

The rhythmic slapping of my shoes against concrete and the thrum of my heartbeat in my ears is all I can hear in my state. All I know is that I need to get as far away from the house and the sirens as possible. The rest can come later. Finally, as I take a right into a secluded park, I stop to catch my breath and assess my surroundings. I don't have the slightest clue of where I am.

Cam was the one who drove us to the party because he lived the closest and knew the route. He was also the one with the free car and enough gas money, but whatever. Usually I'm good at documenting my surroundings, but the only route from my house to the party was the route that I ran away from; the route where the police sirens were coming from. Shit. I am well and truly lost.

I thumb through the contacts of my phone. It's an old flip phone so I don't have GPS or access to the internet. Two things you'd think my Dad would have the common sense to provide me with, but this is the same guy that showed up to my baby shower drunk and emaciated. Don't even get me started on how he was at my delivery. I cried for an hour after my Mom told me that story. I stare at the stupid glow of the phone, and thumb through my data plan. One call. That's how much data I have left.

Calm down. It's not a big deal. I've been in worse situations before, and I have the resources I need to get the help I need. I click open my contacts bar again and survey my options. I could call Cameron, but he's busy enough getting the others home, and I still don't know if he even made it out of the house. Don't think like that. Cam's fine. He made it out just fine. Maybe I could call my Dad. It would be the perfect time for him to show up in a suit of shining armor and save the day. Fuck. He's out of town again. My neighbor Anne. She said that if I needed anything I could just call, but I don't think that she meant picking me up in the middle of the night after I ran from a party.

I continue down the list of contacts and I get more hopeless with every passing name I see. Finally, I reach the bottom of the list, and one name pops up. Xandra. My Dad's longtime girlfriend and the person that caused such a massive instance of gay panic that I literally couldn't look her in the eyes when I met her. She's in town, of course. My Dad insisted that she stay at home to look after me. He even left her his mustang, but I know that he only did that so she wouldn't give him too much hell.

My thumb hovers over the select button, and I shiver. She's the only choice I have, but I would drown all of humanity myself if God could send me another option. He's not going to. Figures. Irritated, I click the button and without giving a second thought, I hit the call button, holding it up to my ear before I can regret it.

The call rings three times before she picks up, and the anxiety it causes me must have shaved another five years off of my life.

"Hello?" she says, and I hear the annoyance seeping through her tone. It'd be insulting if I didn't find it kinda hot.

"Hey. Uh- I know this is kinda bad but, uh-"

"-You aren't upstairs sleeping are you?" she cuts me off.

"Yea." I sigh, and a part of my soul crumples with shame. I base my worth on her validation. Duh. That's literally the essence of being a lesbian; basing your worth on what hot older women think about you.

"Please tell me you aren't drunk at some party," she groans.

"No actually," I say. "I'm stone-cold sober and hanging around in a park because I have no idea where I am,"

"That's even worse!"

I swallow, and tears start forming in my eyes. Losing a family member is hard, especially when you still need them. To say that makes you sensitive is an understatement.

"Okay," Xandra sighs, and I hear the jingle of her keys. "Tell me where you are."

"Umm okay," I squeak. I'd rather sound like a chipmunk than let her hear just how shaky my voice is. If I wasn't crying before, I am now.

"The park is called Desert Waves,"

"Is it next to a Starbucks?" she asks, and I can hear the exhaustion in her tone.

"Yea."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes,"

"Okay," I croak, my face wet with tears.

"Your face better be dry when I get there," she orders, and I hear the familiar click of the call disconnecting.

What. A. Bitch.

I let out a strangled sob as I sit down on a park bench, crawling into a ball. I hate her so much. I never asked for this. I didn't want my Mom to die. We had our entire future planned out together. We were gonna move to New York when I turned 15 in between the cusp of Junior High and High School where I would pursue my dream of fashion design and she would pursue her dream to be a chef. Dreams are made to be broken, and breast cancer was just the tool fate used to take her away from me.

I remember all the visits to the ER. All the couches I slept on while my Mom was rushed from one hospital to the next. I even remember the time my friend's Mom took me to a pizza shop and arcade just so I didn't have to think about my Mom's surgery that night. I never complained. I did my best to be strong for her, to be the model daughter. Straight As through high school. No matter how long I cried my eyes out, I always made sure to do good on that test for Mom.

I did my best to have my life put together for everyone around me. The move to Las Vegas had been hell, but every adult I ever came in contact with always made a point to tell me how easy it was to work with me. Dad signing the paperwork was easy. I made sure he knew exactly what he was agreeing to. I even picked out my school and paid for all the things I needed for the last semester of high school out of my own pocket. And of course he smiled at me and thanked me for making it so easy. I was the model daughter. No one else had to deal with me or my problems because I carried whatever weight of mine on my own. But even carrying the weight of one person's world is hard, and God forbid that I ever got tired.

The sound of a car pulling up jolts me from my thoughts, and I wipe my eyes and my face before she can see them. Low and behold it's my Dad's mustang. I walk over and open the door, sliding in the passenger seat without even looking at Xandra. Yea it's a feat. Yea, I'm proud of it. I hear a familiar condescending sigh, and I have to fight the urge to roll my eyes.

"Open your mouth and look at me," she snarks.

"I beg your pardon?" I reply, mimicking her sharp tone.

"Do I need to repeat myself? After picking you up in the middle of the night you're gonna make me repeat myself?" Xandra growls, tone cracking from her constant habit of smoking cigarettes.

I turn towards her and open my mouth. Yea I'm pissed, but I'm not stupid. I repeat this mantra as she leans over towards my face, and I wish that it was enough to stop the butterflies that erupt in my ribcage.

"Exhale,"

I do as she says, and she sniffs the air. I notice her posture shift into a more relaxed state, but I couldn't be more tense and confused.

"No alcohol on your breath. At least you didn't lie to me about that,"

Is that what that was about? Thank God. I didn't need one more unexplained incident between Xandra and I to rattle around in my brain late at night.

"So where are your friends?" she casually asks.

Another thing I forgot to mention about Xandra. She is a human lie detector and knows you are lying before you even open her mouth to fib. This goes for half-truths and generally leaving key information out of a story. I didn't lie to her about that, but the fact that I left out that I had been at a party was bad enough.

Wait.

If she knows when people lie, why did she smell my breath? Did she seriously give me the benefit of the doubt that I wasn't lying until she could confirm it herself? That's new.

"I don't know," I say. It's the truth, plain and simple.

"So you just left them?" she smirks.

"Well, it was either run after them and risk the chance of being caught by the police, or run when I got the chance. Besides, only one of them is actually a real friend and Cameron can take care of himself."

"So you've got a boyfriend?" Xandra teases, and it almost feels light-hearted.

"We're both gay," I deadpan.

Nice going Y/N. You just came out to the one person you are most certainly gay for, not to mention the fact that she could make your life living hell if she disapproves of it.

"Explains your obsession with Rachel Weiss," she chuckles.

Well. That went so much better than I thought it would.

"What do you want to eat?" she asks.

Food and being with the hottest woman on the planet? Fuck yes.

"Chick-Fil-A," I offer hopefully, to which Xandra snorts.

"The restaurant that pays organizations to commit hate crimes against gay people like yourself? That's homophobia,"

"At this point, it's really only another form of self-deprecation. Besides, their chicken nuggets are to die and go to hell for."

This comment cracks up Xandra so much that she pulls over to the side of the road to laugh some more.

"You good?" I ask.

"You'd- Go. To. Hell- FOR CHICKEN NUGGETS?!" she cackles.

"That and for kissing a woman."

If the comment about chicken nuggets had caused her to laugh hysterically, this one was like shoving her in a bucket of ice water.

"You aren't going to hell, Y/N," she says somberly.

"How do you know that?" I ask softly. It's a question. Not a personal attack.

"Because there is nothing wrong with loving who you want to, and no one gets to tell you any different, do ya hear?"

It's at moments like these where she gets serious that I notice she develops an accent. It's subtle, but I hear it.

"Yea. I hear you,"

"Good. Now pick out some music. I hate driving in silence," she murmurs, pointing to her phone in the cupholder.

Thumbing through her music, I find an album I would never expect to find in her music collection. Her music taste is generally something I couldn't have imagined. Lorde's Pure Heroine stands proud throughout her collection of Joji and Lana Del Ray. Scrolling through the album, I click on "Ribs", and let it fill the hollow car as we drive through the neon streets of Las Vegas.

The familiar lyrics fill the air, and I smile. We have the same taste in music. The butterflies in my rib cage light up again. This is gonna be an interesting ride.