"I hate this," I said to Louis as we stepped out of the swelteringly hot and incredibly loud club. The balcony we'd walked out onto was cooled by only a mild summer breeze, but after the oppressive warmth of inside it felt almost freezing - although the cold and silence was a relief. The door behind us swung shut, and the raucous noise cut off to a muted murmur. I took a deep breath of the fresh night air.
"I'm not sure that I see the appeal either." Louis chuckled. He looked great again - gelled hair, nice shirt, no glasses. Seeing him on nights out like this, it was almost hard to believe he was the nerdy, quiet guy who was always showing up at our AP maths classes. He shrugged. "But Jess seems happy."
He wasn't wrong - she'd definitely seemed full of chaotic energy. She, Eric and Vince had started drinking earlier in the day without the rest of us, and by the time we'd all met up they were much further along the road to giggly and happy than anyone else. It hadn't helped that almost the very instant we'd gotten to the club, Eric and Ellie had abandoned me to go dance.
At least I wasn't alone in not wanting to flail about like an idiot on a crowded floor full of sweaty strangers. Louis, Sarah and John had stayed with me, although the happy couple had quickly settled down at a table to make out, so I was left talking to Louis - not that it had been easy to do that with the music making it impossible to hear each other.
"I just don't get why people like clubbing so much." I stepped up to the railing, looking down at the cars below.
Louis stepped up next to me. "Alcohol, drugs and sex, I'd think. Mostly, anyway."
"Well, I don't do any drugs, and I'm clearly not having sex with Eric tonight. Unless he drags me off to the bathroom." I grinned as Louis blushed. "And because I'm driving you and Ellie home, I don't get to drink, so I guess I'm doomed."
"I guess so." Louis laughed. "Thanks for that offer, by the way. With the test tomorrow, it's nice to not have to risk waiting a long time for an Uber."
"No problem. Your house is on the way, anyway."
"Yeah..." He looked out at the street. "Maybe you'd like gay clubs more."
I frowned. "Why?"
"Oh, I... I don't know." He turned to me, and shrugged. "Just a bunch of things. Hot bartenders. Guys dancing together. You can just be yourself there, without worrying, you know? Hold a guy's hand. Or sit there and make-out, like John and Sara can here."
"I guess I can see the appeal. Of the being yourself thing - like the hand-holding. Making out in front of everyone seems..."
"Gross, yeah. I agree. John's disgusting." He smiled broadly, and I laughed. "Oh, and the music is usually better too."
"Well, anything's got to be better than this crappy techno bullshit."
He laughed. "Yeah..."
"Why does Jess even like this place?"
"Oh, I have no idea. Jess and I aren't really close any more."
"Oh. Sorry."
"Oh, don't be. It's not like we were super close to start with, but stuff happened a little while ago, and I just get the sense she doesn't like me now." He cleared his throat. "But yeah, sorry. I shouldn't bring up our drama. I don't like gossiping anyway."
"Okay." I smiled. "Nice to know you guys have problems with each other, though. When I met you, you all seemed kind of... perfect."
"Oh god." He laughed. "I hope that's just you being naive."
"Maybe. Do you want me to change the topic?"
"Yes please. Did you have something in mind?"
"Yeah. A fun Lord of the Rings analysis I saw online."
"Okay, awesome." He tapped his fist rhythmically on the railing.
"Frodo learned all his elvish from books given to Bilbo, which were old and quite formal, apparently. But Legolas grew up as sort of a country-lord, interacting with the Silvan elves who had a more colloquial dialect. So Legolas's elvish would have sounded really hickish, and Frodo's would have been very fancy and formal."
Louis leaned against me slightly and laughed. "That's a fun thought."
"Isn't it just?"
"And Aragon gets to watch them interact and laugh at the hobbit sounding like a school teacher and the classy elf sounding like a farmer." He smiled broadly. "Brilliant."
I chuckled and turned my face out to the street, inhaling the somewhat fresh night air. "I always liked that scene in Two Towers, where Legolas and Aragon are arguing about the defence of helms deep, and Legolas says - in Elvish - that 'they're all going to die' or something. Then Aragorn shouts back 'Then I shall die as one of them!', but in Westron."
"Oh god. Terrible for morale."
"Exactly."
Other people came out of the door behind us, and made their way to the other side of the balcony. They sat down and started to smoke. We got a little quiet after that, and eventually he glanced at the door. "Should we head back, see what everyone's up to? If Ellie wants to leave soon, I'm happy to go whenever."
"Uh, yeah. Okay." Getting out of there soon would be great, but Ellie actually liked dancing, so it would be difficult to persuade her to leave early if she was still having fun. But I couldn't spend all night on the balcony with Louis - despite how much I preferred being able to breathe and talk to someone nice instead of feeling awkward for not dancing and being deafened by awful music.
We made our way back into the noise and the heat of the upper level, which only covered half the floor space, and was crowded with tables and chairs. From the railing at the far end, where Louis and I settled, you could look down onto the dancefloor on the lower level. Louis nudged me and pointed down to a section of the crowd, and I saw our friends dancing. They were all gathered around in a circle, moving to the rhythm - more or less.
Apart from Ellie, no one was doing anything particularly graceful. Melissa was a passable dancer, and she clearly had her attention on a reasonably attractive guy that was hanging around the group. Vince was objectively awful, flailing around, mostly just making everyone laugh.
It seemed like Eric and Jess were dancing with each other, while still pressed up against the group. Neither of them were particularly good, but they were clearly having a lot of fun. Watching Eric's body move was captivating, even from a distance. I laughed when Jess leaned in and kissed him.
As the kiss dragged on, however, and he didn't seem to have a problem with it, it got decidedly less funny. I looked at the rest of the group - Vince looked awkward, Ellie looked shocked and Melissa looked furious.
I watched the guy next to Mel stop dancing as he saw the look on her face, and he leaned over to shout something in her ear. She shook her head, and marched up to Eric and Jess and pulled them apart. She grabbed him forcefully, and shouted something in his ear, gesturing up to me.
He looked up and we locked eyes. It was mesmerising, and awful. It felt like we just sat there staring at each other for hours, even though it must have only been seconds. Then I turned my head to the side, seeing the pale and concerned face of Louis.
He leaned in to shout in my ear, "Are you okay?"
Was I okay? No. I shook my head and stood up, immediately heading back towards the door to the balcony. I gritted my teeth as I barged out onto the balcony, and set myself against the railing, staring absently out into the street.
"Jay, are you okay?" Louis asked, settling next to me at the railing.
"I think I want to go home now," I said stiffly.
"Right, of course, okay. I'll text Ellie." He pulled out his phone. "I might stay and calm down Melissa. But don't worry, I'll get a lift home from her or an Uber."
We sat there in silence for a while. I was just trying to figure out how I'd gone from not caring to being so mad. I realised with a start that when Eric had told me he was sort of into girls, I hadn't really believed him. So when he'd told me he'd dated Jess, I guess I had just... assumed it hadn't been anything serious.
But now it was all I could think about - their history, the way they acted around each other, how often they were alone together. Although my conscience knew it was wrong, I started to hate her.
Eric appeared at the door, with Ellie just behind him. She lingered in the doorway instead of following him as he stepped up to the railing to stand next to me.
"Hey." He said, his hands in his pockets.
"I'm going to go... find Melissa." Louis quickly pushed himself off the railing, and made for the door. He stopped to talk to Ellie on his way, and then went inside.
