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Vortex Club parties. You either love them or you hate them and attend anyway. Either way, they were always crowded and stuffy with shitty music and even shittier alcohol. You weren’t a frequenter of these parties, they weren’t your idea of a good Friday night. After attending a couple of them when you first started attending Blackwell, you realized they were all the same, so you stopped going and decided to spend your time other ways, usually off campus. Whether you spent that time alone or with friends who also didn’t go to the parties depended on how the week went.
This Friday was no different. There was another party with another stupid theme that nobody ever followed, and you were off doing your own thing. Though this Friday in particular, you spent it alone. You caught a movie, ate at the Two Whales, and took a walk along the beach, even getting a few nice photos for Jefferson’s class throughout the night. It was getting late though, and you were feeling tired, so you drove back to campus, parking your car in the lot. Getting out, it was pretty quiet except for the thump thump thump of the music coming from the pool house. The thick brick walls always did a good job of keeping the music inside, but the heavy bass still found its way through every time.
You started your stroll back to the dormitories—Phone in hand, scrolling social media. When you neared the front of the pool house, you heard a strained groan. Your brows furrowed, and you looked around, then spotted him, Nathan Prescott, sitting on the ground, leaned up again the wall of the building. His knees were pulled up with his arms draped over them, where his head rested. You debated going over for a moment. Nathan wasn’t a nice person. While you hadn’t dealt with his antics firsthand, you heard the stories from your friends and other students, even seeing some interactions he’s had around campus. But… You were a nice person. You couldn’t let someone who was clearly very intoxicated just sit there with no one there to help them out, even if it was Nathan.
You sighed and stepped closer to him, gently speaking up, “Hey… Nathan? Are you alright?”
“Ugh, I feel like shit…” He mumbled, looking up at you. Despite sitting, he swayed a bit, his eyes squinting and fluttering as they tried to focus on you.
“Do you want me to help you back to your dorm?” You asked as you took another cautious step closer. He weakly nodded as he tried to get up from the concrete, stumbling into you, and you quickly wrapped your arms around his torso to support his weight and keep him from collapsing. He smelled heavily of booze and weed, and if it were possible, you’d be getting secondhand drunk and high off fumes alone. You grabbed his arm and pulled it around your shoulder, letting him rest his body weight into your side.
“Everything is so blurry.” He groaned as you two started heading toward the dorms.
“You probably don’t even know who’s helping you right now…” You murmured to yourself with a dry laugh. He turned his head to look at you, blinking hard.
“You sound familiar. Do I… Do I know you?” He asked.
You told him your first name. Then your first and last name. When he still stared at you a bit confused, you repressed an eye roll. “We have Jefferson’s class together?”
“Mhm, I remember you.” He stumbled again, almost tripping over his feet, and you quickly tightened your arms around him.
“I’m glad.” You strained.
“Shut up,” He responded with an overly dramatic roll of his eyes, but then he groaned. “How much did I drink?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t at the party, let alone in VIP.”
“You didn’t miss out. Party’s a shitshow. Fuck…” Nathan pressed the heel of his palm into his temple.
“Hey, hey. You’re alright,” You softly said, and he rested his head on your shoulder. He was barely even walking, taking one step for every three you took. You were doing most of the work and struggling like hell to drag him along with almost all his body weight leaning on you. You groaned as you adjusted your grip on him a bit. “Why was the party a shitshow?”
“Same bullshit like always… Everybody just wants something from me…” He was being very open with you in a way you knew he most likely wasn’t. Thank you alcohol!
“Yeah. Sorry.” You awkwardly replied, unsure of how to contribute to this conversation.
“Like… It’s all fake. Everyone acts like they’re my friend because of my dad and my money.”
“I bet.”
“Just bullshit expectations. Bullshit friends. Bullshit family. Shitty life… I just need to get out of here.”
“Out of where?”
“I… I feel like shit…” Nathan clutched his stomach.
“Oh, oh. Okay. Let’s sit down.” Your eyes widened as you dragged him over to the nearest bench on the path as quickly as you could, helping him sit down before you positioned yourself behind him. You stood behind him as he leaned over, holding his one shoulder to keep him from falling face first onto the concrete, and your other hand gently rubbed his back. He was trembling a bit under your hands as he took shallow breaths.
“I think I’m gonna be sick…” He grumbled.
“I know, that’s why I sat you down. Just… Just let it out. You’ll probably feel better.” You softly spoke, and he nodded weakly. He sat there for a moment, and you were beginning to wonder if he was actually going to throw up, but with how tense his body was in your hand, it told you everything you needed to know. Finally, he gagged once, then twice, before emptying his stomach onto the pathway with a disgusting splat.
Your face scrunched up as you turned your head away from the sight, continuing to rub his back. “There you go. Let it all out.”
Nathan groaned before coughing and spluttering with his head still hanging between his legs, but he felt a lot less tense now. When he stopped coughing and steadied his breathing, he wiped his mouth and straightened up, leaning back against you.
“You feeling a bit better?” You inquired as you rubbed his shoulders, staring down at him. He took a couple of deep breaths before he ran a hand through his hair, pushing back the strands that fell over his forehead. He then tilted his head back to look up at you. His eyes were glassy, miserable, and tired. He looked like a beaten puppy.
“I think so,” His voice was quiet as he replied, barely a whisper.
“Hey, you wanna keep heading to your dorm?” You gently asked. Nathan nodded with a sigh and tried to get up, quickly grabbing your arm for support when his knees buckled. You helped him up fully—and around the pile of vomit that poor Samuel was going to have to clean up in the morning—and started toward the dormitories once more, his arm slung around your shoulders again, though you didn’t have to support his weight as much as before.
“You said you wanted to get out of here…?” You tried to resume the conversation, mainly because you were nosy and he was being very open to you despite the two of you basically being strangers.
“I’m just– I’m sick of this place.” He shrugged weakly. “I’m tired of everyone pretending to be my friend just because they want something from me. I’m tired of my dad and his bullshit.”
“So you wanna get out of Arcadia Bay as a whole, not just Blackwell?” Your brows furrowed.
“Yeah, I wanna get out of this shithole. Maybe even the whole state. Or the country. I don’t fucking care… Anywhere. I just don’t wanna be here.”
“Yeah, I feel that way too sometimes…” You murmured.
Nathan turned his head to you, and you met his eyes. He seemed a bit more aware now but still very drunk. “You feel that way too?” You gave a small nodded and looked ahead again. It took him a moment to reply upon seeing your pensive expression, “Yeah, Arcadia Bay is… Kinda the worst.”
In a typical sense, no, it wasn’t. It was a beautiful, small town with quite lovely people. The issue was that it was rotting from the inside out. With all the issues in Blackwell, the local government, and, well, the Prescotts, the beauty was just a facade to try and draw people here. It definitely worked with you when you decided to come here and attend Black well. The brouchers and websites you read made it seem wonderful, but you probably wouldn’t have come here if you had known everything that laid beneath the surface. While you liked the friends you made here and you liked Blackwell as a concept since you go to focus on studying the arts more than you’d be able to at any other normal school, the bad tended to outweigh the good more than you’d care to admit. The bullied were somehow worse here than they were at your old school because here they were rich, pretentious douchebags.
Obviously, Nathan had a different viewpoint on all of this than you. His disdain for Arcadia Bay was purely based around his family, and anyone with a brain would be able to deduce that from this conversations. He wanted to get away from his reputation and his family as well as the horrid history of this town that was directly related to them. You did your own research into the Prescotts once you got here and heard the whispers about them. Father after father they all seemed shitty. Each one had some bullshit they did which resulted in tearing this sweet town down with each generation. Though what Sean Prescott was currently doing to the town seemed worse than all of his predecessors. Screwing the fishing industry, tearing down the forest on Native American tribal land to build housing… He was shitty. So it was really no surprise that Nathan wanted to get out of this town. He definitely had the weight of his father’s actions on his shoulders, which you knew had to do a lot to him mentally considering the immense anger you’d seen him expressing almost daily. He probably had people attacking him for things he didn’t even do, so you couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for him.
“Maybe we can run away from here.” You joked with a dry laugh.
Nathan scoffed and gave a small laugh in return. “Don’t forget how rich I am. You could run away with me and never have to work a day in your life.” The words came out clearly as a joke, but you felt a hint of genuineness behind them.
“Two people who barely even know each other running off together…” You trailed off as a soft smile curved your lips.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t sound too awful, I guess. It sounds way better than staying here in this shithole. What’s stopping us?”
“I mean… Well, nothing besides school, I suppose.”
“I know some good beaches in Portugal. We went on vacation there one summer.”
“You’re actually serious.” You laughed incredulously.
“It was a joke at first. Sorta… But why couldn’t we?”
“Nathan, you’re drunk…” You softly responded.
“I’m not that drunk now,” He said defensively. He wasn’t. He was able to hold most of his weight now, swaying only a bit, and his speech wasn’t as horribly slurred anymore. But he was still drunk, spouting drunk thought. “You said you felt the same way as me, right?”
You sighed. “I did.”
“Then we should go. Right now. Who’s gonna stop us?”
“You being drunk.” You reiterated with another laugh and a shake of your head.
“Okay. Tomorrow then. When I’m sober.”
“Yeah, because you’ll still want to go. Especially while being horribly hungover.” You sarcastically replied.
“I will.” He shot back, eyes narrowing.
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” You lightheartedly rolled your eyes as the two of you strolled up to the dorms.
“I’ll text you. Don’t worry,” He said, followed by a grunt as his foot got caught on one of the steps as you both ascended the short staircase.
“I’ll be waiting for it.” You played along like you would with a child to get them to drop a conversation. He didn’t have your number, and you sure as hell weren’t going to leave it. He didn’t seem like he was going to ask for it either, but you highly doubted he’d even remember this entire interaction tomorrow. He would wake up in his bed in his dorm, assume one of his (supposedly) shitty friends brought him back, and never think anything else about it. You’d fade into the background of his life again as Classmate #7, and he would never give you a second look unless it was to possibly yell at you about some dumb shit.
The two of you eventually arrive at his dorm, and he fumbled with his keys, muttering curses with his forehead pressed against the door. He finally got the right one and shoved it into the lock, almost falling when he opened it with all his weight still propped against it. You saw it coming from a mile away though and were already grabbing him and helping him inside.
Your eyes darted around his dimly lit room as you guided him to his bed. It was really nice compared to yours. He had a bigger bed than the standard, pre-issued ones in the dorms, a nice projector and screen, bookshelves filled with what looked like movies, but you couldn’t really tell from where you stood with the shitty lighting. Nathan pulled away from you and yanked off his jacket, which he threw uncaringly across the room, before flopping face-first down onto his bed.
“Well… I’ll see you around.” You softly spoke.
“Tomorrow.” He attempted to correct you, his voice a bit muffled.
“Yep, okay. Tomorrow.” You repeated with a roll of your eyes. You had barely got your words out before he was snoring, and you couldn’t stop a snort from leaving you as you spun on your heel and left, shutting the door behind you. Now on your own, you were left to think about how interesting tonight had become as you headed up to your own dorm to turn in for the night.