A L I HUGHES
your heart is beating, isn't it?
Normally, Ali would have talked out his Agon worries with June, but when she presented him with an obscene amount of chocolate muffins, he knew that he should probably avoid bringing up any of his problems with her. At least for now. Normally, with problems he didnāt want to talk to his sister about, heād go talk to Elliot, but he seemed pretty busy inspiring and helping students who had powers that they could actually control, and were useful. There was no way he was going to talk to his own teammates about his anxieties (they didnāt deserve that. They had their own worries and he would only make it worse.), and talking to someone on a different team, regardless of how close they were, just felt like a bad idea. So- believe it or not- heād spent the days leading up to the Agon (and, by default, the party) brooding by himself, eating muffins.
He wasnāt really sure he wanted to go to the party. Parties werenāt usually his idea of a good time. He didnāt like loud music, he didnāt like crowds (he didnāt like fun, said the helpful depreciating voice inside his head), so he wasnāt sure what good going would be. But Reagan said she was going, and before he knew it he was saying heād be there.
So there he was. At this party. Woo-hoo. He felt really out of his element. Looked it, too. It wasnāt as if he never got together with his friends, but all of this paired with the quickly approaching Agon was a little overwhelming.
He scanned the crowd when heād arrived; there were plenty of people heād consider friends hanging around. Should he say hi? Most of them seemed to be having a decent enough time without him. He didnāt want to be a buzzkill. Youāre always a bit of a buzzkill. Why does anyone hang out with you? A compelling question; certainly something to consider late at night as he fell asleep.
He would need a drink if he was going to stay at this party.
However, as he stared down the options at one of the open bars, he felt absolutely sure that nobody should be putting anything that glowed like that into their body. Eh, bottomās up. This was a party. It was supposed to be fun. It was fine. He was fine.
After that, he managed to worm his way through the crowd. It wasnāt as if he was avoiding people, he was just avoiding people. A part of him wished heād worn something less colorful, but he didnāt want to be accused of being a killjoy. Not that it wouldnāt have been a fair accusation.
Then heād found Reagan, or sheād found him. He didnāt know whoād spotted who first, but she was impossible to miss in that outfit. āOh, thank god,ā He said as he approached her, quickly pulling her into a potentially-awkward-but-not-at-all-awkward one armed hug. He let out a heavy sigh, which Reagan was likely more than used to hearing from him, and said, āI hate it here, Rae.ā