GABRIELLA
The bass hits me before anything else does. The music is thumping and the disco is dizzying. Lisa's hand tightens around mine as she pulls me into the crowd.
I've been to parties before, if you count Papa’s exquisite dinners where I had to watch from my bedroom window.
This is vastly different from those formal events.
There are bodies everywhere. Some are dancing, some are doing…other things in the dim corners of the floor, pressed up against walls and each other in corners where the lights are low enough, and none of them seems to care who's watching. Smoke hangs in the air, sweet and heavy, and I have to fight the urge to cough or press my hand to my nose. I don't want to look like what I am.
A girl who's never been to a real party in her life.
Lisa weaves through the c
