Before you were famous

*smack* His hand slaps hard across my face. He hits with such force that it instantly burns and I can hear ringing in my ears. I drop down to the floor crying. He is standing over me laughing sadistically. I try to scream, but no sound escapes from my lips. Still he stands staring at me laughing. His laugh scares me. I start to panic I need to get out of here I need to get help. Where am I? I don't remember I don't know how I got here. “Please help me! Someone please he is going to kill me!” I scream helplessly trying to crawl away from him, but my body is frozen and I lay under his burning gaze. He is still laughing. His brown eyes burning almost red with power. He slowly comes closer to my face as I still lay frozen staring terrified. Slowly he places both hands around my neck all while still laughing and not breaking eye contact. He starts to tighten his grip. He is going to strangle me to death. There is nothing I can do so I close my eyes and pray that it ends quickly. Faintly I can hear my name being called it's soft, but I hear it. “Claire..” She calls out. I know that voice it's Lizzy's voice. Lizzy my best friend she found me. She is going to save me. “Claire...” I hear again this time a little louder. I turn my head towards the voice and hesitantly open my eyes. Worried brown eyes stare at me. Curly brown hair standing up in different directions. I look around and see that I am safely in our dorm room in my bed. The sun is just starting to burst through the window. “Hey babe you had another nightmare. This one sounded intense,” Lizzy says as she walks sleepily across the room and brings me a bottle of water from the mini fridge. “Do you remember what it was about?” She asks as she sits on the bed beside me. I quickly gulp down on the water my throat dry from the screaming. I rub  my neck checking for any pain to prove to myself that it is all in my head and only a bad dream. I shake my head at Lizzy. “No, I just remember you waking me up right now.” She narrows her eyes at me. She knows I'm lying, but she doesn't press on the subject. She's learnt not to ask me about my dreams after being my room mate for the last three years. I feel guilty about lying to her, but the less she know about my past the less she needs to worry about me or feel sorry for me. Going to college was my way of escaping my past and everyone who knew about it. Lizzy is sitting on her bed reading a mystery book. She turns her gaze towards me raising one eyebrow. “What?” She asks as she places her book down on the bed. I laugh. “How do you always know when I'm about to ask you something? I swear you're a mind reader.” She nods approvingly. “No, my dear I can feel your worried expression from miles away. Remember we are not only best friends, but I truly believe we are sisters.” We both smile. “I'm sorry that I worry you. I promise one day to tell you everything. I'm just not ready yet...” The words almost come out in a whisper as I look down at my hands ashamed, Lizzy jumps up from her bed and in two steps she is on my bed again hugging me closely. Tears are welling up in my eyes just thinking about my past. “You don't have to worry about that babe. I don't need to know who you were or what you did. I love this girl right here, right now and she is the most loving, selfless and kindest person I know. You are way better than most of the bitches I went to high school with. Hell you're better than all the bitches here in this college,” She says in almost a serious tone. I smile and wipe away the last tears that had formed on my cheek. Lizzy jumps up from the bed smiling. “Now since we are up way before the alarm is set. I propose that we start planing our outfits for the Alpha Kappa Delta party tonight,” Lizzy says as she pulls open her closet. I sigh heavily. I don't like the sorority parties. That's one of the reasons I never joined one. 3 years ago When I arrived at Harris Giles college to study English literature. I was a nervous wreck I came from a small town where everyone knew everything about each other and now I was alone away from home. I didn't want any attention on me and that meant that big parties were a big no, no. When Lizzy walked into our dorm room she was so happy her spirit just filled up the room. I instantly felt at ease. She gave me a once over look and nodded. “Wow, your hair is straight and beautiful I would kill for it.” She said smiling as she came closer to me taking in a strand of my hair inspecting it. “Is this your natural brown hair color or is it dyed?” She asks still holding on to my hair. I shake me head and turn away from her nervously. “No... no this is my natural color. My mom doesn't really approve of hair coloring,” I answered weakly playing nervously with the strand of hair she was inspecting. “Damn, I wish my own hair was that nice a color, but I’m a natural strawberry blond so I color it dark brown. It also helps to keep my curls from going to rowdy,” she said as she pulled on a loose curl. We both laughed. “My name is Lizzy Valentine by the way.” She put out her hand towards me. I smile and take her hand in mine shaking it. “I'm Claire Daniels.” That night she dragged me to sorority rush so that we could pledge Alpha Kappa Delta. The party house was filled to the brim with students everywhere drinking and dancing. As I walked into the house my anxiety instantly spiked. There were to many strangers pushing and bumping in to me. Everywhere I looked I could swear I saw his face. I tried pushing my anxiety away and had a somewhat okay night. Lizzy and I met Megan a sophomore in the AKD house. She wanted us both to pledge the house to Lizzy's delight and my dismay. When we went home that night we had been invited back to the AKD house for interviews to see if we were “the right fit” for AKD. I reluctantly agreed since Lizzy was giddy with excitement and I really wanted to be her friend. That night I had my first nightmare in a year. It had frightened Lizzy so much that she had thought it was her fault. I insisted it was nothing, but she firmly made up her mind that I was scared of large crowds that meant that we can not live in a sorority house. This instantly evaporated all my anxiety. We never went to the interviews, but still became friends with Megan. I never went to another party after that always making excuses not to. This frustrated Lizzy as she wanted to fix me and help me live a more full life. So she decided to change her major from arts to psychology so that she could fix me somehow. If only she knew how broken I was... Present Tonight was the last party for the year at AKD which meant it was Megan's last party at the college as she was graduating at the end of the week. So I had no more excuses to skip on the parties since we were personally invited by Megan and she promised that this would be the party of the century. I had no choice in the matter and had to accept my ultimate fate that I had to go. Luckily in the last three years I had learnt to cope with my anxiety and the more time went by the less I felt nervous and scared so I knew I could handle this one party, but just in case I had a good excuse to leave early... After working our butts off busting tables at the local diner for the last two years Lizzy and I had been saving up to go to New York city when we finally graduated the following year. I had never been there so this meant the world to me to go. Lizzy had told me about her summer vacations in new York and that she had an aunt who lived there so she would go every year to visit her aunt and explore the city. She had not been there again since starting college and she desperately wanted to go back again before going in to the “real world.” We got the crappy jobs at the diner to start saving up to get there. However earlier this week Lizzy's aunt had called her very excited and announced that she met a young bartender while out one night who was going on a tour of Europe the following Monday and wanted her to join him. Since it was such sort notice she could not get her usual house sitter and asked Lizzy if she would like to house sit for the two weeks she would be away. Lizzy ecstatically agreed and we now had an impromptu vacation. Since we did not need to pay for a hotel we had enough money for the plane tickets and spending money to tour the city, Because it was such sort notice we had to book the red eye flights for that Sunday morning at 1:00 am and because it was Friday night and most of the students would be going home tomorrow I would use the excuse to go pack just like the rest were doing. The entire morning went by in a haze. Still processing my dream I barely registered what was going on around me I kept seeing those evil brown eyes flash before my face. Laughing and taunting me. Lizzy took two hours to pick out the perfect black dress for the party and then pulled out a green sun dress from her closet throwing it at me on the bed. “Hey, sleepy head! Wear this dress tonight no one will keep their eyes off of you!” Lizzy said grinning seductively. This snapped me back to reality and I laughed. “Let's go get coffee and some breakfast,” I said while getting up from the bed, Coffee shop “Okay I will order our coffee if you go get us a table?” Lizzy nods at me and find a table against the window. It's still early so the coffee shop isn’t too busy. I don't need to stand too long in the queue to be helped. “Hi, can I please have two extra large cappuccino’s with cream and two grilled cheese sandwiches one brown one white bread.” I pay the cashier and wait patiently for our order. From the side of my eye I see a figure come closer to me. Instantly I tense up. I quickly look up at a familiar face and relax. It's just Dustin Raimes he had an English class with me this year. He's very good looking and I instantly blush thinking about it. His blonde hair reflects gold from the sun shining on it and he has light blue eyes that you just want to swim in. I'm not sure what a baseball player with a full baseball scholarship was doing in an English class, but I didn't mind the man candy at all this year. He is smiling at me as he slowly comes closer. “Hi, Claire sorry I just startled you,” he says apologetically. I am mortified he clearly saw me tense up a second ago. My cheeks instantly flush red and I look down. “no, Dustin please don't apologize I’m nervous by nature. Must be the small town paranoia creeping up,” I say nervously trying to stay composed. He laughs. “Are you going to the AKD party tonight? I hear it's going to be big,” Dustin asks as he looks at me nervously. For a moment I swear he is blushing as well, but he quickly composes himself and looks like a cocky jock again. “yeah, I kinda have to go Megan is a close friend and this is her party so I have no choice.” I smile shyly. Dustin takes a deep breath. He pauses for a moment and then looks defeated. “So I guess I will see there?” He asks expectantly. I nod and smile at him. “Yeah, definitely I will look for you in the crowd...” I answer and his face brightens up again. The cashier calls me closer bringing an end to our conversation. Lizzy smiles broadly as I walk towards her. “Who was that Hottie and where can I get one?” She asks as I sit down across from her. “It's Dustin Raimes... I think I have told you about him. We had a class together and had a study group once or twice. I honestly didn't think he remembered me.” Lizzy is still smiling as she start unwrapping her sandwich. “Oh, yeah the baseball guy. Damn if I knew he was that hot I would have gone on the study dates with you.” She winks at me and then bites into the bread. “so did he ask you out?” Lizzy asks after swallowing her bite of food. I shake my head and take a sip of coffee. “No, he just wanted to know if I'm going to the party tonight.” Lizzy almost chokes on her sip of coffee. She starts coughing. “You know what that means!” She says in between coughs. I shake my head oblivious to what she is implying. “He likes you!” I just snort at her and we both start laughing. “Come Claire finish up your food so that we can get going there is much to do and little time to do it! Tomorrow night we are flying to New York, but tonight we are going to party our faces off!” Lizzy start dancing in her chair and I can't help but to join her in the dance laughing. Alpha Kappa Delta party After getting ready most of the afternoon we finally arrive at the AKD party an hour late. The house is decorated with thousand of fairy lights making the place seem dream like from the outside with the glow it makes. There are already a dozen students on the front porch beer glasses in hand. Some are talking while the others dance to the music coming from inside the house. As we walk through the door the lights are out and the only light is coming from lasers and a lamp here ant there that is on. Megan spots us from across the room and she comes running towards us. She is clearly tipsy. Her pink dress sparkles from the laser lights that bounce off the sequence it has. Her long blond hair flows down her back in soft curls. She smiles at us her blue eyes looking a little glassy. “Oh my god you guys made it!” Her words come out slurred and I try to keep from laughing. “We wouldn't miss it for the world!” Lizzy says trying to keep in her own laugh. “Well ladieees have a look around and enjoy!” Megan says then turns around lifting her arms in triumph and screams: “This is my last party bitchesssss!” the entire party erupts in a simultaneous woohoo. Lizzy motions to me to go get some drinks. We head to the kitchen and despite myself I am smiling and enjoying the party. Lizzy hands me a plastic cup. “Here have some beer.” Lizzy looks past me and starts smiling. “I guess this is my queue to leave you two alone.” She winks at me and puzzled I turn around to see Dustin heading toward us. I instantly flush. I haven't had a boyfriend since I was 16 years old and had no Idea how dating worked never mind if someone was interested in me. Dustin smiled as he came and stood beside me. “Hey, Claire...” he greets me and then pours himself a drink. I greet him back and then we stand in awkward silence for a moment. I try and break the ice. “So are you enjoying the party?” I ask nervously. He smiles. “It's great I see Megan got wasted pretty fast.” I laugh agreeing. Dustin takes a deep breath again. “I actually have to leave soon...” he pauses and downs his drink. I feel a little disappointed that he has to leave. “I was actually looking for you before I left. I was wondering if we can go on a date... tomorrow night if that is... if that is something you would like?” He asks nervously and I smile with excitement and then I’m disappointed again. For the first time I regret the flight we had booked for tomorrow night. “oh, I would like to go out with you, but...” I see his face instantly drop. “No, no no I would really like to go...,” I laugh nervously “I would like to go out with you, but I'm actually flying to New York tomorrow night for two weeks.” I see relieve flash across his face. “So if you don't mind can we reschedule for when we are back from holiday's?” he smiles and plants a kiss on my cheek. “I will take you up on that offer. So when you're back from New York you can give me a call.” He says goodbye and leaves the party. I go looking for Lizzy and find her dancing by the pool. She smiles and pulls me into the dance.  I don't know for how long we dance, but the night seemed to never end. By 2:30 my feet are killing me and I reluctantly ask Lizzy if we can go home. She is tipsy herself and refuses at first to go home, but after bribing her with food she agrees to leave. When we finally get in to bed I drift to sleep happy and smiling.