Harry Markenson

I arrive to Jackson’s house, I’ve been here before to a few of his after game parties. But I never really stayed long. His house is huge, there is like three or four levels. His money comes from his dad owning the biggest construction company in Cherry Creek, Colorado. I see Zach’s pull onto the street, and park on the side of the road, I see some smoke coming from his hood. I start walking towards him and he waves at me when he steps out of his car. I wave back, walk a little faster. He pops his hood and more smoke comes out. “Don’t worry, it happens sometimes,” he says. I remember it happening a few months ago when he was leaving school. “How do you fix it?” I ask. He slams the hood down and kicks the side of his engine. “That’s how,” he says, and I see the smoke cut off and end. I laugh and he smiles, “Jaxson’s got a big house,” he says pocketing his keys in his shorts, as we start walking towards the door. “Yeah,” I say, we get inside and right away there is a crowd of people. I spot Jackson across the room, he is drinking something in a red cup with all his friends around telling him to chug it, and I duck down. “Jackson’s across the room,” I say grabbing Zach’s arm and pulling him down with me. He looks down at his arm, then quickly up at me, “Did he see you?” He asks. “Nope, he is with his friends though.” “We can just get something to drink, and find a spot away from him, he’ll never see us anyway with this crowd.” “Yeah, I saw a table with something on it, we can head over this way,” I say and we shuffle our way though the crowd of half-drunk, dancing people. We reach the table and both grab and red cup and we both don’t even think about what’s in it before taking drinks, it’s definitely a mix of stuff. Zach looks around and then ducks down, I spotted Jaxson and I think he’s coming over here to get another drink.” This time he grabs my arm and pulls me away, straight into the middle of the floor. He lets go of my arm and takes a sip of his drink. I take another look behind me and see Jackson looking over at his friends and motioning them to come over to him, then he looks directly in our direction and smiles. “Run,” I say to Zach. “What?” “Run. We’ve been spotted,” he looks over my shoulder. “Fuck,” he whispers. He turns  and starts making his way through the crowd, I am close behind him. He takes a turn up and ends up facing the stairs, “I don’t know my way around here,” “Just keep going, we can hide.” He starts running again and I see Jaxson and his group making there way though the crowd, following us.