"Are they really that bad?" asked Joni looking at his blue-yellow bleached sneakers. They weren't precisely ruined, but the strap of denim hanging from each left side of the shoes wasn't really fashionable as he had thought that morning.

As Stacey rolled her eyes she dived into Joni's wardrobe searching for decent shoes. "Geez, you could've at last left some that didn't look like the left overs of a clown's closet" yellow mustard and Mexican pink slip-ons flew across Joni's room.

"A clown's closet? really? Stacey if that's the best you can come up with, you're not alright. "Joni was a concerned friend, he was able to look trough Stacey's common hysteria and tried to help a friend in need.

"Just put your effing shoes on and get outside" she said, giving him some old plain black Converse.

She was so worked up due to the fact that it was the 7th party that month they would attend to that had a guest list -if you can call it that way- containing no name they had ever heard of, or wanted to hear of. But that was the thing, it was about excitement and discovering the unknown, or at least that's what Stacey said all the time so logic wouldn't come as an obstacle in the matter.

Joni was putting on one shoe when he couldn't take it any more "Okay Stacey, what the hell is with you and these parties anyway?" he said, because of course like the good childhood best friend he was, he had to be there for all her whacked up adventures, except this were just wild parties which none of the two ever really enjoyed. So much for adventure.

"Gosh... do we really need to discuss this right now? I've told you they're fun, we have to try new things..." she said looking at her watch, noticing it didn't have battery since last week "Hurry, we'll be late."

This had become one of those problems Joni hated, but not because he didn't like drama, but because it was like in the shitty teenage TV shows where for some reason the episode features how Rosa, the latin immigrant, starts to have drug problems, and with an intervention of her friends she quits, of course this all happens in one single episode. And now Joni saw the intervention coming.

"Look I don't know if you're on drugs or your parents want you to go back to Puerto Rico; but this has to stop, we don't know any-fucking-body at these underground places you take me. And what's worse is that we always end up in a corner talking about the dumbest things, which we could do here. Oh and of course, we meet the occasional pothead who wants to score with you" he said, he expected some discussion to begin where she would end up crying and telling him all about her problems with some guy named Richie, or maybe Joni watched too much TV.

"Puerto Rico? What the hell are you talking about? And mister, just for the record potheads have also wanted to score with you, remember that guy with the green beard?" Stacey said, bringing some sort of comedy relief into the atmosphere.

"That's beside the point. And he was not addicted, he was just going through a harsh time in life..." Joni said, trying to get off his record drug addicts. "The point is, Stacey, what the hell are we doing?"

She sighed, and then opened her mouth but only mumble was heard "It's just that I..." she sighed again. "You know how we talked the other day about there being books you wish you had read already just because they're classics and it's like mandatory, but you would die of boredom reading them?" She was trying to make a point.

"Are you trying to make a point, because if not that's some nasty change of topic" Joni said remembering how he only commented on never reading The Great Gatsby, and how that developed into a huge monologue where Stacey amused herself for hours.

"Well, these parties, these things we go to are like that. I don't really enjoy getting drunk in God knows what warehouse in the middle of nothing with a bunch of strangers. Actually I don't enjoy any of this, any of the common social shit we are supposed to do like teenagers. I'm awkward, I don't have a freaking idea of how to dance techno, I never know what to say, I can't act cool to save my life. It's like having to try too hard for something that I'm supposed to be liking" she said, she had entered into a nervous breakdown, sort of what Joni expected but not so much.

"So this is not about Richie I guess" Joni didn't know where this was going

"Who the hell is Richie?"

"Never mind, so why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep dragging me to these places if you fucking hate it so much?" Now he was pissed, all those nights he could have stayed home and tune the Project Runway recaps...

"Don't you see? This is like those books Joni, this is the Great Gatsby, this is Moby Dick and Oliver freaking Twist. The parts of life we are expected to live but we are not so into... Just like I don't want to go to a literature major without reading those books, I can't conceive reaching adulthood without doing these crazy ass things. And so I have to do it, we have to do it, so we don't miss a thing."She was not sure of making any sense, even to herself, but it didn’t matter because the TV melodrama had kicked in.

“Listen Stacey, I honestly got kind of lost in your ramble, but if you don’t want to go or you don’t want to do any of this social conventions, then don’t.” Joni was now actually not getting his line from a ridiculous TV teen drama. “Fuck ‘em all, if you want to reach your forties being a virgin who has never taken a shot of cheap rum then be proud of that, because the world is full of skanks, who needs more?”

Stacey had broke into tears half into the nervous breakdown but she couldn’t help but to smile and throw her arms to Joni.

“You’re a fucking idiot you know” she said, grasping his torso harder.

“You won’t let me forget it” they laughed, but the sort of laugh that comes when realizing there is no more that can be done about the boring lives that belong to one, not the sort of happy ending laugh.

“You know, it’s just that I get too anxious thinking of these Quixotes and Iliads… I feel like I’m missing out of so much” she said, noticing her poorly done make up was ruined.

“Well, don’t rush it, if you want to do it let it be a decision not some anxious reflex. You gotta make yourself happy, and I hear nerdy losers can be very happy too you know”

“jerk”

“depressive maniac”

“Diney Channel freak”

“bitch”

“fag”

“I love you…”

“mee too”