The weekends had been draining me. I would go to school, and after school, I would have cheer practice, then I'd go and finish my homework and go to sleep. There's the occasional time I would hang out with my friends, but I couldn’t muster up the will to do that every day of the week, on top of the weekends we had. Phoebe and Emma's boyfriend, Malachi, usually stayed at my house, though. When I didn't feel like putting in the effort to be around everyone, they had their own rooms and stayed in there. They lived with me for the most part. It’s like they weren't even there sometimes, but we still had the company of one another. A mini frat house is what we called it, because sometimes Breelyn or Emma would stay, or some of our other close friends like Lila and Olivia. It’s the house that people would always come to, whether someone was home or not. I loved it that way. My mom didn’t mind if boys spent the night either, and she knew I wouldn't take advantage of that.

  “It’s Friday!” Someone pointed at me as I walked down the hallway. I waved to them, giving a calm smile. I barely recognized the face that had spoken to me.

  “Friday at the Clark’s, are you going?” I could hear snippets of conversations as people walked past me. It was only the fourth period, going into the fifth, but already word had gotten around the school of the huge party I was throwing. I heard my name getting brought up so many times throughout my walk to my class that "Clark" didn't feel like a word anymore. When I finally got into the classroom and sat down, people would walk up to me asking about the party. My friends would tell me how excited they were, then there’d be whispers of it the whole class period before I had to go to my next class and do it all over again; Questions, whispers, repeat. It was the routine that had developed throughout the week; people would talk about it in the halls the whole time during class, they’d approach me, my friends told me how excited they were, then I'd go back out into the hallway again. All week long, every class period. Truth was, though, I was just as excited as they were with a little lick of stress. It would be fun, but there was always the chance of my house getting trashed.

  Initially, at the start of the week, I had been so stressed. I finally convinced my mom to let me have a half-indoor, half-outdoor party, and I invited the whole school here in Hartland, the many schools in Alvord, and the schools in Bowie. Somehow, though, it had reached much farther than that. I had friends I made from my fire academy texting me about it, and they lived in Illinois and Kansas. The only problem was that on Monday, my friend Lila had approached me. She told me her friend Brayden wanted to throw a bonfire, and that a lot of his friends would be there. He was a year older than me, which meant a lot of the upperclassmen boys would go to his party. I couldn’t have that happen, so between class periods, I made a group chat on my phone and convinced him to join my party. He reluctantly agreed, and I later found out that it was a whole setup. He liked me, and all of his friends, including Lila, were trying to set us up.

  After school, I had about fifteen people over---people I was close friends with and could trust that knew the land well enough---and we began to set up. We pulled tables inside and outside and laid silo cups half full of water on all of them, then pulled out hundreds of chairs and set them up in random spots. My mom’s rules had been that nobody could go into people's rooms, so we locked them all from the inside and put signs on the doors. Halfway through us setting up, my brother Conner and Jacob pulled into the driveway. Jacob got out, waving to us.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “I heard you’re throwing a party? What’s this one supposed to be like?” Jacob asked me once I walked up to him. Greenwood didn’t throw parties. They barely knew what a real bonfire was. They’d sit around it, maybe open up a few cans, but that was it. They had no idea what really went on down here.

  “Multi-school,” I pulled out my phone to show him my Snapchat. I clicked on the stories button, and everyone’s stories were a screenshot of the invites I had sent out.

  “Shit, Amelia, is that a good idea? Bowie and Alvord are a little shady, don't you think?” I shrugged and put my phone back in my pocket.

  “I don’t know, but I need you and Conner to cut down some trees. Chainsaws in the front yard!” I had already started walking away.

  It was getting closer and closer to the time of arrival, and already, there were ten more people here. They helped us drag fully cut down ash trees into the fire. By the time we were done, it was about 30 feet tall and 30 feet wide. We drenched it in gas, but we didn’t light it quite yet.

  When the clock struck the starting time, we had at least 60 people here. We had two different speakers; one inside, and one outside, but they were both connected to the same phone. You could hear people throwing ping-pong balls all over the place, and a bunch of people shooting their cans. Conner and Gunner had invited their college and work friends too, and to my surprise, there were just as many of them as there were us.

  An hour later, the number of people doubled. I could barely make it through the house, and it was safe to say it was a success. I ran around, talking to people I knew, talking to people I barely knew. My friends were trying to set me up with random people, to which I kept pulling the excuse that I had to go find someone, and then I'd have to do it all over again thirty minutes later.

  Around midnight was the peak number of people. I went into my room and locked the door, taking a breather and enjoying the air circulation of an empty room. There were so many people inside that even the stairs had kids sardined on them. I knew the railing was bound to break, but we thought about that before throwing the party. Anything could be fixed. That's what I kept telling myself, at least. I walked over to the window and climbed through, finding myself on the roof and standing in front of a hundred people. I heard a few yells and some people pointing in my direction. A couple of people yelled my name, but I shouted back into the crowd.

  “Everyone, come outside for a picture!” I yelled. I had to yell it a couple more times before I heard my command being repeated amongst everyone. Soon, the house was almost empty, and the entire yard was covered in people with strobe lights shooting into the sky. I flipped the camera around and extended my arm, getting the large majority in the picture and myself in the corner. I then recorded it, showing myself and flipping the camera to capture the full student body.

  By the time it reached three in the morning, the majority of the people were gone, but there were about fifty of us left. Most people were lying around the yard, or inside, but Jacob and I and a couple of random people from Hartsville, our rival school, were left. I sat on the steps with them, laying my forehead flat down on an empty keg stand. “Dude, I've never seen a party this big. You're gonna host again?” I didn’t even know this boy's name, but he was speaking to me.

  “Maybe annually,” I slowly lifted my head. “Can’t overuse the spot and burn it out, y’know?” They laughed and said something I couldn’t quite comprehend. Soon, I found myself asleep on the concrete, the whole night becoming one big blur.