Baby, you're my fireworks

Laughing, bottles being thrown into bins and shattering. The sounds of a party ending, of youths being disruptive, were slowly dying down. She had been walking along with some other girls from school, but suddenly, she was alone. She had stopped to fix her shoe, but nobody had bothered to wait for her. She looked around, saw the figures disappear in the distance. She wanted to yell out, but her voice croaked pathetically instead. The wind blew cold on her bare shoulders.

Immediately, the little American flag in her hand felt foolish, as did the sparkly make-up on her eye lids. It was the weekend after the Fourth of July, a holiday that used to be a big deal in her household of proud patriots. As the day had past she had felt immense home sickness, so imagine her happiness when Channel and the other girls had invited her for a celebration in the city. A party. She had never been to a party before. She had borrowed clothes and make-up. Had tried to dance, which had failed miserably. Then she had tried to drown that awkwardness away with alcohol. It had only partially worked.

She felt a bit unsteady on her feet, and tried to pull her short bright red skirt down to cover more of her body. Alone, she felt uncomfortable. She looked around, but didn't know which way to go for the school grounds. Cold, lost, and out of her comfort zone, she started to shake a bit. Her legs were tired from walking on high heels half a size too big, her eyes were tired from the small amount of alcohol she had consumed. She sat down under the artificial, flickering light of street light and slumped down. Just a little break. Just a little rest before she continued.

There, on a bench in the park, she rested her face in her hands and tried not to cry. Why was she such a failure?

OOC: in the park at night time, weekend after the 4th of july

She could feel tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, stinging, hot. Lorelei clenched her eyes shut, trying to will them back. She refused to cry. You're pathetic, she scolded herself. Her short fingernails dug into the palms of her hands.

Footsteps shook her out of her state of self hate - at least temporarily. Of course her pathetic self had drawn the attention of a beautiful woman. The upbeat tone of her voice immediately made Lorelei uncomfortable, ashamed of her own feelings of sadness. ''No- yeah, I am fine, absolutely fine,'' she answered, with the fakest, most unconvincing smile humanity had ever seen, and a out-of-place thumbs up.

She was a bad liar, both due to her nature and due to a lack of practice, but that didn't mean she wouldn't try to convince the purple-haired woman that everything was fine. ''Just resting my feet,'' she assured her. It was starting to sound a bit more convincing. And she actually was starting to feel a little better, or more accurately, less bad.

Luckily, the other girl seemed to buy her excuse. Agreed with it, even. And it was partially true, her heels were killing her. ''Uhu,'' she mumbled, not sure what else to say. She sort of appreciated the concern from a stranger, but honestly, she'd rather be alone so she could cry freely, instead of having to keep up appearances.

As soon as the woman asked if she could sit down, Lorelei scooted up to create more space. Not that there was a lack of it on the bench, but it was too late already. ''O-of course not!'' Lorelei answered shakily. She tried to sound as cheery as the other woman, but couldn't keep it up. She sniffled and broke down. ''I'm sorry, I've lost my friends and now I just don't know what to do.'' Her voice was barely a whisper as she continued, her voice breaking: ''They didn't even wait for me.'' Her tear-filled eyes looked up at the woman. ''I'm sorry,'' she apologized, again.

Her first instinct had been to hide away her feelings and try to pretend everything was alright. That tactic usually worked on people who were merely superficially interested, who just felt obliged to check in on her, because of a sense of humanitarian duty. But she couldn't keep up the act for too long - the alcohol in her veins made lying difficult, and she was honestly tired of pretending. So she just stopped fighting and gave in to her sadness for a little while.

''Yeah, it was, we were coming back from a party, for the fourth of july, a-and I was so happy I was invited, but I didn't really know anyone so I guess they just forgot about me.'' She could hardly blame them, she had just been trailing behind the group, trying to walk next to two other girls, but she kept having to move back because the path was too narrow. ''N-no, we can sit for a bit.. If- if you have nothing better to do.'' She swallowed and tried to send the girl a small smile of gratitude. ''I'd like that, actually,'' she admitted.

When the girl mentioned not needing any sleep, Lorelei's mouth formed a surprised 'o'. That was so handy. She would kill for that. Lorelei needed sleep, desperately needed it, but due to the constant buzzing feeling of her radar sense it was hard to get into deep sleep. She was currently surviving with the use of small naps spread throughout the day.

When the woman started her warning, Lorelei automatically tensed up and moved herself even further to the edge of the bench. Vampire? Her mouth ran dry and she had a hard time believing that it was indeed as harmless as advertised. Sucking off emotions? But she didn't know what else to do, and didn't want to offend the lady. Plus, it was nice to have someone to talk to. So she only whispered a pathetic: ''You promise it doesn't hurt me?''

''Yeah, I'm from a small town in Tennessee.. So it's different being here, really really different.'' She clasped her hands together nervously. The thought of home made her slightly nauseous. She didn't know if her parents were looking for her. She didn't even know if she could ever go back. And that was quite a scary thought. ''Where are you from?'' she then asked, looking for a distraction. ''I'm Lorelei, by the way,'' she added quickly.