The party was okay, but Cindy was bored anyway. It wasn’t her friend Katie’s fault- Cindy just wasn’t into sleeping on the floor, playing games like truth or dare, and talking about the same thing she was required to talk about all day at school: boys, boys, boys. She quickly excused herself to the bathroom for probably the 3rd time since she arrived at the house a few hours earlier. Cindy felt relieved that she had avoided these parties for seventeen years now that she had experienced their dreadfulness.
The house was beautiful. Cindy stopped to look at a group of family photos carefully arranged on the wall. She saw who must have been Katie’s mother; Cindy had met Katie’s mother once but she was young and hadn’t been able to remember the blonde woman’s face. Cindy didn’t know quite what had happened, but from overhearing her own mother on the phone she knew that the story revolved loosely around Katie’s mom running off with another man and giving up her husband and children.