Disclaimer: Don't own Newsies, Ershey owns herself.
I wrote this on Christmas Eve, so... Merry Christmas, Ersh. :)
Perfect
Ershey stormed through the massive crowd of college students, the loud music of an overly-blown up pop star blaring in her ears. She cursed loudly to no one about the music choice, but that was the least of her worries. Her opinion would not have mattered anyway, since no one could hear themselves think over the roar. She almost lost her hearing as she passed a Bose speaker that seemed to tower over her as she made her way to the staircase at the end of the hall.
Finally reaching the staircase, she discovered it was blocked by a passed out sophomore on the floor. Too angry to be polite, she nudged the sophomore less than gently in the side with her boot, but he did not move. He was holding a half-empty beer bottle in his hand and his shirt was stained with god-knows-what. As if she wasn't frustrated enough already, this moron had to drink himself into near intoxication, then block her get away path.
"Oh!" came a shrill voice from behind her. "Here he is, guys, I found him!" Ershey turned around and found a Barbie doll heading her way. The blonde sophomore, wearing close to nothing in her black tube top and white mini skirt, shoved Ershey aside and grabbed the arm of the passed out boy on the floor.
Ershey waited, arms crossed, as the Barbie tugged on the arm of the boy until, finally, he was flipped over onto his back and she was dragging him away from the door, giggling drunkenly. Ershey pulled her jacket closer around her, opened the door, and climbed quickly up the staircase, cursing under her breath. "Underclassmen."
Emerging onto the rooftop of the fraternity house that was hosting the party, she heaved a sigh of relief mixed with disappointment and sadness. The year's first party had not gone her way.
To start off, Ershey had arrived at the party forty-five minutes late, because her car would not start. Since she was the one that her friends relied on to drive them places, so she could not ask them to take her to the party. Luckily, she found a girl who gladly drove her to the party. She had only met the girl once, because they had Theory of Knowledge together.
It was pouring rain by the time she got to the party, so, after thanking Theory-of-Knowledge-girl, she ran as fast as she could with her high-heeled boots into the frat house. Immediately rushing to the bathroom, she was dismayed by the fact that her hair was completely soaking wet. Thank god she had worn a jacket over her outfit so one thing was not ruined.
Walking back out, she quickly scanned the room for the reason she was there, for there was, really, only one. She had heard about this party from one of her best guy friends, Dominic Rodriguez, who had also given her the heads up about a certain guy that had a huge crush on her.
"Are you serious?" she had asked Dominic, a smile spreading across her face. "Mush? Mush Meyers?"
"What other Mush do you know?" Dominic replied, patting her on the head and grinning. "He's going to be at this party on Saturday. I think you should go... I mean, I know how much you like the guy."
"Shh!" Ershey hissed quickly, looking around to make sure no one had heard them. "Tell the whole world, why don'tcha..."
A grin spread across Ershey's face as she spotted Mush, chatting with his group of friends in the corner of the room. It also made her happy to see that he wasn't drunk off his ass like many of the other people were. The party had only been alive for an hour and people were already passed out on the floor. She made her way over to him as quickly as possible.
"Hey," Ershey said, tapping on his shoulder. She didn't see the rest of his friends glance at each other, smirk, and walk away casually.
"Oh, uh, hey," Mush said, taking a sip of his drink, glancing at her once, then quickly breaking eye contact.
"You're, like, the only person I know at this party," Ershey replied, trying to ignore his aloofness. "How do you know so many people from UCSD?"
Mush shrugged, staring into his drink like it was the most interesting thing in the world.
"Oh," Ershey said, after a small awkward silence. "Well, then, how–."
"Look, I gotta go, okay?" And without waiting for a response, Mush brushed past her and headed toward his group of friends. It took a couple moments of disappointment before anger settled in, and she glared at him, her dark eyes flashing.
As if on cue, a freshman bumped clumsily into Ershey, splashing whatever was in his drink cup onto her clothes. Before the freshman could apologize, she pushed him backwards, and stormed off through the crowd, making sure to elbow Mush in the side before exiting out the door and onto the roof.
So, there she was, clutching her jacket around her tightly, trying to escape the biting winter winds. She could tell the sky was overcast even though it was night. There were no stars.
"I don't get it," Ershey thought watching her breath turn to steam as she exhaled. "Dominic wouldn't lie to me... Why did Mush seem so... uncaring?"
"Ersh?"
Ershey was suddenly aware of another person's presence on the rooftop with her. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't recognized the person's voice immediately.
"Hm?" she said, turning around slowly and coming face to face with Mush, closing the door behind him. She tried to look as uncaring as she could, which wasn't too hard, since she was furious with him for blowing her off.
"Are you alright?" Mush asked, moving toward her, trying to hide the fact that he was freezing. He wasn't wearing a jacket.
"Oh, yes, I'm absolutely perfect," Ershey replied cynically. "This party's great, isn't it? There's just nothing better than coming to a party, knowing only a single person, and then being all but completely ignored by that person. Perfect."
Mush sighed, white steam emitting from his mouth as he wrapped his arms around himself. "Look, I'm sorry... I just–."
"Just what, hm? Just don't like me? Is that it? Let me tell you, there are far better ways to tell a person that you don't like them, and there are far better people that I could be wasting my time with, and there are far–."
"Far better words you could be repeating?" Mush interrupted, grinning slightly. Ershey was unmoved, still glaring at him. "Sorry. Look, I wasn't ignoring you..."
"Then what exactly were you doing?" Ershey asked. "This oughta be good."
Mush took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, staring at his shoes. "I'm not exactly the most confident guy when talking to girls in public. Er, especially ones I like as much as you."
Ershey was hoping he'd say something like that, despite how angry she had been with him. "Really?" she asked, smiling sheepishly.
"Well, yeah," Mush replied, smiling as well.
"Perfect," Ershey said happily. "I like you a lot too."
"I know," Mush replied, closing the gap between them. "Dominic told me."
Whatever Ershey was about to say was forgotten as Mush cut off her reply with a kiss.
A/N: See, Ersh? I TOLD you I'd finally get around to writing you a one-shot. :)
Okay, now, press that little blue button and give me 1 ego point, while I think of what I'm going to do for the next chapter of Lost and Found... ((scuttles off))