Kai leaving Evernight
One of the things that gets looked at a lot on my blog is the "What inspires...?" posts. It's mostly just my ramblings, but I wanted to share a serious one with you because it's directly related to something that plays out in the book. So if you haven't finished, maybe you shouldn't read this one just yet.
After Wintervention 1, Kai tells Dylan why he left Evernight, and he's recalling for her a party from years before where he saw you know who's dangerously predatory tendencies. This is based on a real situation that I witnessed and intervened in about a decade ago.
I frequented parties early in my twenties. A LOT of them. I haven't retired Party Girl status for good, but I just don't do it like I used to. One night I'm at a party of some friend of friends' with my BFFL, J,* and it's a rager. We wouldn't have even made it inside as quickly as we did if not for knowing people in the first place. The line was still stretched down the sidewalk when we left later. Anyway, I see one of my other friends, C, inside and she's a little drunk. The three of us do shots, but because I'm such a Mama Bear, I've already decided that it'll probably be my only drink for the night, and I want to be sure everyone's okay. It's, like, my thing. J and I hit the dance floor and do what we do best. C pops in every few minutes, but I see this guy, Mike,** being really clingy with her. I don't know him, but I don't like how pushy he's being. But she seems to be handling his advances. I ask her if she's okay and she says yes.
J and I had this huge group of guys who we had become close friends with because we all went to the same college and we danced with them and were just being silly. I asked one of them if he had seen C anywhere because I realized it had been awhile since she had come back. He tells me he saw her with "that tall guy" (Mike). It's been maybe an hour. I just get this feeling, you know the one. I tell J I'll be back. The place is dark. And not even party dark. It's really dark in there, and it's a big ass house. A rental, actually. So I'm pushing through people, just looking and looking for her. Outside. Upstairs. In the front. In the back. I skip the bathroom line and bang on the door. It's not her in there.
I'm pretty sure I've looked in every place, and I'm asking if there are any other parts to the house (yes, not kidding when I say it was ginormous). Someone says there's a basement. It's a basement with a door, so unless you actually opened it, it could've just been a closet door or something, if you weren't really paying attention, especially in the dark. The party was on the main level of house. I opened the basement door, I fly down the stairs, follow the light sound of voices, and slam into C and Mike. She has that drunk delay in reaction and her motor skills aren't the best, but her body language is not welcoming. She's moving in the direction I'm coming from and he's pulling her toward him.
It's been about ten years since this happened. And I'll never forget what happened next.
We all froze and my attention went straight to her. I told her she needed to come upstairs with me now. I could see the anger in his expression and he started to aggressively coax her to stay. He was defensively telling me that they were just going somewhere to talk. And she's fine and I needed to mind my business. I grab her hand and tell her J wants to see her because we were going to request some song we all really liked, so we could dance to it. Mike turns his full-blown aggression on me, calling me a cockblock and other not so pleasant names. I ignore him for the most part other than one STFU because C is holding on to my hand, and I'm scared shitless. And I just see this look on her face like, "Please get me out of here." She starts moving me back toward the stairs.
As for him, I have never seen anybody look at me with such hatred in their eyes before. Never. And haven't since. But I held my friend's hand and we went back up. My heart was racing. I was sweating. I guess part of me expected him to attack us or something.
C and I just made eye contact when we reached the landing. It might have only been for a few seconds, but it felt like hours, and we didn't talk about it at all later that night. I think we were both just too horrified. The rest of the night is a blur just because I think my brain went into protection mode and just shut down for a bit. It's funny, I remember the scene in the basement, down to our clothing, but nothing really after. I can't remember now if we ever talked about it, and I think Mike got thrown out of the party eventually. Oh as a side note, he was actually facing sexual assault charges at some point later on from a totally different incident.
I can't say 100% if I prevented something because I don't even want to think about it (All signs point to yes, though), even today. So, anyway, that's what inspired that scene in "Documentary" because it never left me. And it scared me for a long time. I understand well Kai's wonder of the "what if's."
I just never thought I'd be in that situation, seeing something like that.
*The initials used are for clarity only, and do not actually correspond to the people's real names.
** Not his real name.
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