I remember being taken down from the keg stand. I remember seeing her face, the look in her eyes as if she knew the pain I was feeling inside. As if her sympathy would heal me. I remember looking her straight in the eye and telling her. Telling her I saw him and her, saw them in the bathroom and not to worry about it. I was happy for them. I am happy for them, I told myself as I walked around the house, unable to remember where I'd left them or where they said they'd be.
I couldn't believe it. I'd walked in on Bradin and Callie, right there in the middle of the floor. What were they even doing? I fought with the alcohol for my memory, but it was clearly winning the battle. There was nothing I could about it, nothing I could do about any of it. I stumbled for a moment before regaining my balance with the back of a couch, without much thought I threw myself over the back of the couch and on top of a pair of making out teens from my school.
"Oh, sorry, Trista." I smiled meekly at the girl that I'd known from going to one too many of Callie's varsity volleyball games. She smiled back politely, not wanting to turn my already drunken stupor into a rage of emotions. I laid my head on the back of the couch, staring at the ceiling and wondering when I'd become so drunk. Where along the lines of tonight did I suddenly stop being able to walk? I asked myself, knowing if I said it out loud it would simply be a slur of sounds that no one in the general vicinity could hear even if there wasn't blaring music coming from the stereo next to me. I lifted my head that had began to weigh a thousand bounds over the course of the night, it rolled slightly to the side before I picked it up and caught, out of the corner of my eye, a boy with a bottle of Advil.
"Advil!" I shouted, running over to him as best I could, which resulted in a mere crooked line into a wall. I recovered quickly and brought myself over to him, "Hey, is that Advil you've got there?" He nodded, keeping his eyes on me and his mouth closed tightly, "You think I could bum one off you? I'm going to have a terrible headache tomorrow if I don't start popping the Advil right now." I joked with him, laughing in between hiccups.
"Sure." He opened the bottle and handed me a little white pill. I looked down at it in the palm of my hand for a second before drunkenly smiling back at him, "My mom once told me never to take pills at a party, but I knew you'd be honest. I knew this was Advil, what other pill is small and white?" He shrugged before placing the bottle back in his pocket and ambling off to go talk to some friends. Friends, I thought as I placed the little tablet on my tongue, looking around for a glass of water to down it with, where the hell are mine? I found a beer nearby and, figuring I had no better options, quickly swallowed the alcohol and pill, scrunching my face up at the bitter taste.
I made my way back over the couch which another couple had so graciously occupied. Sighing and knowing I didn't have much elsewhere to go than home, I walked out the door and down the street.
"Now let's see if I can remember how I got here." I slurred my words together, stepping over a few lawn chairs thrown about by partygoers and looking both ways down the street, "Left. Or Right?" I looked again, trying to decipher which one looked like the best route to 22 Ocean Grove Road, my street. The floor began to spin beneath me. "Whoa." I closed my eyes rather than sitting down for a moment and when I opened them it was distorted. Everything was. I turned left, deciding it looked like the shorter route and began to follow the gravel, keeping my head down was a better alternative than facing the never ending road. It stretched on for eternity, I was never going to get home at this rate. At least I'll be sober by the time I do, I meekly laughed to myself at the irony of it all before looking up one last time to see the distance I'd traveled. And then it happened. It melted away. The trees surrounding me began to drip like wet paint on a canvas. It peeled away into darkness and I couldn't see much more than my hand in front of my face, and even that seemed miles away. Holding my arm out in front of me I wiggled my fingers a few times, watching as one turned into 10 and then back into one again. Everything was in slow motion. What was happening to me? I tried it again, moving my hands slower this time, and yet again one turned into ten and then into twenty and then, as I came to a halt, back into one again. I'd begun to panic, running down the street every shadow hid a fear. Every corner was another thing to be afraid of, it was all wrong and upside, what had happened? Where was I? I couldn't take it anymore; I closed my eyes and sat on the curb, hoping it'd just pass. Hoping it was just a bad beer, but knowing exactly what it was. I sighed and opened my eyes slowly, first the right one a peek and then the left. It seemed fine, everything was back to normal again, but just as I stood up a pair of lights came flashing in my direction. Right at me. I was standing in the middle of the street and I'd somehow gotten glued there. I was glued to the pavement right in front of a moving car.
