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Spoiler! :
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Rated for drug and alcohol use.
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Chloe,
When did we go from catching lizards and hosting teddy-bear tea parties to smoking, lying, drinking and kissing?
It definitely wasn't a sudden change, an over-night magic spell that changed us from bright-eyed children to the teenagers our parents warned us about. We were like super-heroes, but a different sort; extraodrinarily good when teachers or parents were watching and extraordinarily bad once parents were asleep and windows could be unlatched.
You were reaching valedictorian status, Nina was on her way to becoming a prima ballerina, Daniel flying to Los Angeles, New York, San Fransisco for violin recitals monthly and even me and Aiden beating school, then district then state records on the baseball team.
Then night fell and we would shed our genius, dancer, musician, athlete skins and slither to whatever rave was being held that night at whatever club we could get into with our cheap fake I.Ds. We would drink a bit on the way there, beer or whiskey or rum or anything we could get our hands on, just until our eyes were glassy and everything seemed hilarious.
The guys dressed averagely in the same jeans we wore to school, the same shirt our mothers folded earlier that day but you girls swapped Aeropostale and Abercrombie tees for skin-tight dresses in every color in the rainbow, short enough to make us look twice but long enough to keep our imaginations in check. Your heels were high and your lips slightly redder, your eyes slightly bigger, your hair slightly shinnier and everything just slightly better.
We would dance so close, you'd have thought we were melded together, people we barely knew became our best friends, the music so loud our eardrums popped and our hearts pounded in sync, but that was okay because there were no consequences to anything, to lighting another blunt, to staying out until 3 or 4 in the morning, to hooking up in a bathroom or a closet or Jessica Mendels' parents' bedroom.
We were magic. Nothing could touch us, nothing could hurt us. We were made of titanium, so divorces and dance teachers who expected the impossible and tired fingers that couldn't move fast enough over the strings and mothers who spent her nights mourning someone who never really existed to you didn't exist. Those thoughts were plunged far back into your mind, where yellow-white lines of crank and the half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels could make you forget.
Not that we did the crank, of course. Meth wasn't for us; we had tried it a few times, inhaling the powdery crystals, allowing them to dance up our nose and make us fly. We stopped because the crash was the worst feeling in the universe and because we were afraid of crank, afraid of shooting so high we might never come down.
We preferred pot, loved the way it made our hearts beat faster but slower, how everything seemed quiet but so loud, how it made us feel so alive, how the smoke mixed with beer and sweat and perfume and lip stick was the best thing in the world and no one ever wanted it to end.
But when it did, we would slip back into our windows, wash off the remnants of the night and put back our masks for the next day, so when we woke, exhausted and hungry, and our mothers asked how we slept, we could say it was the best we ever had.
Of course, the magic wears off and the titanium rusts because sometimes it wasn't enough and we would puke in the bushes, or spend the night sobbing into our knees or drink a little too much, smoke a little too much and lose control.
I remember once you were dancing with some guy and he was being too rough, pulling you away from the dance floor and towards the staircase. You were doe-eyed and naive, not noticing how old he really was, still thinking everything was oh-so-very-funny and that it was just a big joke. I was dancing with a girl, tall with long auburn hair and these dark, smoldering eyes; I pushed her away and tried reaching you. I was pushing through the crowd, but you had already went through the door and I could no longer see you.
Aiden, who had distangled Nina from whoever she was grinding with, was also shoving his way to the door and when we reached it, he was the one opening it and he was the one who threw the guy against the wall like he weighed three pounds. He was the one who punched and kicked the guy until he was nothing but a bloody, moaning mess on the floor. He was the one who took you from where you were crying and shaking in Nina's arms, your tights ripped at the thighs and your hair messy and tangled, and hoisted you up, bridal-style outside and in the cold, November air.
He walked across the street to the park and gently set you down on a green bench; Nina had went to get our coats and Aiden took his and covered you with it. You were still crying and Aiden sat next to you and you collapsed in his arms.
I did nothing. I wanted to, I wanted to sink my fist into that guy's mouth, I wanted to comfort you and I wanted you to love me as you began to love him after that night, but Aiden was faster, always had been and always will be one step ahead. The next morning, you barely remembered the details of the night, but I suppose Aiden's heroism imprinted on your memory and that was all that mattered.
Sometimes I would wake up, either alone or with some girl on someone's couch, red cups and cigarette butts littering the floor, with my head feeling like how Zeus' must have felt when Athena ripped it in two and the strangest feeling that I was going to regret the night before. I would force myself up, in search of the bathroom, where extra-stregth Tylenol would be hiding in medicine cabinets, pop three pills in my mouth without water and go back to couch. My head would still be pounding and my eyes would tear; it was at times like these that sleep was like fog or smoke, a tangible, real thing but impossible to grasp.
And sometimes I would wake and find you, in a bedroom with a blanket covering your body, loosely wrapped around Aiden, with your hair tousled and your make-up smeared. I would go over to you and push back your hair, kiss your forehead and leave, finding an empty bed or couch to sleep on, my head pounding and eyes tearing for an entirely different reason.
I think it was those moments that always made me go out again the next night. Only so, maybe once I would wake up and find you, breathing softly, the magic from last night gone, looking like a little girl playing in mommy's make-up, next to me. Only so, maybe once I could close my eyes and go back to sleep satisfied.
Even when we hit senior year and college was the glaring elephant in the room, we still went out every once in a while, on my request.
We'd get drunk, get high, laughlaughlove then morning would come and even surrounded by sleeping people, I'd still be alone.
Tyler.
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Next chapter is right heeere.
Spoiler! :
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