Natalie Ford

I’d already paid my four dollars so I could choose whatever I wanted from the table to drink, but I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to be there. The others around the table were all so sure of themselves taking shot after shot, turning less civilized as the night wore on. Finally, someone instructed me to drink from their glass, so I did.
I waited for something to happen, but I felt the same except for the fact my mind felt abnormally clear. I finished the drink and stood up as the room began to spin.
A couple of my friends were singing and dancing in the corner, and an old guitar lay by the couch. I picked it up and tried to play the only tune I know, but my fingers were clumsy and the vibrations felt so unreal against my chest. I looked up where some kid I knew from the sixth grade lay passed out on the couch, and behind him my wholesome Christian friend from eighth grade poured herself another shot.
I never wanted any of the guys I had dated previously, who admired my morality and the way I never got mixed in with the wrong crowd. I had my eye on one I knew that I could never have. The guy that partied on the weekends, but still cared about school and his friends. The guy that promised me the first party we went to together he would get me high, but I always chickened out before I went to one with him. Now it was too late, I would never party with him, let alone date him.
I lay the guitar down and lay myself on the ground next to it. The room was spinning and I felt so nauseous. Here I was, drinking what had killed him, just so I might know what it had been like to be more like him. Just so I could be the person he had tried to get me to become, the person that was perfect for him. It was too late and I knew it, but that didn’t stop me from being where I was.