2003-07-18T02:32:00.000-07:00

Something random I wrote a while ago...

The last time rain had touched the old cottage, the shrieks and squeals of children could be heard as they pushed through the aging doors to find shelter inside. Now, small drops of water tapped the roof and rolled down to stroke the perimeter, as if attempting to repair the holes and chipped white paint, to reverse the years of neglect and abuse from harsh winds. The shutters creaked as they swayed back and forth rhythmically, the windows appearing as if they were straining to detect the sounds of the children who once peered through their panes. The only sound in the air was that of the rain intensifying, beating against the door and urging it to swing open, to give a faint taste of hope that with the opportunity to enter, those who once did would suddenly reappear.
Impenetrable as it seemed, the indoors of the cottage began to stir, as they had not done for a long time. Small cracks in the roof had once been a burden, but now they offered a solution to the house’s long-standing thirst, allowing rainwater to seep slowly through, falling to the hardwood floors and disturbing the dust that lay there, drop by drop. Settling on the windowsills and below each window was a small puddle of green film, as the raindrops danced their way inside, inviting with them strips of old green paint from the shutters that they passed. As these shutters moved, small gusts of wind seized the opportunity to enter, patting every still piece of furniture and calling the names of all of those who had also once touched them. Overhead, the clouds, satisfied that they had done their job of awakening the slumbering cottage, began to move on, taking with them the pitter-pattering sounds of the rain on the roof and on the porch. As they shifted to leave, an arch appeared in the sky, as a rainbow, fearing that the cottage would forget the bright colors that had once been so important, took its place as a kind, protective hand above the cottage, ensuring that it would not age any further.

2003-07-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

7/16/03
Stealing Champagne
During my soulless years as a teenager, there was hardly anybody who knew of the real me. The drugs, the sex, the thoughtless encounters—those who knew me best knew nothing of that part of my life. And those who knew of those areas of my life had nothing to do with the “real” life that I led, involving working hard in school, attending church on Sundays, and playing tennis every Wednesday with my father—a life void of hangovers and morning-after pills.
My name is Liliana, though the people I played with on weekends knew me mostly as Lyla—a nickname that curiously doesn’t derive from my own name, if pronounced correctly. I don’t recall the exact origins of the name “Lyla”, though it’s probably not a far off guess to figure that it started with some man who could care less about what I was saying when I told him my name, and only murmured “mmmhmm, Lyla” while faintly listening to me and grabbing for my breasts. I’d like to think that Jake came up with it, but I doubt that he did.
I met Jake when I was thirteen years old. He was eighteen at the time, appearing so much older than me, but still, so young, with such a sense of adventure that I couldn’t possibly resist the temptations to be a part of his weekend experiences. Young and shy, with freckles, shaggy hair, and breasts too big for my body, I would have given anything to be considered a friend of Jake’s.
He wasn’t supposed to be there, the day I met him. My family and I were at some private, elite party, where the adults were off having cocktails and I was left at the pool to watch over my little brothers, the twins, Alex and Andy. I sat in discomfort by the younger children, watching them attempt to move through the water while attached to inflated safety devices, while the ones my age glided effortlessly by, glancing at me and wondering why I wasn’t doing the same. Then the giggles began, those of the girls wondering what it would be like to have breasts like mine, and of the boys daring each other to touch them. Despising my bathing suit and its failure to cover up my assets, I crossed my arms and left the pool, standing under a tree a few yards away. I could still see Alex and Andy from here.
“Hey.”
At thirteen, I had never described somebody’s voice as sexy, and probably had never even imagined that I would, but at that moment, Jake’s voice was the sexiest that I had ever heard. I turned to find him standing behind the tree, an opened bottle of champagne in one hand and three that were sure to find the same fate sitting at his feet. He motioned with his chin toward my arms, folded across my chest.
“What are you trying to cover up?” he asked. At this, my arms fell to my sides, as if he had put in me a trance and commanded them to do so, and his eyes dropped to my breasts.
“They’re beautiful.”
I smiled a toothy grin.
Jake had snuck into the party somehow in hopes of acquiring alcohol, and he achieved his goal. I couldn’t imagine how he’d done it, as I’d often looked around these parties and wondered if there was any way to escape, then decided that it was impossible to get out, let alone sneak in. But Jake somehow managed to do both—sneak in, and help me escape.
It took some persuasion to get me to leave the twins—and it wasn’t Jake’s assurance that their safety floating devices couldn’t sink, or his reminder that there was a lifeguard nearby, or his suggestion of a plausible excuse to tell my parents, that convinced me to leave. It was simply staring into his deep-set, dark brown eyes, peeking out under his long brown hair, and feeling a tingle in my stomach as he put his arm around me and as I heard his sexy voice utter my name.
“Liliana, right? That’s beautiful.”
Jake took me to his apartment, which smelled strangely of cigarettes and cinnamon. As we walked through the front room, our feet crashing through empty beer bottles, I stared at a skinny man passed out on the couch, and wondered how Jake could be sure that the man wasn’t dead. We entered Jake’s bedroom, which was surprisingly clean compared to the rest of the apartment, with the exception of a pile of needles on the floor, which Jake quickly kicked under the bed. I silently wondered if he was sick, and ashamed of his illness.
He turned to me, a bottle opener in one hand. I looked down at the bottle of champagne in my arms and the two in his, and wondered what was to come. Jake opened one of his bottles and lifted it, gulping the champagne straight from the bottle. Then he opened mine.
“Shall we celebrate?” he asked me, grinning. He held his bottle up, and I tapped mine against his, as a toast. I wasn’t sure what it was that we were celebrating, but I refrained from asking. I waited for him to resume drinking before I began, but it was clear that he was waiting for me to do the same, so I pulled the bottle to my lips, silently wishing that he’d let me drink from his bottle, as if somehow that would represent that we’d kissed. My first kiss. Instead, I drank from my own bottle. My first taste of alcohol.
I began coughing as soon as I swallowed, my face turning red with embarrassment.
“It’s…sour,” I said. At this, Jake laughed.
“Sour?” he repeated, “I go through all this trouble to get you the classy shit and you call it sour?”
My eyes widened with fear as I considered that I may have actually offended him. Fortunately, he laughed again.
“Don’t worry about it, babe,” he assured me, “Just try again.”
And try again I did, determined to show Jake that I could do it. I chugged the entire bottle of champagne and half of the next one he handed to me, then did the same with a beer that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
It was hard to tell then, but I think that I was lying on Jake’s bed. Through the spinning room, I managed to focus on his smiling face floating toward me. I giggled.
“You’re so cute, Jake,” I told him, rubbing his hair, “I want you to be my first kiss.”
“Yeah?” the sexy voice filled the air.
“Yeah.”
I can hardly remember my first kiss, except that it tasted of alcohol and something sweet. I do remember asking Jake why he was removing my clothes, and at some point he removed his own. Then he took me. My first time, and the only time that wasn’t followed by any regrets.
But Jake regretted it. It wasn’t the same as the regrets that I would see later, as somebody woke up beside me and moaned, “Oh, shit,” as they recalled what they’d just done and hurried home to a wife or fiancée, or realized that they’d just had another night filled with drugs and alcohol after swearing never again to have anything to do with either.
It was a different sort of regret, but Jake certainly regretted it. That night as my head pounded in pain I watched him, spotting the small drops of blood on his sheets and finding that I had been a virgin prior to our encounter, and thinking back to the day that had passed, putting together the pieces that he could remember and realizing just what he’d done in his drunken state. He asked my age and groaned when I answered, then looked at the beer bottle in his hand and hurled it across the room. I watched as it crashed against the wall and exploded into countless glass pieces, which rained down onto the floor.
The little white mints seemed endless. As soon as I finished one, Jake would hand me another, saying that we must keep my parents from detecting the smell of alcohol on my breath. He sprayed my clothes, which had now absorbed the odor of cigarettes, with air freshener, and walked me home, a distance that proved to be farther than I’d estimated. He stopped a block before we reached my house, his hands on my shoulders, staring into my eyes and emphasizing the importance of telling a believable story, as my parents could never find out what actually happened. As he spoke, I stood gazing at him, biting my lip. I wanted so badly to experience once again my first kiss with him. Instead, I pulled forward before we parted and planted a kiss on his cheek, hoping that that would somehow bring him back to me some other day.
When I entered my house, I put my head down and headed quickly for my bedroom, muttering something about being at my friend Janie’s house and forgetting to call. For some reason, my parents accepted my explanation. They trusted me.
It was months before I saw Jake again. Now, the elite parties were spent scanning the trees, fences, and shadows, hoping to spot him sneaking in and leaving with alcohol. I didn’t want to stay by the pool and watch Alex and Andy. I didn’t even bring my swimsuit anymore. I belonged with the adults, who had no idea that I now knew of the sensation that they felt when they drank their cocktails, or that their whispers and low voices when I was around didn’t keep me from knowing anything about sex. I wondered if I looked any different to them, or to the kids at the pool. I hoped so. I’d been trying to appear older, wearing more mature clothing and borrowing my mother’s makeup, hoping that somehow my red lips and messy eyeliner would erase whatever Jake’s groan had meant when he’d discovered my age.
At thirteen, I’d fallen in love—almost to the point of an obsession. Jake was constantly on my mind—I couldn’t stop thinking about him if I tried. The sight of champagne sent me back in time, experiencing once again our time together; the smell of cigarettes got me thinking about the taste of our first kiss. I’d imagine entire scenarios in which Jake would return to me and tell me that I was “beautiful.” I wrote his name anywhere I could, and attempted to draw pictures of him, which were scribbled out or thrown away with frustration when I couldn’t capture the beauty of his deep eyes. High school began, and my peers laughed when my teacher, spotting me zoned out and not paying attention, called on me to answer a question and I blurted out Jake’s name. I didn’t care about them. I only cared about Jake. And there was no need to pay attention, I found that I could achieve A’s and B’s regardless.
Halloween night was when I saw Jake next. It wasn’t candy that drew me to his apartment, dressed up as a 1920s jazz star. I left my brothers, Superman and Batman for the night, at home, cutting their trick-or-treating short and telling them that Janie’s sister would pick me up for the Halloween sleepover in case my parents asked. Then I began my trek toward the home of the one I loved, stopping halfway to discard my uncomfortable high heels in a nearby bush and apply more makeup, deeper lipstick and darker eye shadow.
At Jake’s apartment, the grim reaper answered the door, and then removed his mask to reveal himself as a tall, muscular, college-aged boy with blond hair. He grinned when he saw me, looking me slowly up and down. I shifted uncomfortably, suddenly wishing that the style of the 1920s had involved slightly longer dresses.
“You here for some treats?” he slurred.
“I’m here to see Jake,” I said. The blond opened his arms.
“Well, maybe I’m not Jake, but P.J.’s good enough!”
I pushed boldly past P.J. and into the apartment. As my eyes surveyed the room, my mouth fell open involuntarily. Smoke filled the air, billowing from cigarettes and another substance that I later understood to be marijuana. Monsters, witches, and cartoon characters were joining in on the Halloween fun—there was scarcely a creature without a beer or another form of alcohol, and it also seemed difficult to locate one that wasn’t kissing another, or joining in on two who had already been doing the same. I stepped cautiously but quickly through the room, glancing briefly at the couch on which I’d seen the skinny man passed out. Now, six costumed people shared the couch, masks pushed aside, kissing and touching one another.
I was relieved to find that the scene in the kitchen was tamer, though it was not free of drugs or alcohol. Now, a small crowd stood around a thin guy preparing some sort of a white substance. Jake was still not in sight.
I jumped and released a small scream as a large hand came to rest on my backside. Those around me looked up, and then returned to their business. I turned to see P.J. the grim reaper smiling down at me.
“Jake’s in there, if you want him,” he called over the sound of the music, tapping with his plastic scythe the door of the bedroom in which Jake and I had spent our time together. We would return to that same room to reunite.
P.J. sauntered off, leaving me standing by the door. I tapped lightly, and received no answer. I tried again, a little harder, and waited. Finally, I used my fist to pound hard on the wooden door.
“Piss off!” I heard a male voice call from inside the bedroom. Jake? I stepped slowly away from the door. Maybe I would wait for a few minutes, and then try again.
I turned to find the shocking sight of two girls, probably about five years my senior, kissing passionately. My eyes met those of P.J., who was watching the same. He raised his eyebrows at me, and I turned back to the bedroom door. On second thought, Jake couldn’t wait any longer.
The smell of sweat lingered in the air as I turned the cold knob and opened the creaky door. I closed my eyes and slammed it shut behind me. When, slowly, I opened my eyes again, I looked at the bed to find Jake, naked, with a blond girl, in the same state.
“What the…shit,” Jake said, pulling his boxers and his pants on in one action, “Shit.” The blond began dressing as well. My eyes dropped to the floor, and spotted another pile of needles, laying in the same spot they’d been on my last visit.
The girl pushed passed me, opening the door to leave.
“Shirley, I’ll…” Jake began
“It’s Sharon,” she called over her shoulder as she slammed the door, leaving Jake and I alone.
Jake stared at me, shocked and attempting to comprehend what had just occurred.
“Lil…Liliana, right?”
My heart skipped a beat as he proved that he not only remembered me, but he recalled my name as well. Suddenly, with more courage than I’d ever mustered in my entire life, I threw my arms around shirtless Jake and kissed him. He pushed me away almost immediately.
“No, no, no,” he said, pulling my arms from his shoulders, “I’m not drunk enough for that again.”
“I’m…fourteen now,” I said softly, realizing that I’d arrived there, determined to win Jake over, but completely unsure of what to say in order to do so.
“Hey that’s great honey, but you can’t be here,” Jake said, stepping forward to lead me toward the door.
“Wait,” I said, stopping in my tracks, “I want to be here. I’ll…drink with you.”
“No, see, that’s the problem, you can’t be here,” he repeated, “I could get into huge trouble for this. Do you understand? Wrong on so many levels. Was that your first time? Getting drunk, I mean,” he added quickly. I nodded, and he shook his head, rubbing his long brown hair and frowning.
“See, I’m mean I’ve…but not with anybody so young…I’m sorry, I really am, I mean what if something had gone wrong? I mean what if you can’t handle it?”
With that, I spotted a bottle of alcohol on a nightstand beside him. I picked it up, brought it to my lips, and chugged the remainder of the substance inside, ignoring the burning sensation in the back of my throat. Jake stared, those beautiful deep-set eyes of his widening.
“Holy shit,” he managed to utter when I finished the bottle, “That was straight vodka. Have you ever had vodka before?”
I shook my head, smiling triumphantly. Now Jake was sure to take me into his arms.
“I don’t get you,” Jake said, “What is it that you want? You just wanna drink? What, those high-class parents of yours don’t give you a taste of a cocktail every once in a while?”
“Those high-class parents of mine don’t even look at me long enough to notice if I was tasting a cocktail,” I said, surprising even myself. Was that the vodka talking? Jake, too, was clearly surprised. He studied me, for moments that seemed to add up to an eternity.
“Do me a favor?” Jake asked.
I nodded. Anything.
“Don’t tell anyone how old you are.”
I nodded again, beaming. Jake would let me stay. He pulled a long white shirt over his head. I stared questioningly at the fake blood painted on his chest. He shrugged.
“Too lazy to find a good costume,” he explained, “I’m a ghost. Died of a broken heart.”
There was no champagne that night. Instead, beer, gin, and more of Jake’s vodka flowed down my throat, causing the world to spin around me and making me giggle like I hadn’t done since I was a four-year-old watching cartoons. Who knew that alcohol could turn out to have the same affect as Bugs Bunny. Jake didn’t let me out of his sight, watching like a mother bear whose cubs were out playing alone for the first time, and moving closer to me whenever another guy did so. Still, I wanted him to be watching over me because he felt for me what I felt for him, not because I was too young to take care of myself. I needed to show him that I was older than my appearance made it seem.
At first it was only alcohol. That was all I wanted. Marijuana wasn’t even appealing to me, and I didn’t know enough about whatever else it was that my new friends used to try any of it.
But soon enough I found myself sitting in a circle around which a joint was being passed. The guy next to me took a long drag, then closed his eyes and handed me the mysterious plant. I held it close, examining and wondering, and looked across from me to find Jake watching me closely. He gave a small nod, either too high to realize what was really going on, or establishing that I was ready to give it a try. I felt proud, as if my identity was no longer determined by my age, and Jake had determined that despite my youth, I could be just as involved in his parties’ activities as he and his friends were.
Of course, it wasn’t the marijuana that I got addicted to. Halfway through my sophomore year of high school, I began to experiment with more new and exciting substances. Their names didn’t matter; I accepted them regardless of the explanations or warnings that came from whoever provided them for me. The only element that mattered was the feeling that the substances brought; how far from the real world they would carry me once I stepped onto the magic carpet that they created.
By this time, Jake had stopped watching over me as closely as he had before. He probably wouldn’t have allowed me to begin the downward spiral into which I’d stepped if he had continued watching. Still, there was a mysterious attachment that remained between the two of us. I rarely took part in a weekend adventure without him; one of my rare experiences when I did turned out to be a regrettable one.
P.J. was hosting this one. There had been an uncomfortable period of time during which he and the majority of Jake’s friends were uncertain about my presence and hesitant to accept it. Now, my company was accepted—more so by some than by others.
I remember thinking, as I took a drink from P.J., that somehow he seemed even scarier as himself than he had as the grim reaper the first day I’d met him. His narrow eyes never left my body, and his close stare made me feel vulnerable, instead of protected, as I felt when I knew that Jake’s eyes were watching me.
“What are you thinking about, Lyla?” P.J. asked me, his pale blue eyes fixed in that familiar stare. I shrugged.
“How I wish I hadn’t taken those last few shots,” I mumbled, dropping slowly to the ground as my head began to pound. It was true. The way I was feeling now wasn’t anything like what I’d felt before, and it certainly wasn’t the feeling that I’d hoped to achieve when I’d begun the events of the night. I nodded as I faintly heard P.J. offering the use of his bed, as he helped me to my feet and led me up the stairs. I hoped that a brief nap would eliminate the increasing pain in my head.
The weakness that came over me that night left me with little control over my own body. However, I could still sense every feeling affecting my body, including the force as P.J. pressed himself against me, whispering words that I could not comprehend.
“Stop,” I protested feebly, trying to push him away with too little strength to prevent what was happening.
P.J. had no intention of complying. It was only my second time being with a man in that way, my first since the day I’d met Jake, and it seemed to indicate that I would never feel the way that I had felt with Jake again. That time had been unique, the only one of its kind. The feeling would never return.
I never told Jake what P.J. did to me that night. Somehow I knew that it would give him the sense that he was a failure, as if all of his care and watchfulness over me had been for nothing, as I was eventually forced to suffer regardless. It would seem that being forced into such an experience would cause me to see that sort of situation in a whole different light, a darker light, and perhaps I did. However, I had been exposed to a new truth, and with the realization that I may never again feel cherished, it seemed not to matter whether or not I gave in to any advance made towards me. Perhaps if these advances came together, they would add up to that absent cherished feeling.
Jake moved from his apartment the summer that I turned sixteen. With his money earned from his job at an auto-repair shop and gained from the drugs he sold, he was able to rent out a house, small but still much larger than the one-room apartment in which he’d previously stayed. His new residence was further from my own home, no longer walking distance, but my driver’s license was acquired soon after the move, enabling me to still keep up with Jake.
My parents were paying less and less attention to me, choosing to focus more on earning more money in their own lives and on ensuring that Alex and Andy followed in my footsteps by earning the grades of an honors student. I often disappeared for days at a time, living in a delirious state at Jake’s house and then returning home, sober and citing an extended stay at the home of a friend from school—when the truth was that I hardly had any friendships at all at school. Jake never let me drive home impaired—he would walk me all the way home and drive my car to me when he was sober the next morning, if he had to. It was peculiar the way that Jake was so responsible, while so many activities that were just the opposite went on under his own roof.
At first, my sexual encounters that followed my experience with P.J. were simply meaningless flings that probably would not have occurred if both parties had been sober. Some guy would be looking to satisfy his long-suffered hunger for sex, and I would be looking for somebody to hold me. We both would find what we were looking for, but not without any regrets.
Jake rarely spoke to me about the encounters, except to express that he hoped that I was being safe. Once for Christmas he bought me a pack of medium-sized, flavored condoms. I kept them in a cabinet at Jake’s house and somehow managed, even under the influence, to insist that every one of my partners use one. All but one of my sexual encounters occurred at Jake’s house or at the house of one of his friends, and all but one occurred while I was drunk or high.
The one exception took place after the homecoming dance of my junior year. Somehow I ended up on the football field with the homecoming king, Alan, who was a virgin before that night. It was the first that my peers had heard, after over two years with me, that I was anything less than pure and innocent. I think my antisocial characteristics had been interpreted as my being too busy working hard to earn my good grades to make any friends. The story whispered around school ended up being that it was my virginity taken by Alan, sexually experienced since he’d hit puberty, on the night of the homecoming dance. I altered it a bit by telling the girls in my P.E. class that I’d been surprised by the small size of his penis, and that for somebody so experienced, he seemed quite confused about how everything worked.
I can’t recall exactly when the sex became a means of obtaining drugs—it’s reasonable to presume that it was soon after Jake lost his job and was hardly able to buy his own drugs, leaving those who had relied on him to acquire them on their own as well. The time also marked the point at which it was clear that I was addicted, though even to myself I would deny an addiction to anything but Jake—after all, this secret life of mine was still all a means of getting closer to him.
My hair was no longer long and tangled, now it was cut short, and straightened nearly every morning. I wore little makeup, and when I did, I knew how to apply it far better than I’d done at thirteen years old. And though my body had developed to better fit my breasts, they were still noticeably large, and I didn’t hesitate to wear clothes that would ensure that others did notice them. I found myself on more than one occasion allowing some guy to press his hand into my cleavage, as encouragement should he show hesitation to ignore my lack of money and provide me with drugs regardless.
The parties at Jake’s house became less frequent, though they raged on at the homes of P.J. and others. Still, Jake and I continued to spend time together, even on nights during which parties were going on elsewhere. My infatuation with Jake and fear of a party without him drew me back to his house when I knew that he’d be staying home. Many nights were spent sitting together, sharing drugs that we’d obtained separately and by different means, and laughing at television shows that weren’t funny.
There was only one drug that Jake refused to share with me.
I lay on my back on Jake’s couch one night, my head in resting in his lap.
“What are these scars from?” I asked, stroking Jake’s arm and tracing with my fingers the thick, blue scars surrounding the inside of his elbow. I noticed several fresh ones towards the center of the cluster and rubbed them softly. I’d asked this question many times before, and often heard the same response.
“Don’t ask me that, Lyla.”
I sat up, staring into his eyes, which remained glued to the television, avoiding contact with mine. There was an unexplained sadness in his eyes. I knew that the pain that I detected was associated somehow with the scars, but that he was too tough to be directly hurt by whatever had penetrated his skin.
“Jake, I’m not stupid. I know enough about it. I know you spend most of your money on it. I want some of it.”
At this, Jake’s eyes quickly moved to mine. So far, I’d only had a few beers, an amount that at one time would have left me senseless, hopelessly drunk. Now, I sat staring at Jake with not only my own senses in order, but an ability to perceive Jake’s feelings as well. The sadness in his eyes had transformed to anger.
“No. No, Lyla, you don’t know anything about it. And it’s gonna stay that way.”
“But Jake, the needles in your room…” I began.
“Don’t ever touch those fucking needles,” Jake said quickly, cutting me off, “I think you need to leave.”
So I left, wondering. It was hurting me, to know that something was hurting Jake, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had no idea that despite the fact that his body appeared to be present in the world in which I lived, his spirit was living in an entirely different world, darker even than my own.
The day of my graduation arrived, and my diploma was handed to me with honors. My parents, with pride in their eyes and bright smiles plastered on their faces, threw me a party that night. We were going to host one of the parties into which Jake would have snuck to steal champagne three years ago.
My parents invited their elite friends and some family, and told me to invite my friends. There was nobody to invite. It seemed strange, but fitting, that they had never even known that Jake existed. I decided to invite him, and introduce him as an “old friend.” There would be questions. I would refuse to answer.
Jake didn’t show up to the party. I counted the champagne bottles, before and after, to see if there was a chance that he’d taken one and run away, forgetting to stop to help me escape when he did. He hadn’t.
Anger filled me the morning after my graduation party when I discovered the irony of my graduation celebration the night before, when I’d smiled for the guests, faked a happy surprise when presented with a cake, and thanked everybody at a toast, during which my father had allowed me to join the adults in enjoying a cocktail. Later that night, I’d cried, sitting on the toilet in my bathroom, holding the results of a pregnancy test and wondering why Jake hadn’t come to my party, and how easy it would be to acquire drugs when I got to college. I didn’t have any tears left when, the next morning, I read the newspaper and spoke to friends of Jake and P.J. to put together the stories of what had occurred while I led a celebration in my home.
Jake never let anyone drive drunk. The needles that he used to inject heroin into his arms after receiving the news that P.J. had died when he crashed into a tree on the way to Jake’s house would be the last needles he’d ever use. I didn’t attend either funeral. I didn’t want to say good-bye to Jake or to the friend that Jake felt that he killed.
I’m eighteen now. Jake was eighteen when I met him. Many say that I’m still in my teen years, but I’m the only one who can accurately determine that, and I know that I’m not. I’ve left those years behind, or at least I will have by the time I finish my errands for the day. I just left the abortion clinic, and in a matter of hours I’ll be checked into a rehabilitation facility. Yesterday I told my parents my plans for today. They said nothing, but somehow I knew that they accepted what I was saying. And not just because I gave them no choice but to do so. They trust me.
But perhaps they shouldn’t have trusted me yesterday. After all, I stole my final drink from them. They really should hide that champagne better.

MiMi's Story