The Morning After

The Beginning

    The night, mostly, comes back in glimpses, as if I'm omniscient, instead of an individual. I can see myself dancing, curly hair wild, my body half way out a car window, hands outstretched in the biting wind, walking in the dark, devoid of shoes. It's blurry and confusing, and I am an onlooker in my own memories, but it's what I have, so that's where we'll start.

   6/18 5:02 PM

    I wish it had been harder. But it wasn't, it was easy. Easy to kiss my parents goodbye, saying it was just dinner, I was sleeping at Bea's house after, I would be home in the morning. It was so simple to feed them a few lines, drop a lazy smile and disappear into the night.
    The first few times I had done it, it had been an experiment. A test to see if they would notice or care. In my head I knew that if they asked where I was, what I was really doing, I would stop. But they never did, so I didn't either.
    Thus was the beginning of the rebellion.
    That night I sat in Bea's passenger seat, in a driveway I knew only vaguely. We were waiting for Peyton to emerge and hand us our tickets in exchange for a small fee. Eventually, she strode out of the decrepit double-wide, two slips of paper in tow. When she got to the car we rolled down the windows, and she leaned in.
"Okay, so," She began, in a voice that would have been intimidating had I not known her, "These are in my name, so if they try to ID you at the door, just tell them you're on the list and they'll let you in. "
I relayed this information back to her for confirmation and then accepted the tickets, giving the information on them a once over as she and Bea spoke casually. We made eye contact again when I was confident about them and they had finished their discussion. She nodded at us and then tapped on the hood of the car in a goodbye, just before Bea started to reverse out.

We had a forty minute drive to the agreed meeting spot, which allowed me an abundance of time to contemplate what I'd gotten myself into. At ten-thirty, on the outskirts of a city known only for its art and substance abuse, we would be assembling, along with the rest of the general public, in a semi-abandoned building for what they had coined a "Full Moon Gathering". From what I'd heard, this was simply the easiest excuse to dance all night and share free, nameless drugs. I'd never been, and in fact, had advocated against the first few times Bea had gone. But something had changed, a switch flipped, and this time, in lieu of an invitation I was expected to turn down, I accepted. I wanted to go.
It took minimal planning. Although surprised by my change of mind, and wary of whether or not I was really worth it, the rest of the group did accept me. Next were my parents, and they posed no problem, barely tearing their eyes from their phones to nod in confirmation at the prospect of me "sleeping at Bea's house". 
It was then that the anxiety kicked in, as I faced the inevitability of a sleepless night and hours spent stuck in a city with people I only knew as acquaintances, with the exception of Bea. It was irrational to worry as much as I did, about the people, my clothes, whether or not my shoes would hurt my feet (they did, but that would come much later). I knew, all through technicalities, that at that point nothing we were doing was illegal. The event was all ages, and I'd already decided against rolling, favoring sobriety both for the purpose of gaining the full experience, and having deniability, just in case.
I attempted to mend my nerves through conversation, laughing with Bea as we discussed prospective sleeping arrangements and the likelihood of either of us meeting anyone. Eventually we concluded we would share the couch (not the most comfortable, but definitely the most sanitary option), and that it was highly unlikely, for her because her interest was already peaked with someone else and me because I avoided the opposite gender and possessed a debilitating fear of intimacy.
This was something we mostly avoided discussing, because it was hard for her to understand how something as instinctual and natural as kissing could upset me as much as it did. For this she wasn't to blame, because honestly it wasn't entirely understandable. Even I could not grasp why sex and relationships were so taboo and intimidating to me. But they were.  So while we talked and joked as if it were a possibility for me to have casual sex, deep down we both knew I wouldn't, even if I wanted to, even if I had the opportunity.
. . .
The drive was shorter than expected, and though I'd never been, Bea knew her way around the apartment complex we had chosen as a rendezvous point.
    3C acted as homestead to a boy named Caesar. And although we'd beat them there, he'd anticipated our arrival and left the door unlocked, giving us access to the inside.
     Bea threw open the door confidently, leading the way in as she described to me the previous antics that had occurred in the space. I stared in the empty apartment and tried to imagine it filled with people, all exhausted from laughing, but too determined to sleep. It was eerie to think that in hours it would be inhabited again, in a way that excited and unsettled me.
    I was enthralled. The idea that everything in the upcoming night- the people, the places, the outcomes- would all be new and unprecedented was riveting. I could not remember the last time I had been so in the dark as to what events were to come, and surprisingly, I didn't mind. I appreciated the nuance of it.
    Now all that was left was to wait, and then the night could finally begin.