Lights || h.s.

Introduction

A thundering bass, it's the only sound I can hear.

And laughter? Chatter as well? Too many sounds; it's too loud in here.

Sight is a just the same. It's so incredibly blurry, that when I stick out my sweaty hands in front of me, they're just two tan dots. The colours around me must be people, but even if I could see their faces, I know that all of them are strangers.

I've never been this drunk before. Yes, I have had a sip or two of my mother's wine to lust over the flavour, but never have I had more. I expected the beer to give me a buzz and let me have a night to forget about all of my worries, but right now I can hardly even think.

Something bumps into my shoulder, and I turn around to see a figure. I'm not sure if it's a male or a female, but I do know that they're staring straight at me.

The person says something, but it's only a whisper of air. I can tell it's a male, by the way he grabs my hips and slowly grinds his body against mine.

I try to push him away, but my muscles won't function. It's almost as if my entire body has shut down, all because of the alcohol.

He tugs my arm, and my body follows. I cannot think. I cannot see. I cannot hear. What is going on? Where is he taking me?

The smell of sweaty bodies decreases and the strong scent of alcohol replaces it. I am alone with the man, and it must be him and I combined that smell so strong of alcohol.

He whispers something in my ear, and presses his lips against mine.

My mind screams to run away, but all I can physically do is flinch. I try to push him away, but I'm frozen to the spot. I do not kiss him back, and he notices. His hands travel my body in attempt to force me into kissing him, and pushes me against something hard. It must be a wall.

The t-shirt covering my body is lifted off of me, exposing my stomach. Hands explore the newly exposed flesh, and I feel goosebumps on my arms appear.

"Stop," I manage to whimper, but it's so soft I know he didn't hear it. "Please."

But he doesn't.

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Sometimes when I really want to see the stars, which are nonexistent in the city, I look out at the city lights and pretend that they're constellations. The building just past where the Twins Towers were, that's my favourite by far. At night, that building lights up a total of twenty four different colours. It's like looking into more than just a constellation, but a whole galaxy.

My dad used to tell me all about the constellations. Every time the moon was in crescent form (which happens to be my favourite form of the moon), we would take our cheap and rusty telescope outside in sit in two lawn chairs. He'd take a look through it and once he found something, he'd sit me on his lap and show me the constellation, naming it and telling me how far away from Earth it was.

I had a difficult time comprehending how that worked, how things can be off of Earth and still exist. I guess you can say I've never been quite the scientific type, nor the mathematic type, well I'm not sure what type I am at all, but surely not those two. That might explain why in middle and high school I did so poorly; it's actually an amazement to me how got into NYU. My mother says it's because of my high SAT score, which actually wasn't high but was average, but I think it's all a game of luck.

That's kind of what life is, a game of luck. It just depends which side of the four leaf clover you're on.

Just like the four leaf clover I'm holding in my hands right now, twirling it from my thumb to my middle finger and staring at the building with the galaxy lights. It's what I do every night when I can't sleep, which is nearly every night.

The thing about New York in the winter, is that it gets dark at around four. When it gets dark, I get tired and usually fall asleep at that time, so I'm up at two in the morning while everything else is asleep. It's kind of peaceful though.

I decide to go for a walk, which I've only done twice in my life alone. The first time was walking home from school when I missed the bus in ninth grade, and the other being the time I ran away from home. Two very different scenarios, but both ended up with me running and screaming home with tears streaming down my cheeks.

The thickest of my coats isn't that warm, but with my fuzzy socks that I've shoved into a pair of boots and layers of t-shirts, it should be alright. I close the door to my apartment quietly, and once downstairs I walk out.

They say it's dangerous to walk around New York City alone, especially at night, but it doesn't seem so bad from up high in my room. Down here, however, is a whole different world. It may be a few minutes past four in the morning, but to some people it's time to go to work.

I walk past a bank and down a street that has more lighting. Alleys are dangerous, yes, but streets can't be. Right?

Besides, New York City alone has about three thousand police officers, nine hundred of which work at night, according to the newspaper last month. If anything was to happen, I have my phone in my back pocket and 911 on speed-dial (because my mother insists so, however I don't see why 911 would take so long to dial).

I turn right at the Brandy Melville, or as I call it my favourite store, and head down that street for awhile.

One, two, three, four sky-scrapers later and there's the empty hole of the Twin Towers. My mother stood only two streets away when it happened; she's perfectly fine but mentally scarred. I believe that's why she's so uptight and strict about everything; she wants everything to be safe and never even in the radius of harm.

It isn't really a hole anymore, it's a construction sight. All around it are posters with sayings like, "Opening Spring 2015!" and "Come visit the new Twin Towers!" You can hear the constant beeping of the construction from my apartment, every day from one to six in the afternoon.

And finally, I reach my destination, the galaxy building. I've never seen it up close, but it surely is amazing. It's an entirely black building, that reflects the lights off of other buildings. In each of the windows, is a light of a different colour. It stands around thirty stories high and on the very top of the building is what looks to be a garden (although I'm not sure how anything grows way up there).

I sit on a cold bench in the frosty night, where the temperature is below freezing and the wind chill is beyond calculation. I twirl a four leaf clover in between my middle finger and my thumb and look up at the twenty four lights above me.

"You know dad," I say to the galaxy, "I must be on the wrong side of this clover."

It falls to the ground in silence.