“What are you doing?” asked Serena, kneeling down to the floor where I was miserably curled up. The music was earsplitting. I tried to open my eyes but the lights were all over the place, swirling into bright masses of neon nothingness. I couldn’t see very well.

“Nothing,” I couldn’t manage to croak out anything more than that.

“Doesn’t look like nothing to me. Anyway, you need to get up. We have to go...it’s like 3 AM. Where were you all night anyway?”

Her words meant nothing to me. My head was throbbing from all the noise. It was so fucking loud. I tried to remember how I ended up on the floor, covered in a film of cold sweat, but I couldn’t. Something wasn’t right.

“C’mon, lets go. Stop fucking around. I don’t care how trashed you are—we gotta go. Aaron is out back.”


Serena grabbed my hand and pulled me up where I promptly fell back down. I was painfully aware that I no longer had any limbs. I began to whimper at the loss of my legs, wondering why they left.

I opened up my eyes and stared right into Serena’s swirling and oddly colored face. I couldn’t focus on anything and it was making me sick. Lights were flashing, the noise of people and clinking glasses and music were screaming into my ears. I tried to say something but nothing would come out. Instead, I made a strange gagging noise.

The room quickly vanished into nothing but colored illumination, swirling and twisting into the blackness, soaring down to my body. And then everything went black.



-----

“Hey…hey! You're awake now!” Someone was rushing towards me but I didn’t know who. I tried to scan my surroundings but everything was blurry. All I knew is that I wasn’t in that club anymore.

“Rachel, thank god you woke up. Seriously, I’m so sorry. What the fuck was Serena thinking?” I could tell by the voice that it was Aaron, the designated driver from last night and my best friend.

“W..what do you mean?” I said, finally managing to spit something out.

“You don’t remember? Well, I suppose you wouldn’t. You were out stone cold. Well, Serena found you all fucked up on something in some corner and being wasted herself, she freaked and left you there. I don’t really know what happened but when she showed up by the car without you, I went back inside to see where you were. It took me a while, but I found you passed out. You looked like death. What did you take? And more importantly, why the fuck did you take it?”

“I didn’t take anything. I don’t even remember getting sick in the first place. All I remember is Serena telling me we had to go and then everything was black from then on. Where is she now? Why didn’t you take me to a hospital?”

I sat up and smelled something vile. It seems I vomited all over my dress sometime during the night.

“Well, Serena was freaking out, screaming that we were all going to go to jail. She threatened to jump out of the car if I took you to the hospital. She was fucking out of her mind. I should’ve dropped her off first and then taken you but to be honest, I was really scared. I didn’t know what you did but I was convinced that you just drank too much or something and that you needed to sleep it off. My ignorance, sorry...”

“Yeah...well I’m sorry too. I feel like complete shit. But you didn’t tell me…where is Serena?” My voice cracked at the end. I sounded like a pubescent boy.

“She’s in the basement completely strung out. I think she did a shitload of smack or something. She’s just lying on my couch staring at stuff now. I should’ve just kicked her out but I dunno…”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to her about this later. Look, I think I’m fine. Can you drive me home? What time is it?”

“It’s 4 PM. I really think you should stay here the night…you know, just to make sure you are completely fine. You look awfully pale and sick…I don’t want you to suddenly die, or something,” said Aaron with a slight laugh. He was obviously trying to make light of the situation, maybe make me smile. I just wanted to get the fuck out of that house and out of my disgusting dress and just sleep in my own bed. And maybe think about what got me into this mess.

“Drive me home. I’ll meet you outside.” I pushed myself off the bed, pulled on my coat from the floor, and walked, at first unsteadily, to the door, ignoring Aaron’s pleading face.


----

The August air was hot and sticky. Usually the summers in New York are pretty mild but this year the days scorched my skin. Nights were the only relief from the unforgiving sun.

I sat on the steps leading up to his house and waited.

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