made it sound like the moment I swallowed a sip of alcohol I’d wind up a vegetable in a head-on collision. I knew from experience that this was not the case.
As I put the baggie back on the table, I asked them what the high was like. Pete’s grin was back, and he said that it was “pure bliss.” I’ve heard lots of people talk about being “totally wasted” and throwing up from drinking. I’ve gotten pretty buzzed before here at Jess’s place, but I’ve never barfed from it, and I don’t want to. But something about the way Pete said “pure bliss”—I guess it got to me, because I’ve never heard anybody describe any drug or drink like that.
Maybe it was the pot getting to my head, or maybe it was the shit show in our kitchen at home that I’d just escaped, or maybe it was just wanting not to be so freaking NORMAL all the time anymore. Whatever it was, within about ten minutes Kelly had shown up looking like a runway model refugee in striped leggings and a gold lamé tunic, and Brandon was handing out tabs of ecstasy. Jess passed around bottles of water for everybody. When Brandon dropped the pill in my hand, I just looked at it while everybody else swallowed theirs. Jess saw me staring at the tablet in my hand and said, You don’t have to if you don’t wanna.
And in that moment I realized I DID want to.
So I popped the tab into my mouth and washed it down with a gulp of water, then we all sort of sat there looking at each other for a second until Jess let out her signature WHOOP and we all cracked up.
About fifteen minutes later, we still weren’t feeling anything and there was this big discussion between Kelly and Brandon about whether this stuff was bunk or not, but Pete just kept telling them to chill and give it some time. In the meantime, Jess plugged in Kelly’s phone, which was filled with all this electronic dance music that Kelly’s brother, Kyle, had turned her on to. Kyle is in college and is a total rave kid. He gave Kelly a whole bunch of playlists of these supposedly really great DJs that he goes to see. At first, it all sounded like music from video games to me. Lots of drumbeats under boops and beeps, and I was sort of making fun of it. But the next thing I knew, we were all dancing to it and I realized that my face sort of hurt because I was smiling so hard. Jess and I kind of danced over to each other and just started giggling. I grabbed my bottle of water when I realized I was really warm. As I was taking a big swig of water, I felt Pete slide his arm around my shoulder and say, How ya feeling?
It was at that exact moment that it hit me. It was like my stomach dropped and created this vacuum. Air poured into my lungs as I took a giant breath and I felt goose bumps shoot up from my toes along my spine into my scalp, almost like I was taking the first drop on a roller coaster, but not scary. It was like when something surprises you in a good way. It felt so great that I couldn’t stand still.
I spread out my hands, which were suddenly really warm, and spun around in a circle in the den, and the lights in the ceiling and the TV screen and the lamps and the light on the patio and glowing up from the inside of the hot tub all streaked together, and I said really softly, I feeeeeeeel amaaaaaaaazing.
Pete’s grin focused in front of me again and he ran a hand across my cheek. It felt like velvet and left a warm path on my skin. I could still feel it there even though he wasn’t touching me anymore, and I had to take another deep breath to stop feeling like I was going to fall over. Pete raised his hands over his head and said, Not bunk, guys. This is the shit. Then he turned around and slid open the glass doors and we all followed him into the yard. I know this sounds crazy, but the music followed us too. Kelly and Jess were whispering to each other over by the stereo, and Brandon was already outside, lying in