Spotlight

I hold my arms tight against my body, pushing down on the pockets of my coat, confronting the chilly midnight breeze. The beaming full moon casts a soft, timid glow on  the lawn, a blue-hued light that’s just enough for me to see my shadow, and the faces of a few people around me. I’ve arrived alone, late and empty handed, and already the sour smell of spirits makes my eyes water. Like a snapshot, everyone’s a bit idle, one of their hands clasping a clear plastic cup from the top, the other one maybe a cigarette, maybe something else. Time trickles by with a shake and a clink and a slurp, with a glow and a puff and a plume of smoke. My friends said they might come, but the lack of updates has me thinking they’ve called off the night. It’s a tough pill to swallow, and I look forward to when I’ll be leaving more than to the hours that await.

    I’m far too analytical and rational in the early stages of the night, but before I let the boredom sink in someone stumbles into me, reeking of raspberry vodka and Sprite. Her worn, frazzled denim coat is damp around her collar. Why so serious, she asks, I’m tired, bored and grumpy, I reply, fuck it, have this, she says, sloshing some liquid onto my face. It all happens too fast, but I realize a drink is the only way I’ll loosen up, so I take the flimsy cup and down its contents, gazing up at the moon as the elixir flows down into my mouth. I hold it in for a moment, feeling the sweet sting of the berry  alcohol jab at my tongue and claw at my cheeks, before swallowing it in one hefty gulp. It burns a little, then a lot, and I groan with a wry smile on my face. I promise myself that that’s it, that I won’t be making a fool of myself, that I don’t need to drink to have fun. 

    I start walking away aimlessly again, leaving Groggy Girl to fall on her knees in the absence of a supporting pillar, and come across Adam (is it Adam?), who's excessively sober. He can’t drink, he tells me, or his parents will kill him. I laugh it off and slap his shoulder. He raises an eyebrow, barely noticeable in the morphing contours of his moonlit face. We aren’t friends, I quickly remember, and maybe the shoulder slap had been a little awkward, or uncalled for. But whatever, I suppose; anything goes as long as he thinks I’m drunk. The slurp surely hasn’t got to me yet, but I like to pretend I’m a smidge less of a grumpy bitch.

    I stumble away from Adam, purely owing to my clumsiness, but feel multiple hands tug at my own coat, holding me back. Turning around, I see a group of three other girls with a guy in the middle—his arms wrapped around two, his shit-eating grin failing to masquerade his insecurity (a fact I find hypocritical of me to look down upon)—shaking their drinks in my face. I’m uncertain at that moment, but I think I smell something sour, something that should be inside a stomach. One of the girls stretches out her bottle of beer to me, but I refuse, the sour smell intensifying as the cuff of her jacket nears my nose (I do suppose, however, that she hadn’t been the victim, rather that she must have helped a friend get the alcohol out of her system instead).  The one who isn’t being hugged hands me her carton of spiked juice, claiming it’s nothing but pure fuel, and begs me to try. I want to refuse a second time, not because of her smelling bad, but because I know full well that alcohol takes a while to make itself cozy in my bloodstream; but the tanginess of the orange and the sweetness of the raspberry—sweet, sweet, Judas raspberry—and the tickle of the spirits call to me in a primitive, sinister way, so I snatch the carton and take a hesitant sip. I chuckle, swallow with a grimace, and hand it back, but she insists I carry on. Fair enough, I say, and cock my head back again, like I’d done the first time, because it makes me feel cool. Once I’ve gulped it all down again I laugh at nothing with the group as they turn to head towards the darkest, most far-flung edge of the backyard, trampling over a couple of lifeless sacks with kneeling guardian angels by their sides.  A gust of wind carries towards me the rancid smell of vomit.

    I scan the area again when I remember that my friends were supposed to have arrived by now, but I can’t see their silhouettes near the beer-pong table, lit up garishly by the LED speaker, nor by the pool, which glimmers a mellow green and precedes the couple of dudes having a piss onto the bushes behind it, nor in the lovers’ corner or spread out on the outdoor couches next to me. My legs ache a little since I haven’t sat down in a while, so I lean against a column and continue to stare blankly at my surroundings. The moon looks brighter now, and stings my eyes a tad if I look directly at it. From where I stand, the giggles of the inebriated, the corny pick-up lines that work only when under the influence, and the moans of a victim of a hickey are drowned out by the bass-boosted club music which shakes the air. I sigh and check the time. I’ve still got a while to go, but I don’t lament it. Instead, my foot taps along to the bassline and I clap my hand against the column to the rhythm of the beat, and pucker my lips as if I were making a funny face to myself. My head bobs soon follow.

    After a while of inactivity I see Groggy Girl again, making her way towards me across the dewey grass. She looks to have swapped her cocktail for a bottle with an ominously dark concoction collected at the bottom, but looks gleeful and awake, her fists above her head pumping to the music. This time, instead of letting her catch me by surprise, I step out to meet her in the middle of the backyard, punching at the air like her. But with my first step comes a kick to the temples, and in the most cliched way my vision tumbles. Fuck yeah, I yell to her, each successive step of mine a little looser, a little less secure. What’cha got there, bitch, I ask her, but not offensively or angrily, and she chuckles back and shakes the liquid around. Magic, she says, or something of the sort, but slurred, and she warns me. It’s really hard, it’s really concentrated, it’ll make you cry, pussy, she tells me. I let out a defiant cackle and take the bottle to show her how it’s done. I wince immediately with the putrid, unholy smell coming from that bottle, but knock it down the hatch regardless. It stings and burns, more than anything I’ve had all night, and makes my tongue want to eject from my body and writhe to its death, yet I clench my teeth and swallow hard, agonizing within, roaring with dominance, as Groggy Girl and I belly-laugh at my pain. 

    Once I’ve risen again, Groggy Girl cups my chin with her hand and brings it to her face, dancing seductively and staring into my eyes. I try to hold back, but my head almost rolls off of my neck, and my legs sway into a vague jig, and my arms wrap around her waist, and we’re dancing to some horrible song about raunchy sex and whooping and rubbing together. She makes a move, but I’m hesitant to reply, the last semblances of reason and prejudice in my mercilessly pounding head telling me I can’t possibly make a move on Groggy Girl, because my friends would mock me to no end, because my friendship with her would collapse into a mangled mess of emotions and awkwardness and memories of a secret sloppy something something in the lovers’ corner, away from prying eyes but in full view of the moon’s spotlight.

    Perhaps unfortunately, perhaps not, my inhibitions fail to restrain me and I answer her advance, my drunk breath stinking of death. My body reacts as expected, but she’s into it, and I look at her and what I’m doing and what she’s reaching for, taking in the midnight blue sights before closing my eyes and hoping for the best. In doing so, however, I lose my balance, and my head lulls onto her as my body topples forward, the two of us locked in a slobbery embrace and hobbling clumsily in whatever direction desperate to stay on our feet. I let go of her halfway through our endless fall, realizing in the blur that my pants are undone and hoping the moonlight is faint enough to not reveal more than I would were I sober, and eventually fall on my face, my shoulder digging into the moist earth, the bitter soil making its way through my teeth onto my dry, pasty tongue. I twitch slightly, and a couple of hands grip my sides and flop me on my back, the muddy dew seeping through my clothes and making the rest of my body as wet and dirty as my stupid, pathetic face. I open my eyes, closing one as the dirt on my eyelashes sprinkles into it, and I finally see the shapes of my friends against the waning gleam of the full moon. I can’t see it, but I imagine the contempt on their faces as a surge of acid kicks its way through my throat and out onto my face and the rest of my body. A chill runs through my spine as the wind picks up again. The same rank, revolting, sour smell returns, this time fresher and more present than before, covering me; the drums of the migraines hammer harder all over my head. And yet, as my eyes close, the midnight shimmer fading to black, my world twisting and turning on its back and on its head and back again, I feel nothing. 

    Only God knows when—or if—I’ll feel again.