Dancing with Molly (11 page)

This all feels difficult today—like nobody understands each
other, and things are getting all weird and mixed up. Or maybe it's just me. I wish I could cut the rest of my classes today, but after this study hall I have history and then after school we have to freaking march around the football field. Damn this Thanksgiving Day Parade. The last thing I want to do right now is walk in circles holding my clarinet.

After Pete and Brandon left the lunch table, Kelly called Jess. Kyle had just sent her a link to a news story about that girl who passed out at the club on Saturday. Apparently she took a couple tabs of ecstasy and a whole bunch of GHB—this party drug that you mix in a bottle and drink like Kool-Aid. I guess it makes you feel really drunk. At least that's what Reid said. He's done it a couple times before, but he says it's dangerous and you're not supposed to mix it with anything else—especially alcohol or other drugs. That girl is in critical condition in the hospital still.

I hope she'll be okay.

Jess and Kelly came over after dinner tonight, and Ashley and I went with them to go get some frozen yogurt at a self-serve place. While Kelly and I were sprinkling crushed-up Oreos on top of our chocolate/vanilla swirls, her phone buzzed. Once we got to a table out on the patio, Kelly checked the text message and she
got this big grin on her face. She held the phone up to Jess, who yelled, HELLS YEAH! at the top of her lungs, startling everyone in about a three-mile radius.

The text was from Kyle. He'd scored some molly for this weekend. Ashley got all excited about it and texted Reid. About thirty seconds later, I had a text from Carson, confirming that Reid had told him. News travels fast.

The bummer about all of this is that Kelly can't go. The school doesn't allow students from other schools to come to the graduation party due to “issues of liability.” You have to actually have a valid student ID to set foot in the place, and they usually have a police officer standing guard while the parent volunteers check everyone's name off a list just in case there's any issue. I'm not sure why kids from other schools can come to prom but not this party. I think it's because this party was all about keeping the “children” safe. I can just hear the school board meeting where irate mothers stood up and wailed, “Won't someone PLEASE think of the CHILDREN?” How is not allowing kids from other schools to come going to help? And what about, oh, I dunno, the night AFTER graduation? And all the nights after that when kids do dumb shit to celebrate getting out of high school?

Whatever.

Jess is planning to sneak Kelly in after we get inside. I'm sure THAT won't go horribly wrong. . . .

Jeez. What is wrong with me? I wish I were more excited about this. I video chatted with Carson after we got home from the yogurt place and we decided that we'd just drop and then go hang out with each other in the big beanbag pit in the band room. That way we won't have to deal with Jess and her crazy plan to sneak Kelly in through the fire escape—or however she's going to do it.

Carson is so cute. I could stare at his face on the screen for hours.

So, we all went to graduation this morning. Reid and Carson got their diplomas, then both of their moms threw an “open house” party this afternoon. We went to Reid's first, and then Carson's. Met their grandparents and had food and cake and my mother almost embarrassed me to death in both places. Carson was smirking at me the whole time because he knows my mom drives me crazy. At one point he grabbed my hand and led me through the crowd in his backyard to his room, where he closed the door so we could make out for a little while. When we got back to the party, my mom was in the kitchen with his mom
having a glass of wine, and she looked up and said, Well, there you two are!

She said this really loudly, as if to alert the entire neighborhood that we'd been making out somewhere. Carson walked me to the car when we left and said that he'd see me tonight. When we got back home, Jess and Kelly came over. Ashley came into my room and Kelly pulled out the bag of molly she'd scored from Kyle. Jess got increasingly excited about the party tonight while Ash looked completely terrified. She wanted to know how we were going to “do” it, and let it be known that there was no way she was going to snort anything up her nose. She asked if she could just put it in a drink or something, and Kelly warned her that this was a BAD idea. She explained that it tastes TERRIBLE and that it would ruin any liquid, and that she should “balloon it.”

Ashley just blinked at her, and Kelly decided we should just go ahead and divvy it all up ahead of time. She got a mirror and showed Jess how to split up the doses evenly. Then she got some toilet paper and tore one square in half, dropped a little mound of powder into it, and twisted it up into a tiny pouch. Kelly did this for each dose, and then very carefully put them into the plastic bag and explained to Jess that it was extremely important that she keep the baggie tightly wrapped up so the little wads of molly
didn't come undone and spill out all over the place. Jess said this was no problem and carefully put the baggie into her bra. Her rack is huge. It's not going to move at all wedged in there.

Carson and Reid are meeting us here, and then Kelly and Jess have their plan all worked out for when we get into the party tonight. I feel all nervous about this, but I can't really tell if I'm worried about getting caught or just excited about doing molly. It's weird, but I think there's not a lot of difference between feeling keyed up about having fun and terrified about getting caught having fun.

Carson just texted me:

We're on our way!

I cannot believe how screwed I am. Note to self: If you have a feeling like it's a bad idea, PAY ATTENTION. I don't even know where to start. . . .

I guess at the beginning of the whole ridiculous evening and the party itself. The graduation bash is always a theme party. This year it was a Knights of the Round Table theme—King Arthur and Lancelot and Guinevere. The school booster club decorated the gym and the hallways to look like a medieval
castle, but with lots of balloons. When we walked into the gym, there was a huge castle facade built across the front of the room with a drawbridge that let you walk across a moat, which was this big tank of water with fountains in it. It was actually really elaborate, and it must've taken a small army of people to pull off. I know a bunch of alumni who were back from college helped build it. Reid's dad is a contractor, and he headed up all the construction with his big crew.

Not that Reid could've been bothered to care about it at all. The moment we arrived he started badgering Jess to hand out the molly. Jess told him to cool his jets. We needed to let the place fill up a little and get the party started so it wasn't so obvious that there was a group of kids rolling.

We all went to get punch and explored. There were areas set up with board games, and another room with a bunch of carnival games like Skee-Ball and Whac-A-Mole. There was a big candy shop where you could raise your blood sugar by one billion points, which apparently half the kids had already done, because when the band started playing there was this mad rush to the middle of the dance floor in the gym.

The band was just okay. They sang covers of oldies and classic rock and a few more recent pop songs, but it was sort of like a bar mitzvah band, or one of those bands that sing Journey songs
at wedding receptions. Still, Carson thought they were hilarious and he dragged me out onto the dance floor. Jess followed us and we all did these ridiculous dances. At one point, Jess was pretending to break-dance, and a circle formed around her as she did dance moves that were so funny, I was gasping for breath I was laughing so hard. Then Reid and Carson started dancing “back up” for her, and the whole thing looked like a
Saturday Night Live
sketch.

When the band took a break, the DJ the school had hired was all set up, and he started spinning some really cool mash-ups that were fun to dance to, but Reid was back to badgering Jess about the molly. Jess had been glued to her phone the whole night, and said that it was almost time. She was texting with Kelly about their planned rendezvous near the band room. There was a storage room we used for old timpani and music stands, the chairs the orchestra used, and lots of other stuff. It was a big room and had two doors that only opened from the inside out to the back parking lot. They were meant for loading and unloading equipment when we went to competitions. Tonight, Jess was planning to use the room for sneaking Kelly into the party.

The gym was packed at this point, and Jess took Ashley into the bathroom first. When they came back out, Ashley had this
grin on her face, and danced up to us like she had done something spectacular. Reid told Jess and me to hurry—he was itching to roll like nobody I'd ever seen. Carson leaned down and gave me a kiss, then told Reid to cool his jets.

In the bathroom, Jess locked us into a stall, then fished the little baggie carefully out of her bra. She handed one little wad of molly to me and I popped it into my mouth as far back on my tongue as I could get it. I took a big gulp of water and felt the little bump sail down my throat. I took another swig just be sure. Jess was holding two bumps in her hand and she carefully rolled up the remaining two in the baggie and gave it to me. She told me to hold on to it for a second, then she popped one of the hits in her hand into her mouth, washed it down with some water, and grinned at me. She told me it was time to go get Kelly.

When we walked out of the bathroom, Carson and Reid were waiting for us in the hallway. Reid was dancing back and forth like a little kid who had to pee. Ashley was getting a drink at the water fountain, and as Carson leaned down to kiss me, I slipped the rolled-up baggie into the back pocket of his jeans. Dang, that boy has a hot butt. Carson winked at me, then headed into the boys' bathroom with Reid. I told him I'd meet him back in the gym in a second. Jess grabbed Ashley's hand and announced that she was coming with us,
then we headed down the hall toward the music wing.

Kelly was waiting for us outside. As soon as Jess pushed open the door, Kelly slipped in and threw her arms around Jess's neck. They kissed for what seemed like a very long time, until Ashley told them to get a room. Then Kelly hopped onto a nearby rehearsal chair and threw both arms around Ashley, jumping onto her back like Ash was going to give her a piggyback ride. They both collapsed onto a pile of old band uniforms giggling, and Jess held out her hand to Kelly. Kelly tossed back the hit and chased it with a drink from my water bottle.

We all walked back toward the gym, passing through the band room, which was arranged with beanbag chairs. Not many people were in here yet. I knew that wouldn't change until people got tired of dancing, but it made me want to hurry up and go back with Carson. Suddenly I couldn't wait to see him again, and I realized I was starting to feel the molly already, even though it had only been about fifteen minutes since I dropped. Ashley's face seemed a little flushed and she kept oohing and aahing as we passed through the Mylar streamers that decorated the hallways. As we crossed the drawbridge over the moat at the front of the gym, Ashley stretched out her hands toward the fountain on the right and said it was SOOOOO BEAUTIFUUUUL.

Kelly and Jess and I all started laughing, and Jess said, Yep. Guess it's working.

All I could think about was grabbing Carson's butt again and getting him back to the biggest beanbag chair in the corner of the band room. Jess danced up to the boys, who were in the middle of the gym. When Reid turned around, he sniffed really loudly and Jess narrowed her eyes. Turns out the guys opened up their little wads of molly and snorted them off the toilet paper dispenser in the bathroom. Carson told me he was already feeling it in a major way, but it was dripping down the back of his throat and tasted like crap.

We went over and got some punch. Carson and Reid both gulped down a couple of glasses and then we all took bottles of water. About that time, the DJ started spinning this remix of an old-school Lady Gaga track and we all turned and ran back to the middle of the dance floor. Ashley let out a big WHOOOOOOOOOOO! and started dancing in a circle with her arms above her head. Seeing her so loud and crazy made me wonder again about how smart it was to drop molly at a school party, but something about the music was just taking over my body.

There were tiny twinkle lights strung back and forth over the gym and they were suddenly dancing as hard as I was. The
music pulsed through me, and I felt Carson's hand pull me in closer. We were all sandwiched together, our bodies pressed tight in the crush of people dancing. Reid and Ashley were whooping together now, and I thought about how molly affects everyone a little differently. Jess and Kelly get all quiet and giggly. They tell secrets and whisper to each other. Carson and I seem to become so close that we don't even need words to communicate. It was right as I was thinking this that Carson took my hand and led me past Ashley, who was making WOOT WOOT noises and dirty dancing with Reid. I could tell that everything was too intense for Carson, and that he was taking me to the band room to find a quiet corner.

I wondered if I should stay and keep an eye on Ashley, but it was hard to worry about my sister when I felt so good. I know now, looking back, that was the molly doing its work. I didn't have a care in the world. The drug had taken me over. The only thing I could focus on was this moment, with Carson; how excited and happy I was to be winding through the streamers and lights and bodies and music, down one hall and up another, stopping here and there to stare into his eyes, and smile. He sniffed every now and then, and from time to time, he'd stop and gently kiss me.

There were board games set up in the chemistry room, and
we briefly stood near a group of guys from the track team who were involved in a Hungry Hungry Hippos tournament. The clattering of the plastic hippo heads as they gobbled marbles grew louder and louder, along with the shouts of the guys working the tiny levers. Finally, with a loud roar of yells and cheers, the entire game board flipped into the air from their wild enthusiasm, sending marbles flying in all directions.