DAY 11.

an excerpt from my short story…

The girls move like water. Every time their hands reach up to rake through their hair, it reminds Harrison of the ocean. He’s had far too much whiskey. He drinks his beer. It’s the social norm.

These girls are wearing too much makeup. They stood in front of their bathroom mirrors only hours earlier, awash in a dusty yellow light. Applying their lip gloss was a delicate science to them. Their outfits were meticulously arranged. They show too much cleavage, too much leg. Harrison never thought there could be too much of that, but he’s been proven wrong tonight.

The girls all fuss with their hair. They look at the guys and then look down at the ground, biting their lips. They stumble. They vomit in the bushes. They smell like heaven.

Harrison takes another sip of his beer. It’s getting warm. His body is growing warmer too. The air is thick outside, humid and muggy. Chad grins at him from across the lawn and holds his red cup in the air. They clink from thirty feet away.

“You are a gentleman and a scholar,” Chad yells over the group of girls surrounding him. “Damn, I want some pizza.” Harrison finishes the remaining dregs of his drink and throws the cup onto the grass.

DAY 01.

He’s another year older.

It’s dark on the back lawn and the usual suspects already line the edges of the grass. Beers are in hand. We all partake in this weekend ritual. We toast to him for finally hurtling over that nasty snag of legal drinking age. He won’t have to hope to God that cops don’t show up at the next party he’s at. He can get into bars, partake in general debauchery like the rest of his friends.

How lucky he is.

It’s a strange group gathered here. Every person has a flair of the dramatic in them–some more than others. This party presents itself as an opportunity to open up. To get loose. To talk like normal people do. Some of us hang in our usual circle of friends, some of us flit around the lawn as if we are the lives of the party.

This party is not about us, though. It’s about him.

Some of us feel he wouldn’t pass for being a day over sixteen. Some of us are secretly in love with him. Some of us aren’t really sure why we’re here, but there’s beer and it’s a beautiful night. We talk, we converse, we debate, we laugh. This night won’t stand out in some of our memories, when we look back on these years that are supposedly the ones that we’ll never want to lose. We want to hold on to the spontaneity of our youth for as long as possible.

Someone pours shots for the birthday boy. He raises his glass and takes them down quick. He’s done this before so many times. This year is nothing special in his eyes, with the exception of the date on his driver’s license. He scans the room around him, looking at the girls. He’s quick with a smile and hits on everyone before the night lurches past two in the morning.

It’s hot in the kitchen. Stuffy. We’re all trying so hard to impress, to stand out, to be heard in this mass of people. We smooth out our hair in the bathroom, adjust our makeup in the mirror, pack our boxes of cigarettes and take more drags than we should. But we’re invincible on this night. He just turned a year older and there’s something to that.

People sit on the lawn, nestled against each other. Some of us stand in semi-circles. It’s easier to talk that way. We’re aware of the things happening around us but the night becomes subdued. The drinks are poured. We sip. We swallow. We obey.

He blows out the candles on his birthday cake and we all clap. We all sing to him as he leans against the kitchen counter. Some of us leave when we get too tired. We stumble back to apartments and take the back way home. Away from traffic. Some of us stay, enjoying the company of the people we’re most comfortable with. Most of us have the same things on our minds by the end of this night. We leave the party looking for the same things we were looking for when we first showed up.

The birthday boy doesn’t go home alone. In the morning he’s a year older, but nothing’s really changed for him.