The Beginning

By den_7 · Aug 3, 2016 ·
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  1. still putting short stories on here till I can make a thread. here's something i'm working on, my friend gave me the prompt of something about a drunk person. it's about 1500 words

    I turned twenty-one a week ago. I had never been more excited for a birthday in my life. I was finally able to buy my own alcohol, go into whatever bar I wanted, and be my own person. It’s all I had ever dreamed about since I had my first sip at 14. I was used to stealing wine from my parents, or doing keg stands at parties but for the first time I had an unlimited supply that I would never have to hide. I could finally tell people I was hung over instead of lying and saying I was sick or had a “prior engagement.” It was complete control over my life.

    I woke up vomiting into the trash can beside my bed, glanced at the clock, and saw that it was 4:27. I slept through most of the day, but that’s how this past week had been going. It was fine. Since I was hung over again, the quickest way to get better was to drink again, so I took a swig from the half empty whiskey bottle on my night stand.

    Later that evening I called my friend, Chrissy, and asked if she wanted to go to an art exhibit having opening night in an hour.

    “Sure, I’ll come, but I’m still feeling sick from your birthday party, dude. I’m never drinking that much again.”

    “Don’t worry I can sneak a flask into the exhibit, there’s no way in hell we’re going sober.”

    “You’ve been going pretty hard the last couple days. What’d you do last night.”

    “I went to a club Zach told me about. You should’ve been there.”

    “Bro, you’re slurring. Are you still drunk?”

    “No. I’m getting drunk.”

    “Whatever, I’ll see you in an hour.”

    I hung up the phone and walked over to the bathroom. My reflection stared back at me looking hollow and sickly. I didn’t worry though, nothing I couldn’t cover up with a little foundation.

    We met up at the exhibit around 10 pm. She looked nice, shorts riding up her ass, crop top. I wouldn’t expect anything less.

    “Hey, I’ve been looking for you everywhere” I complained to her.

    “You look cute, ready to go in?”

    “Yeah, but real quick. Look at this,” I pulled up the side of my dress, which was bright red and flowed down half my thigh, to reveal two flasks strapped to leg, “Good idea, right?”

    “Fucking genius. Let’s go in.”

    The exhibit was one of those modern art breaking traditional rules kind of things so most of it was outside. There were long sidewalks lined with bushes in the shape of people and art pieces in the middle of grass squares. We passed a bush that had a purposeful resemblance to George W. Bush.

    “Chrissy, what time is it?”

    “Almost eleven, why?”

    “I think you mean 9/11” I chuckled then pointed to the Bush bush.

    “I hate you.”

    “Me too, stand in front of me so I can drink from my flask.”

    “Okay, whatever.”

    I chugged most of it and felt a deep burn in my esophagus. I grew to love it, especially this past week. That’s the fucking burn of adulthood in my throat.

    We spent the rest of the night laughing and discussing art. In truth, a lot of it was phony artist shit trying too hard to be symbolic, but we had a good time analyzing it. We both were art majors, but also were too self-conscious to let ourselves become like the artists at this exhibit.

    “Megan, look at this one.”

    “I actually kinda like it,” I replied while walking over and trying not to trip.

    “Yeah, the use of color is cool. Like I can feel something from it, unlike most of the other hollow, meaningless paintings.”

    “Yeah, right. Totally, like look at this part,” I started to gesture towards one of the warped shapes when my hand slipped and the last of my flask spilled onto the canvas.”

    “What the fuck, dude.” Chrissy whispered, not wanting to call attention to my embarrassing blunder.

    “Fuck. I don’t know, here um, “I moved my finger across the canvas and spread some of the liquor in a swirly pattern.

    “What the fuck are you doing now?” She asked louder this time.

    “Shut up. See, now it looks like it was done on purpose,” I started to giggle. The amount of alcohol I had in the last hour paired with what I had before I left made it difficult for me to take anything seriously for longer than 10 seconds.

    “Oh my go- “

    “Calm down, no one will notice except the artist. Now let’s go before they show up to gawk at their now ruined painting.

    We ran out of the exhibit not being able to contain the laughter from our ridiculous situation. After arguing for a few minutes in the car, I finally got my way and we drove to a club that I’d always wanted to go to.

    The club was packed of course. There were rainbow florescent lights and I had never been happier. Being drunk, I hadn’t realized it was more of a gay bar than a usual club, but being sober I probably wouldn’t have realized how much I wanted to be there.

    There were drag queens on heels, towering over me, and they walked by like goddesses, whose beauty was unexplainable. Everything felt right, I was in awe of what I was seeing until Chrissy interrupted my daze.

    “What do you want to drink?” her voice was loud and grating.

    “Huh?”

    “What are you dumb? The bartender asked like a million times. What do you want to drink?” she said the last sentence in spaced out obnoxious phrases. She thought she was funny. I turned to the bartender and smiled, now being snapped out of my daze.

    “What’s the gayest drink you have?” an easy thing for me to say being black out drunk, but if I were sober I’d probably over think myself to death, worrying if asking that is homophobic.

    “I got just the one for you, sweetie.” The bartender replied. A couple minutes later I was brought a fruit cocktail that they somehow figured out to fade into all the rainbow colors. There were a bunch of pretty berries sticking out of it and I couldn’t have been more pleased.

    Most of the night was a blur. I could barely remember it, but the clearest memory I had was Chrissy screaming at me then leaving. I wasn’t sure what it was about, but I didn’t care much. I didn’t care at all actually, because when I woke up I was still a little drunk and still drunk on happiness from whatever happened at that club.

    I had some coffee then decided it’d be more mature to call Chrissy. The phone rang for a while, but she picked up at the last second, a little too obviously trying to make me wait.

    “What the fuck do you want, Megan? Why are you calling me?”

    “To catch up. So last night was pretty wild, huh?”

    “Oh yeah, so wild” the sarcasm in her voice was obvious and a little over done, “let’s see. You left me to go fuck some girl in the back. Then when I wanted to go you threw a drink in my face “accidentally” and screamed that I was straight for the whole club to hear. You made me look like such an asshole in that fucking gay bar, Megan.” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Why are laughing? Where the fuck is my apology?”

    “No, it’s just I’m so sorry you had to feel so out of place. It must be upsetting being a white straight girl, I didn’t mean to make you feel so ostracized. If only the people in there knew what it was like.”

    “I don’t need this. Fuck you. And how are you not having a reaction to me saying you fucked a girl?”

    “Is that really such a big deal?”

    “You got so drunk that you forgot your sexuality, dude. Don’t you think that’s a little bit of a problem?”

    “No, I don’t see a problem,” I started to get quiet, I didn’t want to start talking about my sexual orientation when a massive hang over was coming on.

    “Are you stupid? You need to stop drinking. Really, it’s too much.”

    “Fuck off, I’m 21. It’s normal to drink when you’re this age.”

    “I don’t know man.” There was a pause and it made me feel even more like shit than when she would yell at me, “I think you have a drinking problem.”

    “You know what? Fuck you, let’s not talk again till I’m 30. Then we’ll see if I have a ‘drinking problem.’ Until then let me enjoy my goddamn 20s. So delete my number till then. Bye, asshole.” I ended the call then blocked her. I didn’t need someone making up problems for me. I was young and just wanted to be happy, I didn’t know it was the beginning of a life of alcoholism.
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