I wish I could fly, I’d pick you up and we’d go back in time …
She woke up with that song ringing in her head. The first thing she remembered was how awful last night had been, and the feeling lingered in the morning.
She turned on her phone. Messages from Jan came flooding in. She didn’t know Hazel wasn’t coming to the party and she wondered why. Apparently she checked with Lee and found out what happened between the two of them and felt bad for not calling her as soon as possible.
‘I’m coming over’ was the last message Jan texted her, and she was right in front of her door less than 30 minutes after she woke up.
Back then we didn’t know, we were built to fall apart …
How true those lyrics were as she told Jan everything that happened last night between her and Lee. She fell apart. Though Jan looked hungover, she was listening intently to her best friend who’s going through her toughest time yet.
Jan had gone through her own breakup a few times already, and Hazel had always been there for her too. She decided to spend the night at Hazel’s, it’s how they always spend their breakups, pick one song to drown their sorrows in. For Hazel, it’s Taylor Swift’s ‘The Very First Night’.
She’d never imagined that song would be her breakup song because it had always reminded her about that night in Goldstone when they fell in love for the first time.
I wish that we could go back in time, and I’d say to you …
‘I miss you like it was the very first night’
Such a jovial song and yet Hazel was screaming it out her lungs with tears in her eyes. The world was crumbling on top of her with Jan by her side trying to relate to her pain as much she could but encouraging her to keep moving forward at the same time. Little do they know that Claire and Eduard were giggling downstairs listening to their singing knowing it was the teenager’s way of coping with a breakup.
“How could you not know about the party? I mean … everyone at school knew about it … and we all thought you’d be the first person there because how close you are with Marlon,” they had moved on to the next hot topic of the weekend.
“I know right? What a jerk … I was at his house on Friday! He dropped me home in the afternoon … not a single word about the party,” Hazel raised her shoulders and hands as they laid on her bed side by side.
“He was out of it last night … I mean … it was wild, babe, I have never seen so many booze and God knows what laying around the house like it’s nobody’s business,” Jan shook her head. “All I know it was illegal to have that kind of party for high school kids … if it weren’t for his parents … we would all go to jail,” she chuckled.
“His parents were there?”
“No … nowhere to be found …” she laughed. “But they’d probably gave the permission, or paid the authority or something like that … it was wild … everyone was out of it and Marlon … it was crazy, okay, I feel bad for the people who cleans after last night.”
Jan sat on the bed, “I mean … kids were making out, probably having sex in the empty bedrooms, doing drugs … they were puking, screaming, passing out here and there … a lot of the kids from school were shocked, I mean that’s not the kind of scene we’re used to … those city kids are crazy.”
“What kind of drugs? Do you see them using drugs?”
“No, but it can’t be just the alcohol, I have no idea how they get the stuff but I know stuff were circulated around the party all night long, and Marlon …” Jan shook her head again.
Hazel was curious, “What?”
“He’s trouble Hazel … that’s all I can say … this is the kind of life he’s used to, and for him to go to our school the way he does is surprising … his friends from the city … they’re all at least 21 years old … they’re not high school kids, he’s hanging out with older kids … legal age … you know what I mean?”
“Uh-huh …” Hazel could only imagine what Jan was describing, it only made her more curious and annoyed at Marlon for not telling her about the party.
All these times Jan was an admirer, a Marlon fangirl, and for her to say something like that, she must’ve seen something that was far from how she perceived him to be.
Hazel had always saw Marlon for what he is, a troubled boy with problematic family background, but a friend nonetheless. Or was he? Would a friend not tell her if he had a party where everyone is invited? Maybe she had misjudged him, maybe she was never his friend, maybe he just saw her as his tutor.
“I can’t believe he didn’t even tell me about the party … that sucks,” Hazel complained.
“Are you going to ask him about it?”
“I’ll give him a piece of my mind when I see him on Monday … I mean … what the hell? Everyone was invited, what does he take me for? His tutor?”
Jan sighed, “Well … technically, you are his tutor, but I thought you guys are friends.”
“Yeah, well, apparently not … maybe I should just give him an earful now,” Hazel reached for her phone.
“I don’t think he’s up,” Jan scoffed, “The last time I saw him … he was laying by the pool with vomit coming out of his mouth, and his ‘friends’ were laughing at him.” Jan quoted the word friends.
“Is that how you treat your friends? I hope as hell mine aren’t like that … he drank like an elephant the whole time we were there, sticking his tongue to his girl friends simultaneously … not sure if he would remember any of that … after midnight he could barely opened his eyes and his speech was slurred and then he fell forward from his seat and passed out … and his friends just laughed at him like it’s nothing.”
“Oh my God … did anyone help him after?”
“I think they finally took him up to his room, but they were all drunk … they could barely lift him up the stairs … I think it’s a regular thing, they do this all the time … they probably spend the night there … I was pretty drunk myself, we decided to head back not long after Marlon passed out.”
Hazel fell silent, she’d seen him high many times, not completely sober most of the time but never shitfaced drunk. She had never known any 17 year-old boy wanting to be intoxicated as much as Marlon did. She understood that some people do it for fun, but for Marlon, it was more like an escape from the reality he didn’t want to face.