Teenage Life Style

• Samantha Jeffreys, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2010

It was early morning or late night – the sun was starting to set or rise, I just wasn’t sure which one. The sky was a bright pink-orange so I could only just make out my surroundings. I could see a playground in the distance, the dark blue swing set only fifty metres or so away. The grass underneath me seemed to be a bit damp so it made me think it was early morning.
I couldn’t quite remember how I got here. Last night fell into a blur. The last thing I remember clearly was somehow convincing mum to let me go with my best mate Emma to an open house party just a few streets away. I’m only seventeen so she doesn’t like letting me out much, but I pulled the old ‘you have to let me make my own mistakes’ line and she reluctantly let me go. I now regret going to the party at all.
Emma's parents didn’t mind her going to parties and often brought her alcohol, and she gladly shared her drinks with me. As I'm not as experienced in the ‘party scene’ as her, it didn’t take me long to get drunk.
I’d drunk two by the time we reached the party and I was already stumbling over my own feet. I liked being drunk. I seemed to not care about anything and have a new sense of confidence – it was like I’d been holding the whole world on my shoulders and never realized, and it’s not till I’m drunk that it gets lifted.

It was one of Emma’s friend’s parties. I’d meet her in passing but we’d never really talked more then a friendly good-day here and there. I didn’t really know any one at the party. Except for Mitch who I’d been texting for the last couple of weeks now, nothing had happened yet but we defiantly implied a lot of things, other then him though I didn’t know any one, I’d seen most of them at school, but never meet them. Nonetheless I let Emma talk me in to coming.
I wasn’t at the party for long before I started to mingle with the other guests. They were all so nice. I never realized before. It made me wonder why I’d never liked them before. I always thought the boys were too big of show-offs and the girls were always too bitchy. As the music played and we all danced along, many of my new friends kept handing me drinks and I kept taking them, not wanting to hurt their feelings. I lost track of how many I had, but the more I drank the more free I felt. As the night started to develop into a huge blur I distinctly remember catching a glimpse of Mitch in one corner of the yard to my horror mocking out with another girl, I couldn’t tell who she was from behind. To shocked and heart broken I left that scene alone and went back to getting extremely drunk.
It must have been about midnight when one of my new friends, I think his name was Damien or something, asked me to go for a walk. Not caring about what might happen and still recovering from my resent heart brake, I accepted the invitation politely. I don’t think we went far but it was hard to walk and I ended up slung over Damien’s shoulder. It was dark on the streets but I could see some lights up ahead. It must be a park, I thought to myself. Sure enough about five minuets later Damien was walking me up along some grass and toward what looked like another group from the party. Among them I could recognisee a boy called Jack. I knew him from school – he was in my history class, and he’d sometimes sit next to me when he didn’t understand what the teacher was saying and wanted me to translate.
As we walked towards the group Jack saw it was me and walked out to meet us. Damien didn’t like the fact that I knew one of the boys and started to walk me away. I tried to stop him and walk out to meet Jack half way, but Damien stopped me and tried again to steer me away from the approaching boy. Jack obviously didn’t like the idea of Damien trying to get away from him with me. I can’t remember exactly who said what or who challenged whom but some how Damien and Jack were fighting, I tried to tell them to stop but slurred my words too much for any one to understand. They were throwing punches and I didn’t like the idea of someone getting hurt. So I stumbled over towards them hoping they would stop once I got too close, you know how they do in movies. Obviously things in movies don’t happen in real life, so they didn’t stop throwing punches – and unfortunately I stood right in front of one of their punches. It hit me hard and I fell to the ground . . . that’s been the last thing I remembered.

Obviously they decided to leave me here and run, in fear they would get in trouble, because here I lay on the ground in the park. As I rolled over I could fell my head thumping, but I was still too tired to get up so I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.

“Lizz! Oh, my God – Lizz, please don’t be dead!”
I woke to hear Emma yelling. I tried to open my eyes to see her but the sun was in my eyes, so I guess it was about nine now due to where the sun was sitting in the sky. It took me a minute to allow my eyes to focus before I could open them, and when I did I could see Emma was leaning over me still yelling.
“Lizz, please don’t be dead. Someone call for help, quickly! Oh, my god, she’s moving – someone help! Lizz, Lizz, are you okay? Lizz, answer me!”
She was obviously worried but I couldn’t find my voice to be able to reply. I tried to clear my throat. It was so sore and dry; it took another few minutes before I could reply. “Emma, calm down, I’m fine.” It was all I could say; my voice was crackly and my head was so sore. After that I fell back to sleep.