Solace

It’s never fun waking up with a hand full of sand in your mouth and a throbbing ache in your head. Toni rolled over on her back clenching her forehead. Bonn fire parties had been almost an everyday thing for her. And this night in particular, she had too much to drink. She squinted her eyes, looking up at the sky.

“Waverly…” she called vaguely, “Waverly, where are you?”
She crawled on her knees pushing random people on the ground to get to her friend.
“Waverly!”
“Hey! There you are. I’ve been looking for you-”
Toni looked up to see the very person she’d been searching for.
“Shut the fuck up.” She grabbed the hem of Waverly’s shirt pulling herself off the ground.
“Partied hard?”
“Shhhh, Do you know how to whisper?” Toni hissed.
“I am whispering,”

She buried her face in Waverly’s long dreadlocks. They had been close friends since Toni first moved to Redondo Beach. They didn’t know much about each other. They just knew they had one thing in common. They both were damaged. Waverly had came from a totally different side of track (South Central that is). It was the last place anyone would want to be. She lived with her abusive Grand farther and 4 cousins.

She had to deal with getting beaten up everyday because she was Hispanic.
It had gotten so bad to be, she couldn’t fight back. There was even a time were she had lain unconscious on the side of the street for hours. No one cared, so she ran.
She was 19 and scarred, physically and mentally.

“Let’s go get an aspirin.”
Toni stood up groggily practically hovering over her short friend.
“Yeah, yeah.”