Hello, I Dislike You Intensely. Have a Nice Day.
Entry #30.
I'm still shaking when I think of last night.
Alex had said he really didn't feel like spending another night in town, and I agreed with him. So we went out driving with a bunch of people he half-knew and I only very vaguely knew. We were piled in the back of a pickup truck, speeding away on the highway with the wind blasting like music into our faces, laughing at lame jokes. The guy who was driving turned off at an exit and made more turns onto less crowded roads until we were bumping over the half-gravel, half-dirt of a rarely-used back road. Trees hovered around us on either side and as the sun set they cast long pointy shadows over us. I felt the truck slowing down and looked up ahead to see a cleared spot among the trees where a crumbling concrete picnic table sat and where another group of people waited. We got out of the back of the truck and joined them; I think altogether we made fifteen or nineteen people.
The next thing I knew, someone had started a campfire and a few kids were trying to toast bread and s'mores and people were passing around alcohol in red plastic cups and lighting cigarettes that glowed orange in the gathering darkness. Flash forward to something dark and heavy and bittersweet slipping down my throat. I couldn't find my head for a second and then I could and the campfire got brighter and blurrier and little spurts of electricity were working in my veins. Another swallow and I lost my inhibitions and everyone there was suddenly someone I knew. A little group of us splintered off from the main group to wander through the trees. We didn't worry about getting lost because one guy we were with knew how to tell direction from reading the stars so we couldn't get lost. There may or may not have been ghosts in the trees, so we started singing to scare them off, good songs to sing loudly and obnoxiously on an alcohol buzz. Hey Jude. Let It Be. Mr. Brightside. Semi-Charmed Life. Except the last one wasn't so easy and no one could agree on what any of the lyrics were except the chorus, so things sort of amiably fell apart after we strained our voices to sing the high note on 'she's not listening when I say good-baaiiieee'.
We found our way back to the campsite. A few more people arrived, carrying more pilfered alcohol, which elicited whooping and cheering from the rest of the group. More drinks, stronger, faster, darker. Music playing. Me and Alex making out in the bed of the truck. We'd kissed before, but not like this, not this sloppy and with less biting and mostly sitting upright. Flash forward to the cold metal of the truck bed on my back. I wondered how the hell I'd ever lost my shirt. A hard lump rising up against the fabric of his pants. We'd lost our shoes too. Suddenly everything felt cold and black and I cried out, "No!" just as the music stopped in the silence between one song ending and another beginning. I could feel everyone turning toward us. Someone muttered, "What's with her?" Someone else handed me a joint. "This'll take off the edge." "Don't do it, Dani," Alex mumbled. I did do it and ended up coughing pathetically for half a minute, but the edge did go off. Alex sighed. A little bit later my shirt was back on and a little bit later I'd found my shoes again. I asked to go home, and Alex somehow got the truck to ourselves and was driving me home.
"God, I'm sorry, Dani," Alex was saying. "I never should have - "
"No, don't," I said, the effects of the pot wearing off. I couldn't bear hearing any of it right then. "Let's be quiet. I just want to get home."
So he drove me home. As he pulled up in front of my house, I said, "You weren't drunk when you were driving, were you?"
"Maybe coming out of a buzz," he admitted.
"Ugh."
"I'm so sorry," he said, turning toward me, a look in his eyes that said he was dying to make it up to me.
I didn't want to hear it. The only thing I wanted then was to be by myself. I was in the house after a mumbled goodbye, heading toward the stairs to my room, but my mother's voice at my back stopped me. "Where the hell have you been? Do you know what time it is?"
I'd forgotten whatever cover story I was using that night, or if I'd even used a cover story at all, so I said simply, ambiguously, "With friends. We, lost track of time."
"I see. Care to explain why you smell like pot and cheap alcohol?"
God, of all nights she could have chosen to act like a mother, this was probably the worst. "Okay, there was pot and alcohol at the party. I said no, okay? I had nothing to do with it."
"You told me you were at a study group!"
"We...finished early." Dregs of the alcohol and weed still clung stickily inside my brain, and I knew I was losing ground fast.
"Damnit, I thought you were different from most dumb teenagers, I thought you actually used your brain, Danielle!"
My arguments turned from weak to just plain dumb. "Look at John Lennon. He did all kinds of shit, and he changed the world."
"Yeah, well, when he wasn't onstage, he was more often than not a drunk asshole. Damnit, Danielle! Half the time I don't even know where the hell you are anymore. You think just because I'm some washed-up hippie I don't care? Do you think I'm an idiot?"
"I never said that!" I cried, trying to reason with her. It was probably the fastest way I could get out of the fight and up to my room. "I don't want to fight, Mom. Can we talk about this tomorrow? I'm sorry for what happened, I promise I won't do it again. But we're not going to get anywhere if we fight each other."
The hippie in her listened to this and she stalked into the living room and fumed quietly to herself for a little bit. I walked softly as I could up the stairs, trying not to set her off again. She finally said, "Eventually he'll break your heart." So quietly I wondered if I were even supposed to have heard it. Either way, I dismayed at the words; they felt like a curse, like a black prophecy. I had to say something, anything to shake them off from where they'd stuck coldly to my skin. "You're only saying that because things didn't work out between you and Dad."
She replied, "We are so alike it alarms me."
I'm scared. I trusted Alex and I trusted myself to not lose it and we both did, though I caught us in time. And my mother, she's never yelled at me like that before, she's always understood that I did things for a reason. And I keep hearing what she said, I keep hearing the loudness of her voice in my head waking me up in the middle of the night, and I know she's more than justified in saying what she did, and it's all my fault.
But today is a new day. Things can be fixed, things can be resolved. They'll take time, but it's possible. I know this, but I'm just not as sure as I was anymore.
Alex had said he really didn't feel like spending another night in town, and I agreed with him. So we went out driving with a bunch of people he half-knew and I only very vaguely knew. We were piled in the back of a pickup truck, speeding away on the highway with the wind blasting like music into our faces, laughing at lame jokes. The guy who was driving turned off at an exit and made more turns onto less crowded roads until we were bumping over the half-gravel, half-dirt of a rarely-used back road. Trees hovered around us on either side and as the sun set they cast long pointy shadows over us. I felt the truck slowing down and looked up ahead to see a cleared spot among the trees where a crumbling concrete picnic table sat and where another group of people waited. We got out of the back of the truck and joined them; I think altogether we made fifteen or nineteen people.
The next thing I knew, someone had started a campfire and a few kids were trying to toast bread and s'mores and people were passing around alcohol in red plastic cups and lighting cigarettes that glowed orange in the gathering darkness. Flash forward to something dark and heavy and bittersweet slipping down my throat. I couldn't find my head for a second and then I could and the campfire got brighter and blurrier and little spurts of electricity were working in my veins. Another swallow and I lost my inhibitions and everyone there was suddenly someone I knew. A little group of us splintered off from the main group to wander through the trees. We didn't worry about getting lost because one guy we were with knew how to tell direction from reading the stars so we couldn't get lost. There may or may not have been ghosts in the trees, so we started singing to scare them off, good songs to sing loudly and obnoxiously on an alcohol buzz. Hey Jude. Let It Be. Mr. Brightside. Semi-Charmed Life. Except the last one wasn't so easy and no one could agree on what any of the lyrics were except the chorus, so things sort of amiably fell apart after we strained our voices to sing the high note on 'she's not listening when I say good-baaiiieee'.
We found our way back to the campsite. A few more people arrived, carrying more pilfered alcohol, which elicited whooping and cheering from the rest of the group. More drinks, stronger, faster, darker. Music playing. Me and Alex making out in the bed of the truck. We'd kissed before, but not like this, not this sloppy and with less biting and mostly sitting upright. Flash forward to the cold metal of the truck bed on my back. I wondered how the hell I'd ever lost my shirt. A hard lump rising up against the fabric of his pants. We'd lost our shoes too. Suddenly everything felt cold and black and I cried out, "No!" just as the music stopped in the silence between one song ending and another beginning. I could feel everyone turning toward us. Someone muttered, "What's with her?" Someone else handed me a joint. "This'll take off the edge." "Don't do it, Dani," Alex mumbled. I did do it and ended up coughing pathetically for half a minute, but the edge did go off. Alex sighed. A little bit later my shirt was back on and a little bit later I'd found my shoes again. I asked to go home, and Alex somehow got the truck to ourselves and was driving me home.
"God, I'm sorry, Dani," Alex was saying. "I never should have - "
"No, don't," I said, the effects of the pot wearing off. I couldn't bear hearing any of it right then. "Let's be quiet. I just want to get home."
So he drove me home. As he pulled up in front of my house, I said, "You weren't drunk when you were driving, were you?"
"Maybe coming out of a buzz," he admitted.
"Ugh."
"I'm so sorry," he said, turning toward me, a look in his eyes that said he was dying to make it up to me.
I didn't want to hear it. The only thing I wanted then was to be by myself. I was in the house after a mumbled goodbye, heading toward the stairs to my room, but my mother's voice at my back stopped me. "Where the hell have you been? Do you know what time it is?"
I'd forgotten whatever cover story I was using that night, or if I'd even used a cover story at all, so I said simply, ambiguously, "With friends. We, lost track of time."
"I see. Care to explain why you smell like pot and cheap alcohol?"
God, of all nights she could have chosen to act like a mother, this was probably the worst. "Okay, there was pot and alcohol at the party. I said no, okay? I had nothing to do with it."
"You told me you were at a study group!"
"We...finished early." Dregs of the alcohol and weed still clung stickily inside my brain, and I knew I was losing ground fast.
"Damnit, I thought you were different from most dumb teenagers, I thought you actually used your brain, Danielle!"
My arguments turned from weak to just plain dumb. "Look at John Lennon. He did all kinds of shit, and he changed the world."
"Yeah, well, when he wasn't onstage, he was more often than not a drunk asshole. Damnit, Danielle! Half the time I don't even know where the hell you are anymore. You think just because I'm some washed-up hippie I don't care? Do you think I'm an idiot?"
"I never said that!" I cried, trying to reason with her. It was probably the fastest way I could get out of the fight and up to my room. "I don't want to fight, Mom. Can we talk about this tomorrow? I'm sorry for what happened, I promise I won't do it again. But we're not going to get anywhere if we fight each other."
The hippie in her listened to this and she stalked into the living room and fumed quietly to herself for a little bit. I walked softly as I could up the stairs, trying not to set her off again. She finally said, "Eventually he'll break your heart." So quietly I wondered if I were even supposed to have heard it. Either way, I dismayed at the words; they felt like a curse, like a black prophecy. I had to say something, anything to shake them off from where they'd stuck coldly to my skin. "You're only saying that because things didn't work out between you and Dad."
She replied, "We are so alike it alarms me."
I'm scared. I trusted Alex and I trusted myself to not lose it and we both did, though I caught us in time. And my mother, she's never yelled at me like that before, she's always understood that I did things for a reason. And I keep hearing what she said, I keep hearing the loudness of her voice in my head waking me up in the middle of the night, and I know she's more than justified in saying what she did, and it's all my fault.
But today is a new day. Things can be fixed, things can be resolved. They'll take time, but it's possible. I know this, but I'm just not as sure as I was anymore.