Choices

Jordan Jacoel

We didn’t enter the house together. Even though Sam said we could go in together. The image of him throwing his keys and slamming the car door was blurry from the unwashed car windows and my glassy eyes.

If it were my car, I wouldn’t be at the receiving end. If it were my car, I could drive away, leaving Sam to be driven by his boyfriend. If it were my car, I would have a choice. Every decision that led to this argument was never my choice.

I look at the key wedged between my fingers, I shove it in my pocket. Glancing at the road and back at the loud house, I step out of the car and walk on my own. Maybe fate has different plans.

I am dancing.

I haven’t danced since New Year’s, 2008. Long limbs awkwardly flailing, People nodding like bobbleheads while stomping the floor. This one girl gets in my space no matter how many times I try to get her off. She has glossy brown eyes, just like Mom.

Mom said Dad used to take her to fancy night clubs. She said she danced until her feet were blistered and bleeding. When the clubs closed, they would continue to dance, spiraling down the streets of the quiet city, hands intertwined. Their laughter served as the music.

Dad told me that those dances were the greatest nights of his life. Mom would then comment on the events after their wedding ceremony, and Dad’s stoic face would uplift into a small smile, his ears flaking red shades. Stories like these were told when we had sit-down dinners on Friday nights.

There are so many bodies. The smell of booze and sweat is a tight vice around my neck. The haze is too euphoric to break free from. I bump into someone, one of Conner’s friends, and I am doused with cheap, ugly beer from 7-eleven. He pushes me to the floor, and two other people go down with me.

I try crawling, but my vision sways. Someone says something but it’s all unclear, muffled. I can only hear snippets of my surroundings as I try not to vomit all over the floor.

The DJ increases the blare of the musicand the sound of Sam’s cruel words somehow mixes with the world of “who actually gives a shit?” -while I stumble along to the rhythm of the song.

I am in the hallway, no longer under throbbing lights. The hallways are closing in on me. They are wider than what I expected. I end up on a tightrope, the floor grabbing onto my legs with each step.

I forget about Sam, with his boy band t-shirts, the black eyeliner, the curly dark hair, and the way he’d put an arm around me while laughing softly at my jokes.

I remember his boyfriend just when I throw up in the front yard.

I thought that I was clear for driving. I thought after I woke up laying on the grass, my name clear in my head, with no triple vison, I could get behind the wheel.

It wasn’t your car, Jason.

It. Wasn’t. Your. Car.

The warnings didn’t register until I slammed into a gray Mercedes. Mom’s tears, Dad’s silence, Conner’s jeers, Sam’s ignorance muddled the pain. I guess Friday nights are different when you get older.

The hospital beds are scratchy. No one visits until day two under white sheets.

Mom doesn’t say anything, and Dad just berates me.

This was not the plan. This was not how I planned my choices the night before.

Mr. Drake was entirely wrong about his self-absorbed lecture during third period. I’ve been holding onto the idea that I can control these incidents, steer clear from these spirals. But the choices I’ve made the past year have me walking in circles. Fate just has me crashing at full speed.