My first and last High school party

Before I start telling you this, I feel like I need to clear some things up. In high school, I didn't really attend a lot of parties. If you asked me when I was in school, I would tell you it was by choice, but I'd be lying. Up until the end of senior year, I had never been to a real high school party. Of course, that all changed.

I had just pulled up to the house when my phone buzzed. "U coming man? Its crazy here," texted my friend Ethan (a fictitious name I will use to protect his college education and future employment). I was already three hours late so by the time I walked into the unsupervised house I was clearly the only sober one there. Right past the front door, there was a note taped to the wall that read: "HOUSE RULES 1. No drinks in the dining room 2. Designated hookup rooms are upstairs 3. Don't be a jerk." Seemed pretty straight-forward. As I made my way into the basement, I noticed several things. For one, the carpet was soaking wet from the copious amounts of cheap alcohol spilling all over the floor. Next, I noticed the gracious host of the night (let's call him Jeff) dancing on top of a table whipping his shirt across the room like a dead cat. As all of this is going on, my eyes scanned the room trying to find a friendly face. Which was difficult. Everyone looked like they wanted to hurt me. Luckily, out of this cloud of drunk scowls, came Ethan. Unfortunately, he was already at the peak of his night and going downhill very fast. There we were. One huge, drunk football player and his small, sober friend. 

I stood against the wall for a bit. Just taking it all in. That was short lived, of course, when a junior from a neighboring school bumped into me and said, "I'm so messed up right now."

"Well, you're in good company," I said. 

What she said next was hard to interpret. "I juss got rinover," she slurred to me.

"Come again?"

"Someone just ran over my foot!" she said with a much clearer voice.

I laughed and brushed it off, assuming it was just a joke. She proceeded to show me her foot, which was, in fact, ran over. "Dammit," I yelled. No one noticed. I took the girl upstairs to the kitchen and began to fill a Ziploc bag up with ice. Her foot was already pretty swollen and I figured better late than never. I handed her the homemade ice pack and she throws it back at me. 

"You need ice. Your foot is looking bad," I said.

"I don't need ice!" she yelled.

She then took the bag from my hands and threw it across the room. Ice went everywhere and she hobbled quickly down the stairs. "Not my problem," I said to myself. I walked back downstairs to tell Ethan that I was probably going to head out. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy parties. But when you're the one stuck on damage control, you get tired of it real fast. I thought my night was over. What was the point? I was just on my way out until I heard a familiar voice.

I turned around to see (lets call her) Stacy, my high school crush. It was like the clouds parted and heaven's light shone down upon me. I had a reason to stay. "Hey, Corey. Could you help?" Stacy asked. I know I said I hated doing damage control, but for Stacy I would've performed open heart surgery. Turned out, she was also dancing on the table and took quite the tumble. Her elbows both had small cuts on them so I ran as fast as I could, searching for band-aids. I went upstairs to see if there was a medicine cabinet. Boy, was I wrong. The first door I opened just so happened to be one of the "designated hookup rooms." I'll spare the details and let your imagination do the thinking. The next door I found was to a bathroom. There had to band-aids somewhere in there. Luckily for me, there were. But, of course, there was a 30 year old man giving one of my classmates a tattoo. If I remember correctly it was an upside-down cross. Just lovely. I casually squeezed behind the artist and grabbed the bandages. On my way out, I might have bumped into him a bit and that might have made a little smudge in the tattoo but whose to say that was my fault. So I guess it ended up looking more like a question mark then a cross. 

I finally got back to Stacy who was patiently bleeding on the couch. As I applied the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles band-aids to her, she broke down crying. "I'm such a bad person."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because I'm drunk and I hurt myself. You're so nice, Corey."

"Don't be mad at yourself. You're fine."

'Okay. I just-I know I won't remember any of this. And we're all going off to school and I'm gonna miss you so much."

"Stacy. You're probably right. You won't remember anything tomorrow. That's why I'm gonna tell you that I've had the biggest crush on you for a while," I said, hoping to God that she wouldn't remember tomorrow. She teared up and started to say something. She was interrupted, however, by a 6'4" college freshman who walked up, said, "sup," then escorted her back downstairs. "Dammit," I said to myself.

I walked to my car silhouetted by the neon glow of a party that should've gotten busted hours ago. I passed a huddle of stoners smoking the smallest joint I had ever seen and then finally got into my car to drive home. On my short drive back, I saw a man wandering in a ditch one and a half miles away from the party. I hesitantly asked him if he needed a ride. He assured me he wouldn't throw up and I figured it'd be my last good deed of the night. His name was Steven and he was a senior at a local college. We talked a lot about school and what not. As he got out of my car, he thanked me for such a great night. "I really appreciate the ride, dude. Tonight was a good night. I think I drove over some chick's foot but other than that an A plus night."

​Dammit.