A few days later, he invited me to Sandy’s twenty-first birthday party. I balked, hoping that I could think of a way to get out of it before we finished the conversation.

“Everyone is going,” he said. Meaning Carl, Akul, Ruby and Lily.

I accepted, and since it was an ugly sweater party, found a fluffy white sweater that my grandmother had given me several years prior.

When we walked up to the house, I was seized with the desire to run away. John thought I was just responding to the wind that had blown past and put his arm around my shoulder, pulling me into his warmth. The door opened and there stood sarcastic girl herself, Sandy. She looked like she had been sucking on a moldy lime. She raised her hand, and gestured us into the house.

“Welcome,” she said, but not like she meant it.

John had no idea what had just happened. “Happy Birthday, Sandy! Shots, later? I hear you have to get to 21.”

She changed her tune. “Of course. I’ll meet you downstairs. We’re just about to start the dancing.”

She closed the door, clipping me with the corner and walking away. I scrambled after John, adamant that I would not be left alone in Sandy’s house. Her house was a combination of classy adult living and college. That is to say, there were rugs. But there were also empty bottles of vodka, rum and tequila. Mainly empty bottles of tequila, which I learned later that night were her favorite shots to do.

“Let’s get this party started!” I heard from the basement as I descended the stairs. I could feel the reverberations in my heart from the bass in the music. Usually, I enjoyed the feeling. It was more intoxicating to me than alcohol. But tonight, it just made me nervous. I felt my stomach drop with the beat.

I watched as Sandy made the rounds, gesturing towards me and John with her eyes, pretending to be subtle. I watched the crowd begin to inspect me, my clothes, my hair, the way I held myself. I tried to stand my ground, but John had moved to the bench of alcohol to do tequila shots. I ran to Ruby and Akul and hid.

They were deep in conversation about the latest football game, as Ruby was adept at being a “bro”. I knew so little about football, I couldn’t even pretend to know what they were talking about. I watched John and Sandy throw back tequila and bite limes, over and over.

Carl slid up behind Ruby and myself. “Hello ladies, how are you tonight?” He said it like a radio announcer. I wanted to move the dial away from his channel.

Ruby smiled but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Lily thinks it would be fun if we all kissed.”

Akul fled, unable to stand up to Carl’s charismatic pressure even though he didn’t want to participate. I had seen my father exhibit that influence on people before.

Lily giggled and threw her arms around Carl. He rolled his eyes. I wondered why Lily liked Carl. He was always putting her down.

“At the same time?” I said, still watching Sandy out of the corner of my eye.

“Of course. Everyone ready? Pucker up and come on in.” Carl’s arms guided us into the pentahedron of lips. As we got closer, I noticed the slight beginnings of a mustache on Ruby, the stress pimples on Lily and the nose hair on Carl. I wondered what they were noticing about me. Our lips brushed, with no one except Carl trying to make it a real kiss.

“What the hell?” John’s voice broke the strange reverie.

Sandy slithered up behind him. “Oh, ignore them, John. It’s just stupid freshman, being themselves. Besides,” she said. “You don’t have anything at stake here, do you?”

John walked back to the tequila bench, his shoulder muscles tensing through his shirt. I followed, trying to avoid the broken shot glasses on the floor.

“John, it wasn’t what it looked like.”

“I bet it was Carl’s idea.”

My silence answered him.

“He knows we’re together.” He ended this sentence with another shot. “Let’s dance.”

John pulled me into an open space and began swinging me around, bringing me close to him and then spinning me away. We began crunching the shot glasses beneath out feet. I was not worried about cutting my feet anymore. Cut feet would be the best excuse to leave. No, I was worried about the predator that paced in the background, watching John twirl me around, intoxicated by her tequila. She began whispering to Akul, who rubbed her back, half-heartedly.

John positioned my arms around his neck. I held on, as he was moving too fast to control my movements. I’m sure I looked like a rag doll.

Sandy threw her glass at me, although her poor aim sent it at the wall near my head. I let go of John’s neck.

“What is your problem, Sandy?” John said.

“Get that slut out of my house,” she said.

“What did you just call me?” I said.

“You heard me,” she said.

I felt my hurricane rise in my chest, propelling my anger into a storm. “You talk a big game about being a feminist and supporting women, Sandy. But when things don’t go your way, you forget everything his century has taught you.”

“What the fuck kind of response is that?” she said.

“John is with me now,” I said, thankful that I had not joined in on the tequila festivities. “Get the fuck over it.”

Sandy swung at me with a fully formed fist. I stepped to the side like I was in a slow motion picture.

“I would like to leave now,” I said.

Akul appeared behind me. “We’ll go out the back door.”

The party watched our egress with amusement. I wished I could be so drunk as to not remember this. Because if you don’t remember it, it doesn’t become part of your personality or your past. And who wants Sandy’s shattered glass as part of their personality.

John and I walked down the street, heading towards my dorm, the closer of our two beds. Well, I walked and supported. John staggered. The tequila shots that he had done with Sandy were all hitting him at the time and he was getting less and less coordinated with each step. We arrived at my dorm and took the elevator up my floor, because I knew my shoulder couldn’t support him up the stairs. He tumbled onto the floor and crawled to the trashcan.

The poor trashcan. It got more of the same treatment from John as it had received from me. I rubbed his back and smoothed back his hair, trying not to gag at the strong scent of tequila. My fingers slipped through his hair with ease.

A continuous stream of apologies slipped from his mouth. I shushed him, gave him new trash bags and disposed of the ones he had used. I was happy that I could repay the favor. I had felt indebted to John since I had been sick. He had done something no friend would do, and that was a big deal. I promised him I would return in a few minutes and propped him up against the side of my desk.

I thought he was going to cry when he said, “Come back soon”.

I sprinted down the stairs to the vending machine and attempted to put the quarters in the slot. My hand shook from the adrenaline of trying to get this Gatorade in as little time as possible. I pressed A8 instead of A9 and was rewarded with a Diet Coke. I kicked the vending machine and bruised my big toe. I swore and punched the vending machine in punishment. I received bruised knuckles in return. I could never get anything right. The world was intent on giving me the opposite of what I needed. I wondered if this was what the rest of my life would be like, asking for a does-no-harm Gatorade, and getting a Diet Coke. I’m sure my mother would have been furious had she seen me with either item.

When I managed to both insert quarters and press the right button, I was rewarded with two lemon-lime Gatorades and I set off running. I arrived to find him lying on the floor on his back, clutching his stomach. I rolled him immediately on his left side (which I had learned from taking care of the drunk kids on campus) and checked to make sure he was breathing. Then I thought, what if he stops breathing? And that’s when I started hyperventilating. What if he threw up and the vomit occluded his airway? I was in way over my head.

“John, I’m going to call an ambulance. Okay?”

“You can’t. They’ll cite me. I’m not 21,” John said. “Be okay.”

I wanted to scream. I was not prepared for this situation. I tried to ignore the slur in his voice to do what he had asked. I positioned myself behind him to keep him upright and put a pillow under his head so it wasn’t so uncomfortable on this carpet that I assumed had been installed with vomiting freshman in mind. I had once spilled water and tried to mop it up with a towel. The second the towel touched the carpet it soaked the water up and the carpet wasn’t even wet. John cuddled into the pillow like a hedgehog. I consulted the Internet when he had fallen asleep. How do I know if my drunk friend needs to go to the hospital?

The Internet provided me with a step-by-step guide to taking care of a drunk friend, signs of alcohol poisoning and an article that had collected the horror stories from the various university’s worst students. The indication of the need to go to the hospital that I latched onto was breathing less than six or eight times every minute. I watched the second hand tick by for a second, and when it hit the thirty mark, I started.

1, 2, 3, 4, keep going, 5, 6, 7, 8…

Just on the border. Of course he was. I put my headphones on and found the most raucous music I owned to keep me awake. I set an alarm for every hour to check on him in case I fell asleep and I put pillows behind him so he couldn’t roll onto his back. Please, I begged him in my head. Please breathe just a little bit faster.