Friday Night

All eyes are on Grace Ciotta.

Me.

How could they not? My presence demands to be seen when I enter my friend’s house party. Everyone gets their share of greetings as I traverse through each and every single one of them. I overheard someone say that the real party had just begun now that I arrived. It’s nothing new.

After all, I am the Queen of Mickle Ray High School. In Darkwood, Washington, and all the surrounding remote mountain towns, I am the most popular girl around. My name is even known in the big city. I am beautiful.

But I am not looking at beauty. I’m looking at the nightlife of Darkwood, Washington, a house party not any different than yesterday’s. It’s Friday night before the last week of school and everyone is looking to blow off steam from finals. Everyone’s here to get drunk, or smoke some weed, or pop a pill, do some shrooms, trip on acid, or most commonly, do some lines. Maybe even fuck. Nobody tries to hide it. It’s all out in the open. This is how it is. This is how it’s always been. This is what sets apart from every other town or city.

In the living room, a bunch of kids are standing around each other watching the game of beer pong. By their side is a group of guys talking about their plans for a ‘legendary’ summer. They're doing coke on a table. Two girls are around a guy I don’t know playing on the piano. In the kitchen, a few girls are experimenting with making cocktail drinks. I try out a few but like none. Outside in the backyard, a group of ten kids are huddled around a pit fire, telling each other ghost stories. Those not involved are smoking around. In the basement, three boys are watching a movie while they trip on mushrooms. Everyone is leaving them alone so they enjoy the experience. A girl talks to me about what she purchased in a store I recommended to her. Her pupils are dilated to the point where her eyes are nearly all black. A guy tries to invite me to a restaurant he discovered a couple weeks back, just the two of us. A girl wants to take a selfie with me and asks me to tag her when I post it. Another girl pulls her boyfriend away because he’s paying more attention to me than he is to her. I see their intent. It's desire, lust, envy, or nervousness. They all want something out of me.

But I do need breaks and find myself in the host, Maddie’s, bedroom with only our closest friends. It’s only six of us here and the only ones who I can truly call a friend in school.

I’m busy rolling a blunt on the bed while Tina, Liz, and Maddie sit around me and continue to gossip about things I’m not involved in. It’s idle chatter about some girl they don’t like and how she doesn’t deserve to get accepted into the university that she did. Half the time I don’t know what they’re talking about. They speak in a way that I’m incapable of.

Tina Leal keeps to herself and follows the flow most of the time. She doesn’t like to stick out but doesn’t mind that she never can because she’s friends with me.

Lisa Olmos relishes in popularity. Her voice is the loudest out of the trio. Although it can get it over her head, she doesn’t let it consume her.

Madison Myart is the second hottest girl in school. Her parents are never home and she throws parties all the time for kids she doesn’t know or like, because she thinks she should.

Kids from Issaquah, Preston, Tanner, Riverpoint, Harrow and Feltham. They all come to Darkwood because our parties are unmatched. There is never a dull moment. There is always someone new to meet.

But lately I’ve been growing tired of never being left alone.

Marcus beats Zac in a match of a fighting game and has been the source of most of my attention. I hand over the blunt I just finished to Marcus in between the intermission of their rematch.

“A work of art, like always, Gracie,” he says in complete disbelief on how tightly and smooth I rolled it. “I don’t know how you do it.”

“I don’t do anything special,” I reply.

Marcus lights it up and takes a drag, “For a girl who doesn’t smoke, it shouldn’t be this good.”

“Why don’t you?” Zac joins us.

“I don’t like the high.”

“You haven’t smoked in what, like, a year now?” Tina asks.

“Year and a half.”

Zac is given the blunt and smokes it. “Why don’t you like it?”

“It makes me anxious.”

“You probably just haven’t smoked the right strain. This shit here is gas.”

“The strain doesn’t matter, Zac,” I tell him sternly. “I know what I like.”

“Grace is too cool to smoke,” Liz laughs.

“Have you tried Xanax?” Marcus asks.

“I’m a whore for a Xanny,” Maddie giggles, taking the weed from Zac.

“You’re a whore for everything,” I joke.

“Am not?”

“Insta likes, money, Wendy’s fries, Nutella, Drake, Nicki Minaj, drama, waking up before your alarm, Oxys, a good finger-”

“Alright, alright,” Maddie interrupts me, laughing, “Point made.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I’m different from the rest of the kids in my town. I don’t get fucked up like everyone else. I’m respected because I don’t. It’s this ideal symbol everyone has placed on me.

“Oh my god, Grace, guess who I saw today? Like, freaky alert,” Liz places her hand over Maddie’s mouth to shut her up.

“What’s freaky?”

“That weirdo, Frank. Thank god he didn’t see me. Although it would have been cool to use my pepper spray.”

“Whatever happened to him,” Marcus asks, returning with Zac to continue playing their game.

“He moved away last year,” I remind everyone.

“Good thing too, I seriously thought he was going to shoot up the school one day,” Liz says.

“Liz, you never talked to him so you can’t say shit like that” I sigh.

“Well he looks like the type, right?”

Tina laughs, “I bet Grace only tried to be friends with him so she could be spared when he did.”

I pout and roll my eyes, “You guys are mean. It’s honestly pretty feta of you, Liz.”

Liz jerks back on my disapproval of her. Tina laughs at this and Maddie’s too high to notice.

Sometime later, I find myself in the basement that serves as a home theater. Maddie’s parents have a dedicated sound system and a TV with LED lights in the back that are in sync with the screen. It’s the perfect place to watch movies on a psychedelic trip and a place that’s quiet.

As I watch the movie sober, the man I least expected to come walks down the stairs. Alex Elledge, my crush since Sophomore year.

I get up from the couch and greet him. “I didn’t think you would show.”

“I just dropped something off for Edgar, I’m not staying long,” he says in his smooth and intoxicating voice.

There’s a red cup in his hands. I take it from him and drink it without asking, the Grace special. “Stopping by to say hi?”

“Something like that.”

“My birthday is next week. It’s mandatory for you to come to that one,” I say in my best sultry voice.

“Is it now? Didn't the cops show up last year?”

“Like it mattered, they didn’t care. I was only grounded.”

“For a month,” Tina says, coming down from the stairs. “Grace, we should have it on the abandoned house at the edge of town. Everyone’s coming, it won’t be able to be ignored.”

Tina’s right.

My 17th birthday party was already the biggest one of the year. I was lucky enough to be in the only town where the adults don’t care what we do and didn’t get in that much trouble. That was the party that cemented my status as Queen, and this year, it’s bound to get out of control. Not only is it my birthday, but we’ll all get our diplomas on the same day.

“Why there?”

“That house is the only place where it’s going to be low key.”

“Mute,” I correct her.

“Right, mute.”

Alex looks at me, concerned. I know what he’s thinking and doesn’t have to say it. The abandoned house is the worst place for me to be at. He knows what it means to me.

I’m not shy of the sick twist of fate that I place on myself. I wanted this. I want this popularity. I worked hard to get it.

I just never thought I would replace Her.

That abandoned house is where everything ended and began.

“What a fitting place for the incarnation Elizabeth,” Alex cheekily says.

I roll my eyes. “You forgot the perfect.”

It sours my mood and I leave the house soon after. I don’t have anywhere else to be but I don’t want to go home. Seattle’s the only option. I’m sure I can find something to do if I go there. It’s an hour drive there and I make sure I have everything in my bag for the trip.

I’ll probably won’t be home until 4 or 5 am, just as long as I make it back before my mom comes home from work. There’s an emergency student council meeting at 7 and I have to babysit at 12 after. That Saturday night, I have to be back in the city by 10. I’m not going to get any sleep tonight.

While searching around my bag, I pop a pill of Adderall to keep me going for the night. I’ll have to buy more tomorrow as I’m running out.

Come to think of it, I'm probably not going to get any sleep until Sunday night. I made plans with Maddie and with some other girls after. Let’s not talk about the final week of school. There’s going to be a party every night for the last week of school and it’ll end with mine.

The cops don’t care. The teachers don’t care. Our parents don’t care. They don’t because they’re all doing the same thing, escaping from their own miserable lives.

It’s exhaustion.

Of the world. Of the misery.

Of not having control.

That’s the real curse of this town. The waters are so murky that it’s impossible to escape. And when someone is able to stand without being sunk, everyone clings onto them thinking they’ll be saved. All those hands holding on only weigh the body down.

I used to dream about going to parties just like these.

I used to find them so cool and eventful. Everyone shows up to have fun. It’s the wild west here, there isn’t anything that couldn’t happen. It’s socializing and getting in with the right people. It’s forgetting the outside world. It’s indulging and looking cool.

It’s staying up until 3 am and having class at 7 am, just to do it again somewhere else.

It’s glorified. We want it to be. It makes us feel important. It’s our normal.

To outsiders, it’s sad and depressing. It shouldn’t be like this. It’s quite possibly one of the most heartbreaking things to witness. There’s nothing to be proud of about what we do. We’re ruining our lives.

We’re just kids.

But it’s not just this town. There’s plenty of places like this. We’re not anything special. We’re just a product of a system that failed us. It failed me.

That’s just how it is in Darkwood. There’s nothing to do here so the only thing to do is getting fucked up. I think all of us see how the world is so fucked and there isn’t anything we can do about it. It doesn’t matter how much we yell, fight or try, nothing ever changes. It doesn’t matter how many politicians are outed to be corrupt, how many school shootings happen, how many more police brutality needs to happen until enough is enough. It doesn’t matter how many protests are marched or fought for. Nothing changes.

We’ve become nihilistic and cynical teenagers tired of it all.

I’m a gem amongst all the dirt.

But a rock is still a rock regardless of what it’s made of.

I stare at the two-inch ziplock plastic bag I grab out of the secret department of my handbag. I open the small plastic bag and pick up a tiny metal spoon from the console. I scoop the spoon inside and place it in front of my nose.

I’m not the light in the darkness everyone looks up to. I’m not the innocent and pure angel everyone sees me as. All I’ve done was put on the shoes of my predecessor.

Elizabeth Wilson.

The Golden Queen of Darkwood.

The shining beacon in the cursed and corrupting town.

But Elizabeth died four years ago.

She killed herself in front of me.

The cocaine shoots through my nostril and electrifies the back of my throat. I relax my back on the seat and take a deep breath. My butt almost lifts itself up and I push my chest outwards. Then my knees lock and my spine digs into the seat. I smile as my vision narrows and focuses on the steering wheel in front of me. I’m far from what everyone expects me to be, but I’m okay with that. No one has to know.