September 2013
My last year of school, I’m 15. My friends are planning to go to a disco, and I’m begging my mom for permission.
Mom resists until the end, yelling that she didn’t go to discos at my age. By the way, it is true—she went there from 18 to 26, until she got pregnant with me. But this ban from her sounds like her first curse. Because I won’t partying after 18. The second curse will be uttered a few years later as: "If you get married, you won't finish your studies."
And I'll be studying for my whole life.
The disco is going to be super cool, a foam party at a suburban club by the lake. They’re letting people in starting from 18. But we’re locals and know how to sneak onto the area along the lakeshore through the woods.
One of my friend is singing Rihanna's "Diamonds." I’m silent because my English is much worse—a weak B1, maybe even A2. We just watched the fireworks and are walking 2 or 3 kilometers to the suburban complex where the rest of our group is waiting.
Our group has up to 20 teenagers. We gather a few times a week to play basketball together or hang out at someone’s house. Sometimes we visit billiard if the weather is bad or bar where they sell us beer because I once photoshopped everyone's birth year on the passport photo, and we showed it to the bartender. Although last year, we even rented an apartment for the winter with money we earned handing out flyers and doing other odd jobs for local businesses. Two slightly older girls lied that they were students, and we got the apartment. But after a month, we got kicked out for constant noise and a crowd on the balcony.
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Our town has 70,000 residents, but it’s the town's birthday, and many people from nearby towns and villages will come to this disco. It’s going to be a grand event, and I’m thrilled that I managed to convince my mom.
For a while, we dance and have fun. We dodge the security guards a bit, so they don’t see that we don’t have entry wristbands.
What about the crush of that time? No crush, it’s my graduation year. I decided to study hard to escape from my mom to Kyiv. I can’t afford tutors, so I brought home a bunch of books from all 5 years of secondary school and plan to reread and review everything in a year. By the way, I’ll succeed and will prepare myself for the final exams in history, Ukrainian language and literature, and English language with a tutor. I’ll have chance to get a student of law in Kyiv's univercity. But then, the war will start, mom will lose her good job, the dollar will rise from 8 to 30 hryvnias, and I won’t be allowed to study in Kyiv. I’ll get into Drohobych University for a specialty where I’ll get a state-funded place.
After the party, our whole group heads home and we hear strange screams in the park. But for some reason, we don’t pay attention. In the morning, we hear the news that at the time we heard the screams, a woman was murdered in the park. It becomes creepy. Mom swears she won’t let me go anywhere anymore. Officially, that was my last disco for the next 3 years. But not because of mom’s ban.