751Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1LYZ3RvmX4
New York City was different in 1993.
11:59 P.M. DECEMBER 31, 1992
Thirty seconds to go and we are already counting down.
Thirty seconds to go and we are already drunk.
The party around me pulses with an exotic energy, a shifting and evolving mass of bodies all hyped up on the beginning of a new year.
Twenty seconds to go and my head hurts.
Fifteen seconds to go and I’m screaming along.
Ten seconds to go and I accept that the worst year of my life is almost over.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
12:00 A.M. JANUARY 1, 1993
We scream at the top of our lungs at the death of the year. I’m covered in alcohol; I’m filled to the brim with wretched alcohol. The pulsing crowd slowly settles into a dull throb, our energy fading like the denial of another year starting.
I chug down another bottle of alcohol, the world dipping and swaying like it’s the one that’s drunk. Someone takes the bottle from my hand, but I was done anyway.
“You should stop,” a drunker than me Max says. I think I shake my head as I grab for the beer in his other hand. I dump it over my shoulder and the glass breaks against the back of my platform boots. The world sways again and I fall, hitting the couple dancing wildly next to me. Max yanks my sleeve and pulls me towards him out of the still moving crowd.
My head is hurting as the alcohol loses its footing in my system, like it has been a lot these days; drinking constantly did that: loosening the effect and consequently the whole purpose of drinking.
I’m remembering again. The pain is coursing through me faster than the thrill of the crowd behind me.
“You should stop,” Max slurs again, watching with glossy eyes as I tilt another cup against my quivering lip. I squint to look at him, my headache worsening with every passing second. I drink it, anyway.
But this drink is ineffective. I feel nothing but dull, gross pain. Max watches as a girl in a jean skirt stumbles across the room. He follows her and I follow him as she slips out on to the balcony.
I sit on the edge of railing, watching the cars beneath light up the ground. Max says, “You should stop,” again. I repeat him and he nods slowly, his eyes unfocused. An unattended cup sits next to me and I take it, tilting it to hit the back of my throat head on.
It burns, but then it doesn’t. The world is swaying and dipping again. Air rushes around me like a hurricane of adrenaline. I open my eyes and see the ground twenty feet away and fast approaching.
The pain is gone.
12:00 P.M. JANUARY 1, 1993
NEW YORK TIMES
NEW YEAR’S PARTY ENDS IN TWO DEATHS, ALCOHOL INVOLVED. 751Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡavSyWerteh
Author's Note: In the case that the foreshadowing is not entirely obvious, the end of the year was parallel to the end of her life. Terrible ending, I know, but it was the best I could come up with. That is all. 751Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ18AMVZpEH
