Dancing with Molly

by Lena Horowitz

  On the way to school this morning, Ashley wouldn’t even talk to me, which . . . whatever. I was still feeling a little tired, so I decided just to let her have her space. I’m done feeling guilty for feeling good. She can make her decisions, and I don’t judge her for them. What I couldn’t shake as I drove into the parking lot was the fear that Carson wouldn’t even talk to me today. My head started to hurt a little as I sat in the car after I parked. Ashley had gotten out in a huff and walked into the building already, and I just sat there sipping coffee out of my travel mug. What if Carson was just into me when I looked the way I had on Saturday night? I had gotten up a little earlier than usual to put on some eyeliner and lipstick, but my hair was back to its usual curly mess.

  Ugh. Is that what it’s like now? All my insecurities come racing back into my head when I’m not on molly? That’s lame. Where’s the girl who unbuttoned Carson’s shirt while dancing out by the pool? Anyway, as I was sitting in the car wondering how I was going to make it through this day if Carson ignored me, I had a little breakthrough. Worrying about Carson was stupid. If he was going to ignore me after the great time we had, I shouldn’t give him a second thought. It made my stomach hurt, but I pushed through it and got out of the car, grabbed my clarinet and bag, tossed my purse on my shoulder, and marched into the school with my head up.

  When I turned the corner into the hallway where my locker is, I saw Jess first. She was unloading her backpack and talking to Carson. He was actually leaning against my locker. When he saw me, he gave me the biggest smile over Jess’s head, and it made me smile automatically. He hadn’t forgotten, and he wasn’t a douche. He was actually a nice guy, and we’d had a nice time.

  Jess whirled around and saw him staring at me, then looked back at me with a big, mischievous grin on her face. She said my makeup looked hot, and I blushed a little and told her she wasn’t supposed to point it out in front of Carson. She laughed and said, Him? Oh, he’s just hanging around to ask you out this weekend because he’s got a mad crush on the hottest band geek in school.

  She slammed her locker and left before I could yell at her.

  Carson was laughing, and I told him that I needed to get into my locker. He said I’d have to pay the toll. I asked him how much that would cost me. He said, One kiss, and a date on Friday night.

  Then he leaned down and gave me a sweet little kiss on the lips right there in the middle of the hallway.

  I almost fell down. I couldn’t believe it. Is this my life now?

  As I put my stuff in my locker and grabbed the books I needed for English, I asked him if he was serious about the date on Friday. He asked why he would joke about something like that. I just shrugged and told him that if it was just going to be us, Jess wouldn’t be there. There’d be no molly. Carson frowned and put his thumb under my chin and gently directed my face up to look him in the eyes. He said he wasn’t into my drug hookups. He was into me.

  He says he just really wants to hang out with ME.

  Why is that so hard for me to believe? I mean, why shouldn’t he want to just hang out with me?

  Friday, May 16

  I marched my legs off in band practice this week. I think Mr. Peterson is nervous we’re going to slack off during the summer, so he’s been like a freaking slave driver.

  At least the marching has taken my mind off this whole date with Carson. We’ve seen each other every day at school, and eaten lunch together with Jess and Kelly and sometimes Reid and Ashley—although Ashley has only let that happen twice. I think she’s still pissed about the other night. Anyway, I’m still nervous about being out alone with Carson. Without everyone else around to help carry the conversation, I’m going to be this really lame, boring person.

  I know that the whole point of tonight is for us to spend some time getting to know each other, but I sort of wish there were going to be other people on the date. I especially wish that Molly were coming. (Oh god. That’s so lame that I just used the name of the drug like it’s the name of a friend.) Is that the way I really feel? All I know is that I wish I could feel all the time what Molly makes me feel when I’m rolling. Maybe not the visual stuff like the eye twitching and the light tracers. I just wish I felt as confident and bold and sure of myself. I’m afraid I’ll be a tongue-tied idiot when Carson comes to pick me up.

  Mom is way thrilled that I’m going out with him again. She tried to hug me and jump up and down in the kitchen and squeal like she did with Ashley. I was like, Um, absolutely not. She begged me to bring him in when he gets here, but I made him promise me that he would just text me from the curb.

  I just think that molly makes it easier for me to relate to people—at least to a hot guy like Carson. I suppose I shouldn’t need outside help with that. Ashley sure doesn’t. But she’s used to being pretty and popular and all that jazz. This is insane. I know I can’t go around rolling on molly every time I want to go on a date. I logged on to that online forum and read all these posts by kids who did molly at their actual proms—not the after parties, but actually at their schools DURING the prom. It was crazy to read about it, but I get it now. I understand why it’s something that people do. There is this one girl who was all high-and-mighty and judgmental. She reminded me of Ashley. She was posting all these links to articles about this guy in London who was nineteen and died of a “bad batch” of molly. It was all over the news, and the Guardian had several big articles about it.

  Still, most of the other people on the forum posted about how those stories are few and far between, and most of the other deaths attributed to molly (or just ecstasy) are because people don’t get enough water and get dehydrated. I would never be dumb enough not to drink enough water. And Kelly always tests the stuff that we do, so we’ll never have to worry about a “bad batch”—whatever that means.

  I’m so nervous. I’m so nervous. I’m so nervous. I’m so nervous. I’m so nervous.

  I wonder if it’ll change when I see him? Like on Monday at my locker, when I saw Carson there talking to Jess, all my nerves just disappeared.

  I’m going to go check my hair and makeup one more time before he gets here. When I got home from band practice, I took a shower and tried to blow my hair out straight. It sort of worked. It’s not nearly as sleek as when Robin did it at the salon, but it’s not frizzy, which is a step in the right direction.

  Saturday, May 17

  Last night was not a total disaster. I mean, it definitely got off to a rough start, mainly because I felt completely tongue-tied with Carson. It wasn’t too big a deal because we were going to dinner and a movie. We got burritos at Carson’s fave burrito joint. It’s not superfancy or anything, but he told me the restaurant serves sustainable and humanely raised pork, beef, and chicken products, and it was nice and casual. At least we didn’t go to some fine-dining establishment where I would’ve worried about which fork to use with which course. These burritos came wrapped in silver foil, and we ate them with our hands.

  Still, I felt . . . awkward just hanging out with Carson. I wore cute jeans that I think make my butt look good, and some little silver flats with a V-neck T-shirt and a bra that keeps everything lifted front and center. I caught him staring a couple times, which is a job well done on my part. But he wasn’t gross or anything—I mean, he can definitely hold eye contact, and maybe that was the problem: Carson is so good-looking that he sort of takes my breath away.

  So he kept asking me questions and I’d just catch myself staring at his perfect eyes, or his perfect jawline, or his perfect nose, or his perfect lips, and then he’d say, Yo. Everything okay?

  And I’d blush and take a big bite of my burrito and then ask him to repeat the question with my mouth full of food, and then blush worse because I was talking with my mouth full, then hold up a finger and finish chewing and swallowing and then ask him to repeat the question again, and then, while he was talking, I’d get distracted by his eyes, or his nose, or his lips, or his jaw AGAIN . . . and . . . well. Yeah. So that’s how the whole me
al went.

  The movie was just okay. It was based on one of those books where the world is a dark and gloomy place and impossibly gutsy girls and impossibly handsome boys fight battles to the death to outsmart evil alien overlords. Somewhere in the middle of the film, Carson jumped when one of the evil alien overlords dropped out of an elaborate set of twenty-second-century ductwork in the core of a spaceship that was housed in a grain silo somewhere in Nebraska. (Yes. Nebraska is apparently where the alien overlords will set up their silo-hidden space fleet in the coming nuclear winter.) Carson jumped so high that I think his entire body came off his chair in the theater.

  For the first time all night, I felt the tiniest bit brave, and stopped wishing I had the chemical courage of a dose of molly for just long enough that I was able to reach over and grab his hand, which was white-knuckling the armrest. And you know what happened? He glanced over at me, smiled, and whispered, Thanks!

  After the movie, we were mostly quiet on the way home. Carson put his car in park by the curb about a block away from my house. He asked if we could talk and I said yes. Then he asked me if anything was wrong. I’m not sure what came over me, but I decided to just be completely honest with him. I told him that I feel like I’m just really bad at going on dates—especially the conversation part. He said that I wasn’t bad at it when we went to prom, and I told him that was because I didn’t have a week to be nervous about it. It just sort of happened that night—and then we danced, and had the pot and the molly to help me relax.

  He reached over and put his hand on my leg, and kissed me, first just a peck, and then I leaned into him again and we kissed for a long time—until the console between the front seats started digging into my side, and I guess something wasn’t sitting so well in his pants because he was digging at his fly for a second, and whispered, Damn, girl. You got me all riled up.

  I laughed, and he smiled at me and grabbed my hand again. That little moment—where he wasn’t afraid to laugh at himself—made me say something else. I blurted out: I’ve just been nervous all night that you don’t like me.

  He just shook his head and looked at me like I was crazy. He said, How could I not like you? Then he explained that if he didn’t like me he wouldn’t be here, and told me that he wasn’t into playing games. He said he was relieved that we’d talked about it because he was afraid he’d been turning me off all evening. I practically yelled NO! at him, and assured him that he was one of the sexiest human beings on the planet. I couldn’t believe that HE was worried about ME liking HIM. I mean, in what world does that happen? As if I could EVER not like him. . . .

  I told him I was sorry I had been so weird and the conversation had been so screwed up over dinner.

  He leaned over and kissed me again, long and hard on the mouth. I leaned into him and kissed him right back. His tongue on mine still tasted like peanut M&M’s from the movie theater. He whispered, Conversation is overrated anyway.

  I have to say that I completely agree.

  Sunday, May 18

  So . . . I was just in the middle of texting with Carson. He sent me a text that said:

  Thinking about you.

  Then another one that said:

  Thinking about kissing you.

  Then a third one that said:

  Let’s do more of that.

  I was about to text him back when Ashley came into my room and closed the door behind her, like she was being chased. I asked if everything was okay, and she looked haunted, like she was afraid to walk across the carpet in my bedroom because it was actually not carpet but a pool of acid that might eat away her feet if she moved from the door.

  Finally she ran over to my bed and jumped on it next to me like she was a little kid. She had this weird, guilty look on her face. I mean, I don’t know what else to call it. She looked like she had eaten a whole cake or broken a window or something. I told her to hold on a second so I could text Carson back. Just as I was about to press send on a text that said:

  More kissing could be arranged. . . .

  Ashley blurted out something I never thought I’d hear her say: I want to do ecstasy. Or molly. Or whatever you call it.

  I just stared at her and blinked, and forgot all about the text I was going to send. Ashley immediately started explaining in a low voice that Reid had been bitching and moaning ever since prom about how he didn’t get to roll with us, and putting pressure on Ashley to roll with him at the school’s graduation party, where everyone stays in the school and gym so nobody kills themselves drinking and driving around to parties.

  Anyway, turns out Reid is really keen on Ashley rolling with him at this party (which, I think sounds like a TERRIBLE idea—rolling at a school-sponsored party), and so she started quizzing me about ecstasy and molly, and what the differences were. I told her all that I knew about it—just that ecstasy was usually cut with something and that molly was supposedly “pure” MDMA, which Kelly tested to make sure of with her little kit.

  I told Ashley about how I felt when I was on ecstasy. She thought maybe it made you trip and see scary stuff, like acid would. I told her that the only visual stuff I’d experienced was pretty—like lights dancing around—and that coming down was no fun the first time, but that it had gotten easier since then. Also, that coming down from molly didn’t seem like a big deal at all.

  Ash asked if I was nervous about it hurting my brain or dying, so I showed her the online forum I’d been reading, and she lay on my bed and read several of the threads. Then she asked me point-blank if it was “fun.” I told her that molly was more fun to me than regular ecstasy. I said that when I was high on molly I felt the way I’d always wanted to feel: confident, pretty, in control; like I loved everyone, even people I normally didn’t like very much, and also like everything was going to be all right.

  After a while she closed my laptop and nodded. She told me she wasn’t sure if she wanted to do it or not. Suddenly I was the one who felt guilty. It’s one thing for me to do drugs, but it feels like a completely different thing to encourage my little sister to do them. I told her that she shouldn’t let anybody pressure her into doing anything—especially not Reid. I don’t think she took that very well, because she sort of narrowed her eyes at me and huffed out of the room.

  I can’t help it. I think Reid is a big tool.

  I hit send on the text to Carson after Ashley left my room. He wrote back immediately:

  YEHAAAW!

  Which made me LOL.

  Wednesday, May 21

  I told Carson that Ashley asked me about molly because Reid was trying to get her to do it at the graduation party. He told me that Reid had been talking to him about the same thing. The whole thing snowballed when Ashley and Reid joined me and Jess for lunch. Of course, Jess thinks it’s the best idea in the world, and immediately said she’d ask Kelly about getting some. I tried to put the brakes on the idea of doing drugs at a school-sponsored event, but when I did that, Ashley took it as her cue to act like I was trying to tell her not to do molly, and started insisting that she wanted to.

  I pointed out that maybe it wasn’t the best idea in history to be blissed out in the middle of a party where there were going to be a bunch of teachers chaperoning and it was right in the middle of that sentence that Pete and Brandon showed up and sat down next to us. When they got wind of what Reid was planning to do they were all for it and told Jess that they wanted in on the action too. I mean, I love doing molly and all, but am I the only person who thinks this is a bad idea?

  Carson was waiting for me after band practice today. He and Reid were hanging out in the parking lot next to my car. Ashley was draped over Reid like a jacket and the three of them were talking about how much fun it would be at the party. Reid and Carson don’t have to worry about coming back to school anymore because they’re seniors, but Ashley and Jess and I could get in a lot of trouble if we got caught.

  After I said that, Reid looked at me like I was trying to run over a puppy with my car and started assuring Ashl
ey that he and Jess and Carson would make sure that nothing would happen to her. I didn’t want to start a big fight or anything, but I asked him how exactly he could guarantee that, seeing as he’d never done molly, or even ecstasy, before. That’s when Jess came running up and said that Kelly had texted her with news: Kyle, Kelly’s brother, is spinning at this big underground after-hours party on Saturday night in a huge warehouse downtown, and he’s going to put us all on the list.

  The minute Reid heard this, he was all in. He told me that we’d “practice” doing molly at the party this weekend and see how it went, and that way we’d be “prepared” for the graduation party. Ashley seemed to think that this was a great idea. Jess said Brandon and Pete were a go for the party this weekend, too. My only hope is that Ashley will just not like it that much and I’ll be able to talk her out of rolling at the graduation party, but something tells me that’s not going to happen. If she’s anything like me, she’ll love doing molly.

  I can’t help but feel like this is going to get out of control.

  Friday, May 23

  Carson and Reid came over for dinner tonight. Mom was in heaven. She was in “coolest mom ever” mode and prepped Make Your Own Pizza night. I think she may have flirted with Reid and Carson more than Ashley and I did. Dad came home from work as we pulled the first round of pizzas out of the oven and jumped in on the fun too. I have to admit, I had a good time—even though it was Ashley’s turn to pick out a movie and she chose Sleepless in Seattle. Usually that movie drives me crazy, but I actually didn’t mind it this time. Maybe holding hands with Carson while I watched it helped. I guess ultra-romantic movies aren’t so bad if you feel like it’s possible to have that kind of romance off-screen.

  After the guys left, when I was getting ready for bed, Jess texted me. She said that Kelly couldn’t get molly for the party tomorrow, but that her brother had scored some ecstasy. I feel so bummed about that. I mean, ecstasy is fun, but the molly that we did after prom was so much better. Also, I have this nagging feeling that I’m going to be worried about Ashley the entire time and not really able to enjoy myself or Carson or the music as much as I want to.