“Come here. You’ve got to hear this song – it’s my favorite. You know Phil Collins, right?” Mark clicked through his iTunes library, finally landing on “Sussudio.”

It was getting late, probably around three in the morning. The party downstairs was starting to die down. This boy was irresistible.

It was late September of my freshman year in college. I’d had the best summer of my life, emancipated from the shackles of responsibility. Untied. Liberated. Self-governed. I belonged to no one, to no foundation, no institution. In between the bonds of high school and college I celebrated myself. My friends felt it, too. That summer we laughed harder. We stayed out longer. Everyone and everything seemed to be at peace. And nothing, even the uncertain future ahead, was anything to fret about. We breathed in the summer sky and felt limitless.

But now, the air was starting to cool and the sun began to set earlier each day. There was something magnetic about his eyes. Green or hazel? I couldn’t tell. There was something in those eyes I couldn’t read, or touch – something wild.

I had met him a few nights earlier at a party. He was a junior. We had glanced at each other across the room. I felt that I already knew him; he looked like the kind of guys I knew in high school.

When the cops came to issue a noise complaint I followed him down to the basement of the house – I was underage, trying not to sway when I spoke. We ended up talking in that basement for hours. He wore seersucker shorts and a white polo shirt. We smoked cigarettes and talked about eighties music: The Band, Phil Collins and The Talking Heads billowed over the smoky room and left us buzzing, humming, smiling about the promise of someone and something new.

Eventually we moved to his room on the third floor of the frat house. We sat on a moldy, beer-stained couch, but I overlooked the squalor of the setting and felt my chest flutter.

Then paint-chipped door of his room burst open. Three of his friends fell in, toppling over each other. They sat down and nodded in my direction. I sat quietly, shifting in my seat between the couch cushions.

“Does she…?” Mark’s best friend asked, lifting his chin toward me.

“No, I don’t think so,” Mark answered.

Do I what? I shifted in my seat again. The crust on the cushions grazed my legs. Phil Collins’ “Sussudio” played in the background; the metallic rhythm of the song drilled against frat photo composites lining the walls. A cool breeze floated in through the open windows. What were they talking about? Do I what?

An awkward silence radiated. Phil Collins persisted quietly in the background. Mark scooted away from me. He leaned back into the couch cushions and reached into his front jean pocket. He pulled out a small clear pink plastic bag, the smallest bag I had ever seen. I stared. Phil Collins droned on about being too young, his love just begun. One of the frat brothers handed me a framed picture of Mark and his family. I held it briefly before turning it over to Mark. He looked young in the photograph. He was smiling and holding a diploma, his dad’s hand on his
shoulder.

Mark lay the picture face up on the coffee table in front of the couch. His friends sat across from us, listening to the music and bobbing along, grinning. He emptied the bag onto the picture. White crystals scattered across the glass. I looked at Mark, but his face was expressionless, his eyes focused on the frame before him. He mechanically removed a twenty-dollar bill and credit card from his wallet.

My cheeks felt hot. I’d heard numerous accounts, warnings and nicknames for the substance in front of me. But I had never seen it, I’d never sat down with it poured out in front of me. The breeze had faded and the the room felt suddenly stuffy. Stuffy and still. Motionless.

The metallic beat of “Sussudio” fell hollow in the background.