This Is How You Lose Yourself

no.2. use your tongue!

I had never drank any alcoholic substances ever in my life. Most likely because I dreaded becoming like my mother. She always told me I had a brighter future than her and that alcohol shouldn't be part of it. She was subject of the alluring affects of forgetting everything that alcohol had presented to her. She couldn't pass it up. She didn't want that for me. I didn't want that for me either.

  However, I couldn't argue that it wasn't a good way to lose yourself.

                               ***

On Saturdays, I worked at the mall in the mornings. I always met up with Sadie on Saturdays. But instead of her working as well, she shopped. Lucky bitch.

  "Hey bîtch number one." I told her when I called her. "Unprofessional, Miss Young!" Yelled my boss in the background.

  "What's up, bîtch number two." Said Sadie. I laughed and continued folding clothes. "Ooo, this is rad." Said she, holding up a bright cherry colored blazer.

  "You better be paying," I said. "No more 'employee's bestie discounts.'" I made air quotes with my fingers. She scoffed.

  "I can't believe they don't exist. You should ask your boss to make them, or something."

  "Or something."

  She grinned evilly. Oh no, that meant trouble. "So." She drawled. "You going to the party or what?"

  "Maybe" I whispered.

  "What!" She said loudly. "Like, I couldn't hear you!"

  Just because she was disrupting my working environment and my boss would get mad, again, I relented. "Yes! Are you happy, I'm going." She squealed and threw herself at me, causing me to drop a pile of folded shirts I was holding. "Shît, Sadie." I cursed.

  "Language, Miss Young!" Yelled my boss. How does she do that? Sadie snickered, "I'm so happy, Ettie Spaghetti."

  "Don't call me that." I snapped. She promised me she would stop calling me that freshman year.

  "So what are you going to wear?"

  "Shît, I need a costume don't I?" Something sexy, he had said. Sadie nodded. I assumed she would be dressed as the Playboy Bunny, like last year and surprisingly the year before, but I was no nudie model.

  "No duh. It's a costume party." She continued to peruse through aisles of clothing. Suddenly: "You should be Baby!" Exclaimed Sadie.

  "Baby?" She wanted me to be a baby? Definitely not sexy.

  She groaned. "Not an infant baby. Baby from 'Dirty Dancing.'"

  Oh. The movie. That made much more sense. Since when did I look anything like Jennifer Grey. "Really, Sadie? That's so original." Sarcasm was my forte.

  Hours later, I was forced to wear an abnormally cropped white collared shirt with denim bermuda shorts. My whole stomach was exposed, my hair was curled and teased, and I looked like a whôre; perfection in Sadie's eyes. Sadie had beat my face with powder, covering the spatter of freckles under my eyes. I looked completely and undesirably fake. My mom was already gone for work, I felt relieved that she wouldn't be here to see me dressed like this.

  Sadie picked me up in her mom's old car at 8:30 in the night. She was dressed from pink fuzzy bunny ears to booty shorts, bunny tail and all. I slapped my forehead with my palm. "Sadie, you look stupid as fück."

  "What's your damage, Ettie? You look totally bodacious, let's go." She said. I sighed and got into the car, feeling insecure already. We stopped at a diner to get milkshakes before the party.