Inhale, Exhale

The foul stench of alcohol, vomit, and stale deodorant were barely noticeable to the group of visibly intoxicated teens as they were ushered together in a circle. Red plastic cups decorated every flat surface in the room and the roar of music, which had possibly deafened at least half the house, had thankfully been turned down.

While the guests' hands moved with a distinct tremor and their legs would every now and then intertwine with another's, I held my posture controlled and steady. While their blood thrummed hot and heavy through their bodies, trying vehemently to remove the alcohol, my veins sang with cold gratitude that I decided to stick with water.

My expression soured with an unattractive scowl. Someone's suspiciously sticky hand planted a syrupy print on my bare arm and the glare I threw at them, although unnoticed, promised something grim and permanent. I sat trapped between a swaying Goth, who appeared about ready for another breakdown, and a kid with stained jeans; a horrifyingly reflective pimple taunting me from his chin. As the kid chatted, the yellow head of the zit wobbled, dangerously close to exploding. I scooted closer to the sobbing Goth.

"A'ight! Let's get this thing star-URRP-ted!" The host announced with a frenzied wiggle of the arms, delivering a beastly belch upon plopping down on the carpet and finishing the distorted circle. As if cued, a raspy chorus of cheers declared the start of the game.

It occurs at every party. Rather, it's not a party without it. The game that makes and breaks. The reason everyone considered showing up in the first place. Tradition, as one may refer to it. But it's a game that breeds evil and spreads it around like it's a joint; one to another. Tradition my ass. It's an addiction. People can't get enough of the grapevine, can't get enough of standing (or in our case, sitting) in the damned spotlight, eager to inhale the smoke and exhale the fire.

Yet, here I am.

The silence crumbled away like cigarette ash as laughter filled its place. And thus the game begun. The first few rounds passed with slow anticipation. Secrets were brought forth, friendships made, relationships crippled, and time came to pass in melancholic minutes. Until it stopped. Everything stopped, in fact, as I stared down a finger like a victim stared down the barrel of a gun.

"You." The girl's hoop earrings swayed to the rhythm of her wheezy breaths in a fast waltz; begging, tempting me to hook my fingers through them and pull. But it was the lecherous tug at the corners of her lips and the glazed, but deliciously corrupted, knife-like glint in her eyes that had me swallowing a mixture of saliva and regret.

"Truth or dare?" Her voice dripped with gluttonous intent, hungry for the joint. Her words were the first inhale.

I harshly worried my bottom lip, a habit I'd much like to discard. The scratch of loose lip skin was reassuringly familiar, and soon enough I decided on the option least likely to have me visually and mentally dissected by a group of future alcoholics. This, of course, induced a melodious chorus of boos.

"Truth? What a f-" The speaker, Zit Kid, tipped a bottle and guzzled half of the contents while the rest trickled down his chin in piss-like pretense, "-kin' wimp." I hid the telltale tilt of my mouth with a curtain of hair. I genuinely didn't need to hear this from a guy hardly capable of controlling his own facial expressions.

The hum from Hoop Earrings brought everyone's steadily fluctuating attention back to her, and although I had not a single drop of liquor, the gentle thump of her index finger tap tap tapping a staccato rhythm on her chin seemed to echo through my head. The anticipation built, like every other turn, to the point where everyone who hadn't yet passed out began leaning in.

"Have you ever killed someone?"

Tap, tap, tap.

A crooked hand drilled into my head and clawed at fresh memories lingering in a red haze at the back of my mind. Veins drumming, thrumming with bittersweet adrenaline and exhilaration. The buzz rooted so deep that I almost couldn't understand why she was running away from me. Almost.

Tap, tap, tap.

The terror so heavy in the air that it settled on my tongue in languid layers. I remember the crackle of the dead leaves under her shoes, the sharp smell of pine, and the sudden thud of her foot catching on a loose stone.

Tap, tap, tap.

The feel of folding my hands around a warm, pulsing neck and the ugly twist of her face when she realized she couldn't breathe. But her eyes were what I was most interested in. The red that rimmed them, the hysteria they held that matched my own, the immediate glaze they took when she stilled underneath me. And with her went the cloying euphoria.

Tap, tap - "Well?"