Autofiction

When I was nineteen, I came home for the summer greeted by smog-tinted sunsets. Back in the city of angels. I started seeing a boy that I’d known for years. I say boy because that’s what we were at the time, young. Although it’s three years later, and I think I may be younger now.

One day, he picked me up and took me to the park in our neighborhood. That summer, I spent most afternoons in that park. Smoking weed, kissing boys, and growing up. Just like I had in high school. We walked down to the amphitheater, sitting down on the blue bleachers. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but those are the best kinds of conversations, especially at nineteen when you don’t realize that you’ll remember them forever. I remember him asking why I always wore black, everyone always asked. I told him what I always said - it just sort of happened, and then I liked the way that it made me feel like I was disappearing. He didn’t laugh like I thought he would, he listened. Watching me, in my white dress that was too short. But I was nineteen, and didn’t care. He told me that wearing white is protective.

It was unbearably hot out that day. I was sweating just enough that I could feel my skin sticking to his jeans. I told him that I didn’t understand how wearing white could protect me, it didn’t have the same effect as wearing black seemed to. When I wear white, I’m always afraid that I’ll stain it with blood or tears or burn holes or desire. But, I think he might be right. That it’s protecting me by letting me see the chaos before it leaks out onto my skin.

I only saw him once more that summer. He disappeared back into the city as the angels often do in LA. Now, I’m twenty two, and I’ve worn white all summer. I don’t know what I need protecting from. Or if I even want to be protected from the chaos anymore. And I don’t know why, but that memory, our skin sticking just enough that we didn’t move, and that conversation that felt like something happening, has always remained. I guess something must have seeped through to my skin.

The summer after our first year of college, we drove up to San Francisco for the weekend to visit a friend. We drove there in her Chevy Impala, smoking weed with the windows down. On Saturday, the three of us drove down to Santa Cruz. The cliffs looked dangerous, yet nostalgic. They jumped. I didn’t. I don’t like heights, they make me feel like I’m flying too close to the sun. It’s the first time I’ve been in the ocean all summer.

At night, we met my cousin and his girlfriend at a club. We ran into his high school friends who did **** out of my acrylic nails. Sunday night, it was just the three of us again. We went back out to a club called the Makeout Room. With no one telling us that it would be better if we were sleeping or staying in. A stranger asked me to dance. All I remember is he was wearing a Bass Pro Shop Hat. And when he asked to kiss me, I said, just once. I found my friends, watching me, and said that we should probably leave. Abandon the night now that I’ve lived up to expectations. The stranger came back up to me and asked for my number, and I lied, saying that I had to leave. No time to give you my number.

I can’t remember if we left early or late, but it didn’t matter. It just depends who you ask. He got the car to drop us off at the beach. We watched as he ran in, waiting in the sand, my throat sore from laughing or yelling. I can tell I’m starting to lose my voice. I’m wine drunk and exhausted, smoking weed on his stairs before bed. I’ve never been so in love with summer as I was at that moment.

The weekend ended, and Monday came with silence and daydreams. She drove, I stared out the window. Still hungover and a little stoned. Somewhere between Bakersfield and reality, she tells me to check my phone. It was a message from the boy that I was seeing last summer. He wants to see me. He’s in Europe, but when he’s back. I know it’s a bad idea, but he’s far away. And I’m already daydreaming about someone else.

I got this sunburn in Miami on spring break two years ago. The kind of burn that made my eyes bloodshot and you could see where I’d forgotten to put sunscreen. Like I thought part of me was invincible. Four of us, sunburnt and passive aggressive, caring more about what we did then how we felt.

Every night, we had dinner with her grandparents. They had an apartment on the beach. Making us less tourist than we were. Which is what we wanted, to seem like we belonged there. In all the glamour.

The beaches in Miami are different than in LA. Warm water and skyscrapers in view. We bought bikinis and mini shorts with suggestive writing across the back. It felt necessary. Like we were living up to expectations.

We went to South Beach, looking for a place to buy weed. It was an endless pursuit. Until the third smoke shop had it behind the counter. I don’t understand why it’s always such a struggle to buy weed in a new city. Just another reminder that we’re not from here. That we’re out of place.

On the last night, we went out. I was exhausted. The exhaustion that comes from soaking under the sun. With girls that are growing tired of each other. The shower made my skin sting. The neckline of my dress showed the burn across my chest. I lay down in bed. My dress read power, fame, greed, money, and drama across the front, which felt right. In the moment.

The girls went out to smoke. They came back fighting. I don’t remember how the fight ended because it didn’t. But somehow, we made it into a car on the way to the club.

They say girl’s trips in Miami are cursed. I think they might be right. But it could just be us. Or part of it.

The promoter met us at the door. I don’t know how she knows him, but it doesn’t matter. He takes us to his table, giving us drinks. Something that sparkled. We held hands through the crowd, pretending like we were still happy to be there with each other.

Then I lost the night. Or it lost me. In the dancing and waiting in line for the bathroom. Her shoe broke.

They’re drunk, it’s hot, and I can’t tell if I’m sticky from sweat or the Miami air. Some guy is trying to convince them to come back to his hotel with him. One of the girls bites his neck. I keep checking my phone to see if the car is close.

The next morning, we’re all hungover and in pain. The fight from last night has resurfaced. The silence feels worse than my head. I don’t even know if I was actually hungover or just done with it all. We pack up, not saying much of anything to anyone.

We spent the rest of the day by the pool. Pretending like we were still enjoying the Miami heat. I’m trying to apologize. I know that even though I didn’t start it, it’s my fault.

We wanted spring break with the luxury and seduction and disaster. And yeah, we got it. But now we have to leave.Wondering if maybe it doesn't have to last. And maybe we don't want it to.

I’m rewatching Palo Alto for the first time since I was in high school. I’ve been thinking about this movie all summer. Almost like the past is haunting me through it. It feels like a symbol for everything that my life was and everything that I wanted it to be when I was seventeen. I grew up in Los Angeles, but the part of it that’s more like Palo Alto than anything else. The part of LA that’s tucked below the mountains, inland from the sea. It’s typical. I attended private school with students who had access to too much money, taking xanax as if they weren’t already numb to the world. Kissing boys that I didn’t want to. Giving head for the first time because it seemed easier than saying no. And we were curious. Everyone trying to be someone that they aren’t. Testing the waters before we knew the rules. Girls pretending to be girls who didn’t care.

It’s bigger than the Lolita trope. Virgins having casual sex. Realizing how young you are after the fact. Trying to convince ourselves at the time that we were ready. Pretending like you aren’t in love. At seventeen, everyone tells you that you don’t know what love is. It isn’t completely true. Some people do, others don’t. We were girls pretending to not care, to be more seductive than we were real. I thought I wasn’t ready for you, but really you weren’t ready for me.

Smoking too much weed, so I don’t remember if I said anything back when you asked how I was doing at that house party. The one where we met, where the lights turned my top blue. Some girl I don’t know is filming us makeout. I saw you all summer until you told me that you’d fallen in love with someone else. It doesn’t feel true, but maybe it was for you. I think it’s just because I didn’t want to have sex with you. You were the first guy to take my bra off. I remember hiding in your bathroom and sneaking out the backdoor when your parents came home. We’re all just crying in the bathroom.

Even the mascot is the same. A symbol that held more meaning back then than anything else it seemed.I didn’t realize until I was older that I was prettier than you then. Prettier than most of them. It’s a small school, everyone is having sex with the same people. An act of disinterest, caring more about if they could succeed than fall in love. All I cared about was being chosen. She was mad that I’d been with her ex. I let her be. I wanted it to ruin us.

That’s the difference between being 17 and 22. When you’re seventeen, you want to cause issues. Start fires. Sometimes I don’t even think it was depression or trauma or whatever we called it. I just wanted to feel something. I don’t know why teenage girls make the decisions that we do. It’s almost like we’re born broken. Or seek pain. There’s more remorse when you’re older. When you’re left alone with yourself.

I don’t know if I love Emma Roberts or James Franco more. And maybe that’s the problem. You never really let it all go. Not the parts of you that enjoyed making mistakes when you were pretending to be that person.

Marlboro reds. A classic. I never made a wish when I smoked the lucky one. I didn’t believe in luck. Back then, I cared more about damage and success than I did anything else. It always seems like 17 year old girls don’t care, when really they care more than anything. But, it’s too late. We’ve made too many mistakes to go back. We self-destruct before we even realize the truth. That what we’re really trying to do is pretend. To be seen, but not real.

We’re all more confused than our attitudes let on at 17. I’m 22 now, and less depressed and in more control. I’m still confused, but no more than anyone else I know. And, I don’t self-destruct like I used to. I don’t try so hard to seem out of control. I don’t have to try not to care. I just don’t care. About the same things. And that’s something.

I wish you’d let me out of the car. I remember that night, it never left me even after you did. At 17, we take people along with us in our pursuit of destruction. Setting fires. We think that being young and beautiful is enough to be forgiven. It’s not true. We’re not invincible. We’re teenagers. And being young and beautiful doesn’t protect us. Not from the reality that as we get older, it’s harder to pretend not to care.