It was cold. The air was hitting the side of my arm and there was no warmth. My head was pounding, and when my eyes opened, my vision was blurry. I blinked a few times before regaining most of my sense of sight and seeing the sleeping guy beside me: Big Mike. And then I remembered nearly everything about the previous night. The MDMA, the kissing, the alcohol.

Oh shit.

We were asleep on the same couch in his chilly basement where we'd spent most of the night, his arms wrapped around me. And for some reason, I felt like throwing up. Carefully and slowly, I pried his arms away from me and stood up. Mike was knocked out cold and didn't even remotely budge when I got up. I slowly walked upstairs, finding that there were some people still there. Some were passed out, and others were sitting at the counter having an early-morning shot (as one typically does). I just grabbed my purse and snuck out of the house. The only problem I had was the problem of no transportation. And I was desperate to leave before Mike woke up, even though there was a chance that he was dead.

Kidding.

So I started walking. The house was only twenty minutes or less from a part of town I knew well enough. I kept walking until I reached a gas station and decided I needed to call someone to pick me up. Inside the gas station wandering around, I tried to grab for my phone in my pocket, but to my shock, it wasn't there. "You have got to be kidding me," I muttered. I tried looking through my purse, frantically emptying all of the contents out onto the nearest shelf, earning some weird looks from customers in the store. The one day I'm stranded and need to call someone, my phone is missing. I quickly put everything back into my purse and left the store, heading over to the payphone outside. I put 25 cents into the machine and dialed Jason's number (which shocked me that I had even memorized) since I knew that West would be in class.

"You've reached Jason. What the hell do you want at this hour?" Jason answered, groaning. He rarely didn't groan when I called him.

"Sorry for waking you up from your beauty sleep, but I need a favor."

"What's going on?" He asked, all tiredness being wiped from his voice, and I knew he was going to give in and help me.

"I'm outside this gas station, the one out of the city with the dinosaur on it. I just need a ride home," I said.

"Shit. Why the hell are you so far away?"

"I don't really wanna talk about that right now okay? I just need a ride and West's-"

Jason interrupted me, "In class. Probably where you're supposed to be, too."

"Look I know, okay? Jesus, mom," I mocked. "Can you come to get me or not?"

I heard him sigh. "Fine. It'll probably take me thirty minutes, though. So you better get comfortable."

"It's fine, I can wait," I said, eyeing the bench next to the payphone. Guess that would be where I'd be spending my next thirty minutes.

"And where the hell is your phone?" He grumbled. I could hear his bed creaking as he stood up.

"I said not right now."

"Fine. Then you'll tell me in the car," Jason snapped and hung up immediately.

I slowly leaned my back against the brick exterior of the old gas station. I knew that even if Jason was an asshole a lot of the time, he'd come to get me. And even if he didn't necessarily want to pick me up right now, he wouldn't just leave me to fend for myself.

•••

After what felt like a year and was actually 26 minutes, Jason pulled up in the parking lot of the gas station and honked. He rolled the window down and yelled, "Get the fuck in here you bitch!"

Word for word.

I got up from my seated position and went over to the passenger's side and got in. Jason pulled his sunglasses down to inspect me. "You look like you got stoned as fuck." Apparently, he was a secret drug-detective who could tell that someone had gotten high by just their appearance. How he did it, I had no idea.

"Can you just drive?" I asked, leaning back into the leather interior of his car.

Jason pulled his sunglasses back up and started driving. But the silence didn't last long. "So, what went on? Why were you out here and where is your phone? And why were you alone?"

"That's a lot of questions," I pointed out. A lot of questions I would've rather avoided.

"Hopefully there are a lot of answers, too," He said, looking over at me.

I looked out the window and then sighed. I didn't really want Jason to know what I spent last night doing. "This guy invited me to a party-"

He didn't even let me finish. "This guy? And who's this guy you're talking about?" He was talking to me like he was my literal mom.

"Jason, you wouldn't know him," I insisted.

"If you don't remember, I was a substitute teacher for a day and I met quite a few students you attend school with. Would you care to drop a name?"

I groaned and said, "Mike. We all call him Big Mike."

"That fucking useless McNugget?" Jason asked and he laughed a little. "Wouldn't-know my ass." He smirked, proud of himself. "So he invited you to a party. And?"

I shrugged. "And we hung out."

"That doesn't fully answer my question."

"Okay, Jesus, do you wanna know all the details? Is that really necessary?" I asked.

"Well, it's either all the details or you'll be walking all the way back to school yourself. Might take you a few days since it's even further than my place," Jason said. "So tell your story, Harrison. You owe me after waking me up so goddamn early."

"Fine," I caved, and I waited before trying to explain it. "He invited me to a party and we just-"

"Got baked?" He interrupted again, laughing a little.

"God, is that seriously the word you chose?" I asked.

"It's the technical term, excuse you," He said. "So, what's your poison, Miss Rebel?"

"MDMA."

Jason pulled his glasses off and looked at me with wide eyes and said, "Holy fuck, Harrison! Are you fucking with me?"

"You don't drop the f-bomb much do you?" I mocked.

"Oh shut up. MDMA, Harrison? That shit does stuff to you," He said, shaking his head and focusing his attention back on the road. That made me thankful because he had started swerving when his attention was on me.

"You would know," I mumbled.

"Oh hell no. I've never done MDMA," He said.

"Seriously?"

"I don't dabble in the crazy stuff, who do you think I am? I've smoked pot, yeah, but that's weak shit," he said. "Not saying I'm weak in any way shape or form, just to make myself clear! But why the hell would you do molly?"

"I don't know, Jason! He offered it, and I was kind of in the mood to have some fucking fun for once!" I yelled.

"You lose your shit on drugs like that, Harrison. Do you even know what happened after that?" Jason was seemingly more concerned than I had expected him to be. He acted like he actually cared, which surprised me.

"I remember the gist of it, but I was also drinking last night and I can't remember it all," I told him, lowering my voice when I mentioned the fact that I was drinking, but by his reaction, that was the part he heard the most.

His eyes widened and he looked straight at me. "You mixed fucking molly with alcohol?! Jesus, Harrison. What were you thinking? What happened that you can remember?"

"I just remember us drinking and, I don't know, having fun! Watch the road, Jason!" I yelled right as Jason started to swerve into the other lane. His eyes reverted away from mine.

"Harrison," He said, his tone intensely serious. "I don't give a shit if you don't want to tell me. But I'm going to need all the details, unless you'd rather walk."

I sighed and then recalled the events. "I remember we went in the hot tub, and then we kissed and stuff, and then I don't remember anything else."

Jason shook his head and took a deep breath, almost as if he was holding in anger. "You don't remember anything after that?"

"I remember blurred details, but nothing important," I lied. Surely the details were important.

"You had sex with Big Mike, didn't you?"

I put my face in my hands and screamed. After a moment, I looked back up and out of the window again. "I don't know, Jason, and I don't see why it really matters to you! You were the one who told me that maybe it would be best if I wasn't interested in Otto, and this is me trying to be a regular high school student!" I defended.

"Drinking beer and doing MDMA isn't being a normal high school student, Harrison," He scolded. "Do you even like him? This Mike dude?"

"Does it really matter? Because it didn't seem to matter to you when you cheated on West with that slut," I snapped. I saw Jason wince at my words, his jaw tightening.

"You could be walking right now. You're just lucky I'm trying to be a better person at this point in my life," Jason said. "I've seen a lot of people, and yes that includes myself, making mistakes at a young age. And for all you know, Big Mike or whatever could be a bad guy."

"And Otto is a good one?"

"When he's himself, yes. Look, Harrison, I'm not telling you to be with Otto. That's not what I'm doing at all," Jason said. "I am just trying to tell you to not be such a fucking idiot by doing molly with Mr. Tough Guy again."

"I only did it because I wanted to have fun, and he said it would make me happy. And you know what, Jason? It did, and I had a good time," I said. "I didn't want to have sex with Big Mike, but if I did, then so be it."

"If that's how you wanna treat it," he mumbled. Clearly, he was upset, probably about me snapping at him a minute ago about how he cheated on West. Even I could admit that it was a low blow.

I sighed and said, "I'm sorry for yelling. And I shouldn't have been so insensitive. I really do appreciate you coming to get me. And I appreciate that you've been so nice lately."

"It's no big deal," he said. "I can be a good person sometimes, too. I'm not just a shit-show."

"I know that," I assured him.

We didn't talk about the party anymore. We didn't talk about Otto or West on the way back to my school. We didn't really talk about anything. It was quiet most of the time, with occasional comments about random shit. Those comments lightened the mood a bit more, hopefully making Jason less mad at me. I hadn't meant to be so rude or make him mad. Truth be told, Jason had immensely grown on me since the cheating incident. He was bettering himself and he was a lot more tolerable, and a lot less of a dick.

Occasionally he was still a dick, though. But it was expected. Although the silence was slightly awkward, the long drive allowed me to think about the whole Big Mike scenario. And all I really knew was that I wanted my phone back.

•••