Charms - Seagrams Bottle Cap

Circa 2000

My first drink wasn't my first alcohol, but it was the first drink that was mine.

When I was around 15 years old I started taking sips of drinks that were offered to me at parties, but I was always too nervous to ask for my own.

It was another school night at Kendra's. I had just moved in with my father and started at a new school for my junior year. A group of us had gathered to hang out, and the boy I was seeing asked me if I wanted anything to drink. I thanked him and told him I had a water bottle. The group laughed. Jose explained that his mom would be bringing them alcohol. I searched for a response and came up empty. "Something fruity? I don't really know."

He nodded and called his mom, who showed up later with a four pack of Seagram's Fuzzy Navel and a case of Corona. After Jose's mom left, Kendra brought out her smoke box. I smoked clove cigarettes but had refused to try anything else. I was terrified of surrendering to intoxication around people I didn't know or trust, and having moved three times in as many years, I didn't really trust anyone.

Kendra packed a bowl and handed it to her boyfriend Andrew. Then she packed her bong. "We're gonna fishbowl you" she giggled, and closed the living room door.

I sipped my beer and nodded, too socially anxious to ask her what she meant. They lit up, and the air slowly turned acrid with stale smoke. With all the doors and windows closed, the room rapidly became hazy, and my head began to buzz. It took a moment for me to realize it wasn't my head, Jose's phone was vibrating. He grabbed it, cursed under his breath, and stormed out. We heard him yelling in Spanish from the next room.

I turned to Kendra, who was also Puerto Rican. I asked if she knew what he was yelling about.

"Oh that's just his girlfriend Celeste. They fight all the time, she's pregnant."

My heart dropped.

I had slept with Jose a few times by then, and he never once mentioned a girlfriend. None of them had, but they all knew he was seeing me behind her back.

I instantly burst into tears and rushed to the bathroom. My head was spinning, heart pounding, vision blurry. In the other room, Jose was still yelling at his phone. Seated on the side of the tub, I saw a box cutter lying on the edge of the sink. That was all I remembered until I left the bathroom and sat back down on the couch, leaving the living room door open.

"Dude are you bleeding on my couch?" Kendra got up from her chair across the room and stared at my leg. There were several deep gashes pooling blood on her cushion. She rushed to the kitchen and grabbed a dish towel, holding it hard against my thigh. "What did you do? Why the fuck did you do that?"

I didn't know what she was talking about, and I was too stoned to find an answer. The wounds on my thigh started throbbing, and it finally clicked. I started crying again as I tried to get the bleeding to stop.

Jose walked in, sliding his phone into his pocket. He sat next to me and looked down at the bloody rag. "What happened? Did you do that?"

I silently lifted the towel off my leg to show him, then quickly tried to cover up again.

He stopped me.

"That's so sexy," he mumbled, and licked a trail of blood off my thigh.

I tied the rag around my leg, leaned against him, and fell asleep.

"Charms" was my first writing project, written from December 2023 to February 2024.

They are a collection of memories attached to found or given objects that I've collected for over 25 years.

The stories are posted to Substack in their raw, unedited form.

Most are only a few hundred words.

The project remains incomplete.