I was 13? 14? I don’t remember, although it was only a few years ago. I was either a freshman in high school, or an eighth grader. I’m a senior in high school now, and looking back, my memories from then seem shrouded and indistinct with time.

I was going to a concert at the legendary Stone Pony on the Jersey shore. The Kottonmouth Kings were playing, along with several acts I neither knew nor cared about. To be honest, I didn’t even care about the Kottonmouth Kings all that much, I just wanted to go to a concert. It sounded so cool and grown up, and held echoes of adulthood.

I consulted with an older friend about outfits and hairstyles. I ended up choosing a powder blue tank top, with lace straps and trim about the edges and my (nonexistent) cleavage. I struggled into a skintight pair of cream colored Guess jeans, which had a swirling blue design on the flared cuffs, matching my top. With some expertly applied makeup and my hair piled atop my head, my friend declared me “fabulous.” I had reservations, but I trusted her judgment—and the brand names emblazoned on my threads. After being an awkward ugly duckling of a little girl, I desperately wanted to be “fabulous.”

A different friend, Abbey, was going to the show with me. She was older by about two years, and troubled—drugs, cutting herself, boys—you name it. She was my girl though, and we were as close as—and fought like—sisters. Of course, at the time neither of us was able to drive, and my mother was chosen as (forced to be?) the chauffeur on this trip. She drove us to the Pony in our silver Mazda MPV, a ratty old minivan that was never quite stylish, even in its youth. Embarrassed, Abbey and I made her drop us off far from the door. Not only did I not want to be known as the little girl whose mother had brought her to the show, I didn’t want to be attached to such a shoddy set of wheels. My mother slyly agreed to our pained demands, only to shadow us on our way to the door, honking and waving. We blushed before the smirking bouncers, gratefully forking over ten dollars apiece and diving into the smoky darkness.

The club was packed, a miasma of cigarette and weed smoke drifting above the sweaty heads of the crowd. There was barely room to stand, and the temperature was already soaring. We pushed to the front for Pepper’s seat, vacating our only seats to buy CDs. We then discovered that it was going to be impossible to reclaim our spots: the crush of the crowd was already too thick. We sat back along the bar, watching from the high bar stools. Somewhere along the way, we had picked up a couple guys, who hooked us up with a bottle (bottles?) of beer. They were all in their twenties—college boys. We lied about our age, claiming that we were 18. We also found some girl, I think her name was Jen, who hooked us up with some weed. The beer was close to being a first for me, and the weed definitely was. I was feeling loose, and asked the cutest boy hanging with us to dance (another first). His name was Dave, he was twenty-four, and he had dark, lush, curly hair.

We moved out onto the packed dance floor, rhythmically writhing to whatever band was on the stage at the time. I didn’t know, I didn’t care. He smelled intoxicating, like sweat, man, cologne, and adulthood. I was high on his scent, on the feel of our bodies pressed together. My lips brushed the smooth skin of his neck, tasting salt. He tilted my face towards his, pressing his full mouth against mine…. Heaven. We spent most of the night together, and he gave me his number at the end of the night. I never called. Already, I understood about moments—our night had been a moment—and I didn’t want to ruin my giddy memories by contacting him and being let down.

We piled guiltily into my mother’s tired minivan, giggling over our shared secrets. We stopped for food on the way home, fries and shakes and chicken fingers. The night was cold and rainy, a blessing after the steamy club.

Credit: Submitted to StoryLog anonymously

Read another story:
• » SugarDaddy.com: Old Dogs, New Tricks