Destination Anywhere by Sara Barnard

Author:Sara Barnard [Barnard, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

BEFORE

My seventeenth birthday

aka

Good days, bad decisions

aka

There’s a reason it’s illegal, Peyton: Part Two

I turned seventeen on a Wednesday in February, the first birthday I’d been able to celebrate with friends since primary school. Mum encouraged me to have them over to our house, but I said I’d spent years’ worth of birthdays at home, and I wanted to spend this one somewhere else. She said she understood and gave me money so we could all go out somewhere for dinner together. I gave the money to Eric and told him to get us “something good,” basking in my own bravado, buoyed by the way he smiled, impressed, and looked at me with something like respect.

At college, Flick draped birthday bunting round my shoulders like a scarf and handed me a card. “Sorry about not getting you a present,” she said. “Obviously my friendship is gift enough.”

This was clearly a joke, but it cut too close to the bone for me to find it funny. I tried to smile. “Obviously.”

That Friday night we all stayed at Flick’s, where they presented me with a chocolate cake made by Casey, festooned with way too many candles. They sang for me, and when I got teary I tried to say it was because of the candle smoke. After Flick’s mum, who had stuck around to wish me a happy birthday, left to go to work, Eric produced the “something good” he’d promised me. Cocaine.

“Holy fuck!” Nico said.

Eric dropped a party hat on my head. “Only the best for Pey-Pey.”

“Didn’t you get that with my money?” I asked. “So, you’re welcome.”

He laughed. “Everyone say thank you to Pey-Pey for getting us a present on her birthday.”

They let me go first. It was my birthday, after all. And so that was me on the celebration of my seventeenth birthday, kneeling on Flick’s living-room floor, head bent over her coffee table, my boyfriend holding back my hair, snorting cocaine for the first time. I think there might have still been chocolate cake crumbs on the table, because it made me sneeze, which made them all laugh. It took a few minutes for the high to hit me, which made me think I’d done it wrong until I suddenly stopped doubting anything and simultaneously understood the word “euphoria” better than anyone in the world ever had. “I get it!” I said, over and over. “I get it now!” I also said, “Holy shit! Holy shit! Why don’t we do this all the time?” Over and over.

Travis was laughing, and he looked so gorgeous, more gorgeous than he ever had. It was like I had new eyes. “You’re adorable,” he said.

“I am adorable!” I said.

It didn’t last, though. It felt like it came and went in an instant, leaving me hollow and sad, way too quickly, worse than I’d been before. I wanted more to get it back, but Travis shook his head at me, unusually protective. “Once is enough for your first time, Pey,” he said. He kissed my nose, which he’d never done, and held my hand.

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