In My Skin by Brittney Griner

Author:Brittney Griner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

TOO MUCH RED BERRY

I spent a lot of my free time sophomore year the same way I spent it as a freshman: going out and partying. But there was something different fueling me now. My freshman year, I was enjoying the freedom of being away from home for the first time, the sense of adventure. My sophomore year, I was trying to escape the feeling that I wasn’t free at all, that I was a muted version of myself. Although I stayed in Waco most weekends, I’m obviously easy to spot when I’m out in public, so I’m pretty sure that word of my, um, extracurricular activities got back to Kim. She would occasionally check in with me to ask how I was doing and if I was still seeing my therapist. She never specifically asked me about drinking or partying; she would just address it in her typical Kim way. “Gotta get your sleep, Big Girl,” she’d say. “You can’t produce if you don’t sleep.” Or she would talk to the whole team, but let her eyes linger a little bit longer on me. “It’s the middle of a long season,” she might say. “Y’all need to be taking care of your bodies. You can’t be out late.” I knew she was right. Just like I knew that drinking because I was mad or sad was only going to make me madder or sadder. What I didn’t know was that I needed to feel worse before I could somehow start to feel better.

I needed a wake-up call.

Toward the end of sophomore year, there was a big Greek party at Baylor, the all-black party, where everyone was supposed to show up wearing nothing but black. The school year had started with the all-white party, but I never even made it to that one, because it was right around the same time I was going through my rocky breakup with my girlfriend from freshman year, and I ended up having too much to drink with my friends earlier in the night. Now everybody was talking about the all-black party, and I was amped for it. Basketball season was over (we had made it to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament), and I was more than ready to put sophomore year behind me.

A few of us went to the mall that day and bought fresh outfits: shoes, shirts, pants. Our game plan that night was to drink a little bit at my place, then go to another apartment where we would pregame before going to the actual party. (So my apartment was the pre-pregame party.) We bought a bottle of Ciroc Red Berry vodka, and we were drinking it straight up, either poured into cups or directly out of the bottle. Except I was drinking faster than everyone else, so I killed the bottle (with some help) before we even left for the second apartment.

I don’t know who drove my car to the next apartment complex, but it sure wasn’t me.

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