I wake up to an eerie silence broken only by birdsong and my own heavy breathing. The sun is shining hard on my face. Through curtains? I open my eyes slowly. No, through trees. Towering trees. I’m lying in dirt and leaves and logs. I sit up and look around, squinting and shielding my eyes. I’m in a forest? I struggle to my feet and turn around in a full clumsy circle looking for a way out, a path or a trail, but all I see is trees. My head is spinning now and I have to sit down again.
I tell myself to stay calm and think, I force myself to breathe evenly and focus. Ok, now what’s the last thing I remember?
Making strong coffee and studying for my philosophy exam in the morning… this morning. Ok so I was studying at my desk, no, wait, I was studying at the library, yeah that’s right, because I spilt coffee all over my desk. I was at the corner cubicle. My cubicle. Those stupid girls next to me wouldn’t stop giggling and writing notes to each other. I couldn’t concentrate. I ended up leaning back in my chair and reading their notes. Straight out of school, dotted their I’s with love hearts and stars. One of them said I was cute and asked the other who I was. I got up to leave then. That must have been around nine at night. I winked at one of them. The hottest one. The blonde. What else? What happened then? Fuck that’s all I remember. I hadn’t been drinking, I never drink during the week. I haven’t done pills since I was fifteen, so how the f*ck did I end up in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere? I stand up slowly, stiff and hot and thirsty, and walk straight ahead. I’m sweating, I take off my shirt. Its quiet, so eerily quiet. Just the crunching beneath my feet and bird song up above. Unfamiliar. I walk randomly through the trees for what feels like hours before I see a large circular clearing. More dry dirt and fallen trees dragged into the centre. I put my shirt back on now suddenly cold and walk to where the fallen trees are, there roots exposed and twisted. I sit down on one and put my head in my hands and cry. I’m dazed and exhausted and scared. I sit like that for a while and then realising that this isn’t going to get me anywhere I pull myself together. If I can just figure out how I got here then I can figure out how to get back. I close my eyes tight and picture the library. Dim and almost empty apart from a few people hunched over books and glowing computer screens. And those girls. Three of them. All squeezed into one cubicle. I can only remember the blonde. She was wearing a tight black leather jacket which made her bright chaotic hair stand out even more. And tight jeans. Skin tight. Man Yeah she was hot. Wait, the one beside her was hot too, more cute than hot. Tidier black hair. More preppy. I have no recollection of the third girl, she was the furthest from me. They didn’t whisper or talk, just wrote and giggled. Come to think of it though, the hot blonde didn’t giggle, just wrote. Maybe she thought she was too cool for giggling. I only read snippets of the notes. Something about one of them being them wanting to get high, another asking if she should get that tattoo she told them about earlier, another writing something about a holiday in the states. They all seemed to be completely taken up with themselves and having three separate conversations, not really replying to what the other one just wrote. After the comment about being me being cute I got up to leave, why I don’t really know, I guess I knew I would only end up sleeping with one of them, or maybe even all of them, and not getting enough sleep for my philosophy exam in the morning.. Which would be over by now. Fuck. Ok, so I winked, and then.. I just remember her response. The other two just seemed to look at her smirking while she just looked at me, straight into my eyes. It freaked me out and turned me on at the same time. I turned away with my books and cold coffee and then its blank. Like a bad TV movie you turn off half way through. It just goes black. This is useless. I open my eyes and its so bright I want to close them again. But instead I stand up and look around, which I should have done sooner because then I would’ve seen the dirt track at the far end of the clearing and the car a little further up it. I could cry again with relief. I run over, falling twice over logs and hitting the dirt hard. I make it to the car, it’s a black Toyota Avensis with heavily tinted windows. I bang on the drivers side window and press my face up to it and squint. Empty. I try the door, its locked. I hurry around to the passenger side door and try it. Its open. I get inside and feel instantly safer, with its large leather interior, comfortable and clean. My heart stops pounding for the first time and I realise its not silent in the car. There is music playing at that irritating volume where you cant hear what it is, just that its music. I look at the CD player and turn the volume knob. Poppy catchy dance music blares from the speakers and I know then that this car belongs to a female. The feeling of safety is slipping. I reach over to feel for the keys, which are hanging in the ignition surrounded by jingling key rings and hey chains. I’m frantic now and I don’t fully know why. I open the glove compartment and it stuffed full of paper. Lined paper, folded and crumpled. I take out a piece and start unfolding and smoothing it. I see the love hearts and the stars before anything else. My heart starts beating relentlessly and I start to feel nauseous. I skim over the words I have already read,
“Tattoo just above my ankle, so hot ryt?”
“I just wanna get high, whos with me”
“Bring on the summer and the states!”
“Hey whos the cutie on our right”
“Oohh, he is cute. Looks like a jerk though.”
“He is!!!”
“He is cute or a jerk? Lol!”
“A jerk. I know him. that’s the guy I told you about”
“The one that tried to date rape you?”
“The one and only.”
The blood drained from my face. Which one was it? The hot blonde? The hot preppy? The one I didn’t see? The music seemed to get louder. Spinning my head in a whirl of drum and bass and girls faces and drunken nights, tearing skirts and holding mouths shut with my hand. I read on.
“Who’s up for a little bit of fun tonight? Maybe some role reversal games?
“You don’t even need to ask!”
“Did he really just wink at me?? He just made this so much easier.”
I start to laugh and crumple up the paper. Stupid bitches. So they drugged me and brought me to a forest, and I guess they felt guilty so they left me a car to get home with. Maybe they didn’t want to spoil their chances of having sex with me the next time they are out and off their faces. I slide over to the drivers side, catching my reflection in the mirror, I fix my hair and wink at myself.
I turn the key and the last thing I hear before the explosion is that catchy poppy dance music and those hot girls giggles.