What’s Love Got to do With It?

We were young and in love. What else do you need? Well for Sebastian he still needed to be young and dumb, and I followed right along. The first couple of times he brought out weed and acted like it was no big deal, I didn’t think much of it. Next, it was letting me know he thought a rave could be fun. I had never even been to a party that had more than 20 people at it, a rave? Well, the people we love are supposed to move us out of our comfort zone and challenge us to explore new things so I said ok.

We invited our small group of friends and headed out. On the drive (a state away) Sebastian revealed that he had ecstasy on him and that he planned to sell some once we got there. Well. Ecstasy is not marijuana, but I was just a little girl from the bible belt and would never be brave enough to do something like that. He acted so confident that I felt confident. Sure, I won’t sell it but I understand he had to get his money back, and we had extra so why not?

The four of us got lost driving around in the dark, with no real GPS, it was 2003 after all. We finally arrived at some field in the middle of nowhere and the only indication we were in the right place was the thump of music coming from back in the woods. We park and climb out of the car, not having any idea what to expect, and begin walking towards the thumping. Sebastian abruptly stops, turns and hands each of us a little round white pill. Suddenly he grabs the one in my hand back and bites it in half, “you can’t handle a whole one.” Slowly he drops the half pill back in my hand and takes a swig of water. What had he meant by that? I can’t handle what? What’s going to happen? I realize everyone is waiting on me, so I pop mine really quick and the small sip of water drives the chalky pill down my throat. Now we wait.

We arrive at the edge of the thumping and the woods are packed with people, strobing lights of all colors and small huddles of darkly clad goths with glowing plastic necklaces and huge pupils. Sebastian immediately disappears into the crowd and is gone before I can even begin to follow. What do I do now? I’ve never been to one of these, I don’t know what’s happening and I just took a drug that I have no idea when it’s going to hit and how it’s going to feel. I’m terrified. I turn back to my two friends who seem just as lost as I feel. Trying to appear as if I have everything together I coolly say, “Maybe we should walk around and see what’s happening.”

45 minutes later, Sebastian has sold all of his inventory and returned to us. He just walked up and started rubbing my shoulders as if he’d never left. My friends and I had found a small hole on the side of the party where we could settle in and feel comfortable. “Where have you been?” I said, screaming over the still thumping music. A small smile creeps across his face, “Miss me?” I could have slapped the smile right off his face if his hands on his on my shoulders didn’t feel so damn good. Apparently the ecstasy had started kicking in. The rest of the night went by in a blur of lights, hands, kissing, dancing and consistently wondering where he had gone. I spent more time that night scanning the crowd desperately searching for where he had gone and only getting glimpses of him talking closely with random people in dark corners. I thought he had sold everything? Why did he need to go talk to people?

As we climbed back into the car and drove away from the rising sun I asked over and over, “What were you doing?” Sebastian assured me that he was making contacts, making profit and otherwise was with me pretty much the whole time. I must have been so out of it with the ecstasy that I didn’t even notice when he was there. Well that made sense, right? I had never done it before so that I must not have handled it well, thank goodness that I didn’t take the whole thing. He pulled my hair back away from my face, looked into my eyes and said, “I love you so much. I really enjoyed having you with me tonight. You’re so beautiful, I’m very lucky.” These sweet words quieted the voices in my head and we drove home on a happy cloud.

We had three more raves that summer. Each trip brought more people along with us. There were times that I had to hold the inventory because people knew he must have some on him and it was safer for me to hold it. Each group brought a new feeling of uneasiness. Who were these people? When did he meet them? Why do they seem to know him so well? There were more girls than guys. With ecstasy, you end up rubbing each other’s shoulders, dancing, running your fingers through peoples hair, etc. The more girls around the more fingers in Sebastian’s hair. I had to keep inserting myself and making sure that the only shoulders he was rubbing were mine. But we were all high, so don’t take it personally, right? After the final rave was over I said that I didn’t want to do this anymore. I wasn’t enjoying it, I didn’t like feeling out of control of myself and the recovery period was hard.

Sebastian understood and agreed that raves weren’t as much fun as he thought. That’s around the same time that he started having to meet friends at 10 p.m. He was constantly on his phone, answering texting messages and running errands suddenly and at odd times. Within a month he was staying out all night, not answering my calls or texts and coming home telling me to calm down. He was with his sister and her boyfriend and lost track of time. When I checked with his sister, yes she was there, at a party he was at and they did stay the night. This didn’t make me feel any better but kept me from having much to say about him lying. Every time he came home he pulled me close and told me how much he loved me. How much he missed me. How he was never going to let me go. I pulled him as close to me as possible and stared at the ceiling as he fell asleep.