It was almost 1:30 in the morning, and I was sitting on my bed, with my iPod playing in the background and my laptop in front of me, it was a Friday night spent at home. But there was something bothering me. My boyfriend, Nick, and his friends were all hanging out, and they had broken into his friend’s liquor cabinet in his house, and they used this as a way to unwind after a long week. I didn’t really care before that any of them drank, except for my boyfriend. He had a little history with drinking, and it always seemed to affect me. Once it got so out of hand, he walked to my house while he was incredibly drunk at 3 in the morning while some of my friends were over. And he didn’t even remember it the next morning. Though he never hurt me drunk or sober, I always had that thought in the back of my head that he could. And what was scaring me most about this time, was that I had never seen him this intoxicated before.
My phone had been going off all night with texts from him and with text from his friend, Stephen, all night. Stephen was drinking right along with him, but he wasn’t binging like Nick was. Nick began making a lot of typos in his texts, and when I asked him how hammered he was, he claimed that it hadn’t hit him yet. And then my phone rang. He decided to call, because he said he couldn’t read the screen anymore, making it hard to text.
“Hello?” I said, even though I knew it was him.
“Hellooooooooo!” he replied with a bit of insanity to his voice. I just rolled my eyes.
“How much have you had?” I asked him, afraid to hear the answer.
“Hmm….” He thought for a few seconds, “I had one…two…six…a grand total of ten drinks!” he said proudly.
"Ten drinks of what?” I painfully asked.
“Everything I could get!” he replied.
“Oh God, Nick!” I said with disgust.
“No babe….just listen to me!” He said. I figured that I would listen to him, since that was all I could do to help him. “I’ve been thinking. I love you sooo much, and I just know….” He had managed to say.
“You just know what?” I asked, urging him to continue.
“That I’m never want to let you go! I want to be with you forever!” he said.
“What?” I asked with disbelief.
“I mean it, I really do! I never want to left you go…” he repeated. I could not believe what I was hearing! I was so mad at him for ever wanting to drink in the first place, let alone calling me while he was this drunk! I was starting to think that he would do something stupid being this intoxicated, and the last thing I wanted was for something bad to happen to him. While Nick was going on with his drunken “I love you” speech, I sent a text to Stephen.
“makee him go 2 bedd. he needs 2 sleep itt off” I typed to him. As I waited for a reply, I realized that Nick had hung up. I just looked at my phone, and prayed he would be okay.
A whole ten minutes later, I finally got a response from Stephen.
“hes gone. he got in his car saying how he needed to see you and he just left”
My stomach dropped. My parents and my little sister were home, there was no way I was going to let him even come near my house! I was not sure what to do. Everything was getting so complicated; I didn’t know if I should wake up my parents to warn them, if I should lock my door and ignore him, or if I should drive him back to Stephen’s house. I guess all I could do is see what happens, and make the best decision for what to do with Nick once he got here.
But he never came. I waited for a half hour. There was absolutely no one on my street. To this day, I still don’t know why, but I had a feeling that he was in trouble. Almost without instinct, I ran out of my house, got in my car, and started driving to Stephen’s house. I knew I would see Nick somewhere, whether he was walking or driving. Or worse… I turned my high beams, looking everywhere around me. As I started to turn off of my street, I saw steam around the corner. My heart stopped beating, I stopped breathing, but somehow I had managed to turn off my car, get out, and run over to the scene.
And there was his car, crushed into total oblivion. Every piece of glass from the car was shattered and laying in pieces on the ground. I ran to the driver’s seat window, and I looked inside. And I saw him, this smart, funny, handsome guy, slumped over the steering wheel. A cut on his head leaked blood down his lifeless face. A rush of emotions ran through me. I blamed Stephen for letting him leave, and for serving him the booze. But mostly I blamed myself, because if he had never known me, he would not have gotten into that car to come see me, and he would still be alive.
But then I saw who the real enemy was, who was truly at fault; the alcohol. No good ever comes out of drinking, and I feel so useless because there is really nothing I can ever do to prevent what happened to Nick from happening ever again. I can’t believe he’s really gone, but I also can’t believe that every day, another person is taken away from the world because of drunk driving. So until people can learn to be smart, to make good decisions, and to look after the ones you love, all I can do it mourn the one I lost, and hope that this horrible event will cease.
