Prologue

“Oh you pretty things, don’t you know you’re driving your mothers and fathers insane.”
David Bowie.

As I sit here, remembering and recording the last year of my life, one word comes to mind: Fuck. I spent the past year fucking up, getting fucked up, watching people fuck up, and getting fucked over. This isn’t an apology, or even a cautionary tale. It is a necessary retelling of events so I can figure out how I got from there to here.
I know you might be appalled by us. Looking back on the year now, I feel like cringing at my own obvious mistakes and flaws. But what were we supposed to do? We were just at college because that’s what you did after high school. We were just delaying our inevitable plunge into adulthood.
I had never been a person who was at ease socially until I came to Wellesley. Well, until I met Marie and Viv at Wellesley, I suppose. I felt connected to them, like I had never felt connected to any friend before. We weren’t bad influences on each other; really, we just reinforced the idea that it was ok to be like us. By the beginning of our sophomore year, we had moved out to Boston together, living in our bohemian college dreamland. I spent every second with them, until they felt like part of my anatomy. We were a pinwheel, spinning so fast that the colors blurred together; a solid unit, a team, looking out so we could protect each other. But what I know now is: I should have been protecting myself.