October 12th, 1980 is a night I’ll never forget. 20 years ago, and it’s still the only thing I can’t get off my mind. I’ll try and tell you all the details, and why I regret it so much.

October 12th, 1980, I was only 16, young, dumb, and didn’t fully understand things yet. Ashton was about to pick me up to go to our school’s prom. I didn’t want to go, but then Ashton asked me out and I couldn’t say no. We had been friends since kindergarten, when five-year-old Ashton came up to my table and played blocks with me.

When we got into high school, our friendship developed into something more. I mean, I thought it did. I might have been wrong when he started dating Valerie in sophomore year. But now I wasn’t sure- because he and Valerie had broken up just about a month ago, and now I was about to go to prom with him. We were juniors, and Ashton really wanted to get out of our town as soon as we graduated high school. He always thought he was more than this town.

“Hey, Caroline, when is Ashton coming over?” Mom asked, the one time she could pry away from the bottle. I was a little bit surprised Mom even cared about us, or when Ashton was coming over. “In about five minutes or so, so you have one last chance to drown yourself in tequila bottles before he comes over,” I said back to her, my voice in the familiar monotone voice that Mom heard often. She scoffed, like always, and shut my door while walking away. I learned to stop caring for those small things she does at the age of 12, so I didn’t take it to mind. But, this time, I yelled. I yelled cruel things to my mother. I told her that she should quit being a stranger and start being a mother. Not a mom, not a friend, a mother. All I heard was silence, no response, which was usual for her.

Five-ish minutes later, Ashton came and picked me up. I stared at him for a second, and then said bye to Mom quickly, short. “Bye, Caroline. I love you.” She said, and that made me stop in my tracks. “I love you” ? No..that’s not right… she never said “I love you”. Maybe the alcohol got to her brain. I want to say I didn’t put much thought into it for the rest of the night, but I did.

Prom was actually so fun. Ashton and I had a really good time, and when a slow song came on, he grabbed my hand. I could feel my face heating up, and I smiled sheepishly. He smiled, effortlessly, and then he put his hands on my waist, like they were meant to be there. I looked up at him, and he looked down at me. We swayed to the song, but we couldn’t really hear it. Or at least I couldn’t really hear it. I was too focused on him. He blushed and said sorry really quickly when he stepped on my foot, but I could barely feel it. We laughed and I looked at him again. Something about him just felt right, you know? Suddenly, he lowered his head to where our foreheads were touching. My heart sped up as he glanced at my lips. It made me feel a little uneasy. I don’t know why. The next thing I knew, we were kissing. I expected it to feel right, like it had with some other people. I expected it to feel really great, but it didn’t. He was perfect. Too perfect, almost. I pushed the thought away and kept on swaying with my lips locked against his. It should have felt good. But it didn’t.

Ashton drove me home, placing his hand on top of mine. I looked out of the window, seeing rain droplets start to fall down. I felt like a little kid and then raced the droplets. Mine won. Ashton cleared his throat as we arrived at the house. I wondered if he wanted to kiss me again. If anything between us would happen again. I turned slightly in my seat, ignoring all of the feelings bubbling inside my stomach. He turned a little, and I could see him glancing from my eyes to my lips. I felt a blush rising in my cheeks as he lifted his hand and cupped it on my face. “You’re beautiful, Caroline,” he said. I smiled, and then he kissed me again. I still felt weird, though.

After another quick kiss, I said goodbye to Ashton. “We should do this again sometime,” he said, “if you want to. I enjoyed it.” I smiled at him and agreed, still feeling the rising feeling that something wasn’t right.

I walked back into my house, careful not to step on my dress, and opened the door. It was locked. I silently cursed and then shook the door knob again. It was still locked. I groaned and knocked on the door hard, three times. No response. I walked around to the living room window and popped it open, prying the window slowly open and pulled myself up to see who was in the living room. Mom, obviously, passed out on the couch, drunk. Below her was a pool of her own barf, and Andy Griffith was playing on the television. I felt my eyes starting to water and I quickly wiped away the tears. I hoisted myself up and jumped through the window, making a big thud. I looked at my mother, who was sprawled out on the couch. I put my face in my hands and started to cry.

I walked over to her slowly, wiping under my eyes. Not like it mattered, though, my mascara was already running down my face, creating an ugly gray sludge. I grimaced, the smell made me want to cry even more, and I had already done enough crying. Once I got a better look at her, I stopped. My heart stopped, and my chest tightened. There were empty orange pill bottles scattered all around her, and there were too many bottles to count. I hadn’t thought that this had happened. Sure, Mom was an alcoholic, but she wasn’t like this. Right? She’d never been like this before, at least not that I knew of. Was I the reason?

I looked at her chest, alcohol flooding the area around her. Well, what did I do, you might ask? I stared. I also counted. I counted how long I stared at her. I stared at her for exactly 3 minutes and 19 seconds. I didn’t call the police, I didn’t scream or any of that. I stared, because I thought she was just asleep. My body was calm, my thoughts were finally empty, and I was probably the stillest person on Earth at that moment.

Once I realised I wasn’t doing anything, I screamed, and rushed over to her. In the three seconds it took me to get over there, I quickly reached for my phone in the secret pocket in my dress. I was shaking so much, I almost dropped my phone 3 times in a row. “Emergency” was right there, in my face, on my phone. I looked at it. I didn’t press it, I just looked at that stupid, big, red button. I wanted to press it, but my body was…paralyzed? I waited to press it, but I waited too long. I dialed 911, frantically explaining the situation. They quickly came to the scene in about 5 minutes, since we lived in the middle of nowhere. They looked like they knew even before they came in. They made up some random apology, but I couldn’t breathe. It felt like the walls were closing in on me. My first thought was what do I do?. I’m 16, I thought, and now everything was gone. My mom was dead. My dad left a long time ago. I was alone. And now… this Ashton thought that I liked him. Maybe I did. It was all really confusing. My brother was never really there for our family, so now, it’s just me. But, I feel it’s always been that way. I’ve known Ashton my whole life, but it also feels like I somehow just met him. I’m not positive on how to explain it, but I know there was no way I ever had someone there for me.

I didn’t know how to move on. Even if she wasn’t really there for me, she was still my mom. I still loved her.

20 YEARS LATER

I sat with Ashton on my couch, watching some random show. It wasn’t perfect, but it was ours.

I still thought about Mom.

I still woke up, picturing all the bottles.

But now, I could go on. I could still remember her, but I could move on, at least.

That’s what matters most.

(Collab w/ Hazel S.)