Dancing with Molly by Lena Horowitz

it this time. Maybe holding hands with Carson while I watched it helped. I guess ultra-romantic movies aren’t so bad if you feel like it’s possible to have that kind of romance off-screen.
    After the guys left, when I was getting ready for bed, Jess texted me. She said that Kelly couldn’t get molly for the party tomorrow, but that her brother had scored some ecstasy. I feel so bummed about that. I mean, ecstasy is fun, but the molly that we did after prom was so much better. Also, I have this nagging feeling that I’m going to be worried about Ashley the entire time and not really able to enjoy myself or Carson or the music as much as I want to.
    Oh well. I guess we can just try it tomorrow night and see how it goes. At least Kyle will be there. He told Kelly that he’dkeep an eye on all of us. Still, I hope there aren’t any problems. Jeez. When did I turn into such a nervous Nellie? Who am I kidding? I’m going to roll tomorrow night and have a blast with Carson. I’m sure Ashley will have just as much fun with Reid. It’s not like we’re shooting heroin or something. What could go wrong?

Sunday, May 25
    Wow. I just read the last words I wrote in this journal. If that wasn’t tempting fate, I don’t know what is. Note to self: Never write “what could go wrong” in a journal. The next entry will be horrifying.
    Pretty much everything went wrong last night. I feel like crap—and not just from the ecstasy. Of course, that’s really where everything started to go bad. Kyle got these little red tablets that had lightning bolts pressed into them. Brandon, Pete, Jess, and Kelly had just dropped when Carson, Reid, Ashley, and I arrived, so we’d barely gotten inside the door of the party before Jess was passing around the tabs and water bottles. Ashley didn’t even hesitate, she just gulped hers down and I followed suit so that we’d be on the same wavelength at least and I could sort of track what she was feeling.
    At first we didn’t really feel much. The warehouse washuge, and there were these totally ripped shirtless guys and girls in bikinis dancing on big cubes all around the dance floor. Kyle waved to us from the DJ booth and we went over to say hi. He told us to “enjoy the lightning” and then we all started dancing. This ecstasy took longer to hit than the other two times, and once it did, it was not nearly the same as the molly. In fact, it was awful at first. My stomach got really upset and I was grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw like crazy. It was really speedy and it made me feel jittery. My eyes twitched so much that Carson grabbed my hand and took me outside where Pete and Brandon were. They were smoking cigarettes, and I sat down for a while, but being away from Ashley made me nervous because I kept thinking about her and wondering if she was okay. I got really paranoid, so Carson brought me back inside to find Ashley.
    I shouldn’t have been worried at all. By the time we got back inside, Reid was shirtless, and he and Ashley had climbed up onto one of the boxes with one of the girls in the bikinis and were dancing with her. Ashley saw me and squealed, then threw her hands over her head and danced like a maniac. I just started laughing because she looked like she was having a really good time, and I finally started to relax. Jess and Kelly came around with water and Blow Pops. Having that sucker helpedme stop clenching my jaw so much and it tasted amazing.
    We all started dancing together around the big box that Reid and Ashley were on. My sister looked amazing. Kelly had sprayed body glitter all over her, and her blond hair was catching the black lights, and for a while it looked like she was shooting lasers out of her head, creating these beautiful patterns. She saw me looking up at her and pointed at me with a big grin on her face. She jumped off the box and came running over and threw her arms around