Kiwi |H.S.|

four

    I'd only had champagne twice in my lifetime.

    The first time was two years ago. I was fifteen at the time, it was in the middle of my freshman year of high school. I was hanging out with one of my closest friends - Andre, when we had, in the spur of the moment, decided to take the city bus all the way to the rich part of Seattle. We rode out of section eight and into the neighborhoods where the upper middle class and rich folks lived - people like Abby. It was snowing, and we walked the dimly lit, perfectly plowed cul-de-sacs for hours. We'd point out our favorite house through the snowflakes and describe our ideal life. In our make believe lives we had perfect families, grades, and even made enough money to eat dinner every night. The biggest house of all was a tall pillared townhouse with a bright red door. It was fully decorated for Christmas. Tinsel hung from around the pillars, Christmas lights lined the squeaky clean gutters and inflatable reindeer littered the front lawn. But the house was missing one thing. Perhaps the most vital thing.

    A family.

    There were no cars in the driveway, and all the lights were shut off. It was only seven o'clock, and every other house had at least one bedroom light on.

    So when me and Andre saw a tall glossy champagne bottle sitting in their front window like a trophy, we knew we needed to have it. It was if it was taunting us, waiting for us to give into it and do the one thing upper class people are afraid of when they saw two young low-income African American kids.

    We smashed their windows in and stole it. We did the exact thing every one sitting in the surrounding houses would've expected of us.

    But it was worth it. The champagne tasted like nothing I'd ever had before. On the ride back home on the bus, Andre and I took back everything we'd said before about our ideal lives. As soon as we smashed that window and stolen someone else's booze, reality set in. We would always be the street rats of Seattle, and there was nothing we could do to ever change that because we were who we were. So we simply excepted our fates and drank our bottle of champagne savoringly because we knew we would never get a bottle of liquor as expensive. We figured we'd never have the opportunity to amount to anything better than hoodlums.

    Now, I sipped my new glass of champagne like an elite, and wondered what Andre was doing at this very moment.

    Probably selling drugs.

    "Hey." Beckett approached me, a tall pint of beer in his hand. He'd been moving about all night, it seemed as if he knew everyone. They poured their beer into glasses instead of chugging it from cans. Interesting.

    "Hey." I replied, looking up and down the dance floor for either Abby or Ariana.

    Beckett must've sensed my frustration. He pointed to the pool table with a killer grin, "They're over there," he told me sweetly. I nodded a thanks and took a few steps forward, making my way towards them. I felt a warm hand on my upper arm.

    I turned to face the blonde boy again. He looked at me expectingly, "You don't wanna talk to me?" He asked playfully, feigning a hurting heart as he rubbed his chest, "C'mon, I'll get you another glass." He insisted, pointing to my empty champagne glass before taking my hand, leading me off to the open bar.

    I followed obediently, craving the taste of expensive booze in my mouth. We weaved our way through crowds of sweaty nicely dressed students. None of them spared us a glance.

    Beckett sat down at one of the bar stools and I sat beside him. He motioned towards the bartender before giving him our orders hastily. The bartender gave him a silent nod and filled up two glasses to the brim with clear bubbly champagne. My mouth was nearly watering as I lifted my glass up to Beckett's in a small toast.