Foxwoods

School was officially over for the summer and I was ready for the much anticipated, best holidays with my best friends. At newly 14, I was thrilled at the thought of no school for a whole six weeks, with copious amounts of lie-ins, spontaneous shopping trips to the capital on the train (as our mothers would hate to drop us off with the heavy traffic and minimal parking) and visits to the nail bar and tattoo shop—making the most of having our noses pierced to keep up with the trend and the longest, sparkliest acrylic nails, as we were off school and had no policies to follow concerning our appearance.

The first weekend arose, the first weekend of freedom. I was texting Elle outfit choices for the night as we had planned to have a small gathering at our other friend’s house as her mother was away on a job course. Each time Elle would message me, “I don’t know why you’re asking me. I’m no Gok Wan and you won’t listen to what I say—you always go back to your first choice so wear your denim shorts with Vans like you said and you can maybe wear my new black top with the sequins on... It won’t go with what I’m wearing.” Elle was my best friend, she listened to me, and she knew me more than anyone. We were very much alike in fact but very different at the same time. We arranged to meet at her house. I was ready and she, like usual, was still trying to tame her long brown hair. I took over as she was far too slow and fussy, and we had to get into town.

After missing two buses, we were finally heading ourselves into town to meet our other friends. We also met up with an older boy we knew to go into the convenience shop to buy us alcohol and cigarettes. He also was not quite 18, but he sure did look older than that! Us girls were seriously excited that everything was going to plan and the extras confirmed the gathering was going to be a good one to start the summer. We headed back to Izzy’s with a concoction of Domino's food, spent with her weekend food allowance from her mother. We blasted music, chat, ate, and laughed—making predictions on who would get with who that night. Getting snogs became a competition amongst us, as we had gained a reputation as the “slut gang” in school although that didn’t correlate with any of our behaviours; simply on how we wore our school and physical education uniforms—a little tight and too short (definitely not “two inches above the knee!”). It came to our realisation that it was 5:30 PM and our other friends, including people from other schools, were coming over in two hours time. PANIC mode! Two hours was simply not enough time for five girls to get ready in front of only two full sized mirrors. We were a close group of girls and would share everything from secrets to makeup and clothes. We had one assigned makeup artist among us and an assigned hair stylist. People were starting to turn up, maybe a few too many than we had originally invited, and we would all look at each other and communicate with our eyes as if to say did you say she could bring her? A few hours went by, the drinks were flowing, and people were genuinely happy... happy-drunk but still happy. One of the girls from the other schools had a message asking why she wasn’t at Foxwoods (our local secluded mountain which was perfect for parties). None of us knew anyone was going there that Saturday. We were too wrapped up in our house party to think about going up there.

Without a thought, we all left Izzy’s messy house with jackets and grabbed any remaining alcohol; fortunately, Izzy only lived at the end of village which led to the lane to the mountain. When we had gotten there, a lot of people were heavily intoxicated on only god knows what combination of alcohol and drugs. We were walking through the grass path, greeting people we knew, hearing “heyyy, there’s the slut gang.” Before we had even gotten to the top, we had all separated by being dragged away to different groups of people. At one time, I ended up by myself and saw a girl from the year above us crying with a bottle of wine in her hands. I went over to see if she was okay as she was also on her own. She said “wh- who the f*ck are you?” Slurring her words and raising her bottle up to threaten me away. Some others shouted over to me to leave her alone and so I did.

Off I went in a hope to find my friends. Hours passed by and I hadn’t caught sight of any of them so I settled with some of the others I knew from classes and other schools—people I only ever heard of in conversations before. We were having a good time talking about everything and absolutely anything at all. It was times like these I enjoyed being young and care free, although my mother had no idea what I was really up to... just the thought that me and the girls were having a sleep over. I heard laughing coming from the trees and I saw Izzy and Cait. They were shouting my name when they caught a glimpse of me waving frantically.

“Where the f*ck have you been, girl? Your best friend is dying. You should have seen her.”

My face dropped. I was furious that they were laughing at the matter because others had confirmed she was paraletic. I was calling Elle’s phone and it was just reaching answer phone. I was going around asking everybody if they knew more. I was getting different accounts saying she had been spiked, she was drinking from other people, doing drugs; I didn’t know what to believe. I asked Izzy and Cait how they knew. They told me that people called them over to her as she was being sick in a bush. Cait and Josh tried to get her down the mountain and home but it was proving difficult as she was a very tall girl. She was lifeless and they were trying to get her over the sty, ending up hitting her head as they dropped her. She was unconscious. They called the ambulance but it was difficult trying to explain their whereabouts. They managed to get her to the last sty before entering the lanes, but when they tried to get her over, Elle had gripped the fence with barbed wire and her hand was pouring with blood. I was horrified hearing all of this I felt like a terrible best friend that I had left her all alone when she really needed me. None of this would have happened if I didn’t separate from her. I called her mother immediately whilst heading back and told her everything that I knew, She told me that she was at the hospital with her getting her stomach pumped. She told me not to worry and to go back to Izzy’s house and that she was disappointed with me. Those words have stuck with me since. Am I really a monster or should Elle be responsible for her own acts?

The next morning I was sat on Izzy’s sofa constantly checking my phone for any updates. I still hadn’t heard from Elle. I ended up falling out with Cait when we had got back. I was so angry at myself but more at Cait for leaving her in an ambulance and neglecting her wellbeing in the process of trying to get her home. We ended up having a physical fight. She hit a nerve with me saying, “She’s your best friend. You should have been looking after her” and I just launched myself at her with tears rolling down my face, repeatedly punching her and kneeing her whilst she was sat trying to defend herself, covered in Elle’s blood. “My best friend is dead and you think it’s one big f*cking joke!” I screamed as she tried to block my hits. Izzy broke us up and locked me out of her room to calm me down. I stayed in the living room scrolling through my phone waiting for some sort of news. Morning came by fast and I had texts from my mum asking if us girls had a good night. I replied with some lies saying how we had a good sleepover and ate a Domino's... I didn’t want to trouble her with news about Elle. We heard a loud thud on the door and my heart sank. I instantly thought it was the police confirming that she was dead. Izzy raced to the door hoping that it wasn’t her mum coming home early. It was Jane, Elle’s mum. She barged through and instructed us all to sit down.

“Girls, I’m here to tell you that I am absolutely appalled that you betrayed your parents and they are all on their way here this morning to pick you up. What happened to Elle last night was no funny business. She almost died at the hands of alcohol poisoning last night and I will be going to the police and school about this. You left her alone, which is not what friends do. God knows what else had happened to her last night. For your information, she is home and okay but she had her stomach pumped to remove the alcohol in her system, six stitches in her hand, and connected to a drip through the night. She is very lucky to survive so let this be a lesson to you all!”

I will never forget that conversation. It put me off the other girls a lot. They were very selfish and tried to put the blame solely on Elle. I was the only one that was honest and told her I couldn’t find her for hours, and that we got the alcohol from a friend of ours—we were past the point of lying it would get us no where. As for my own mother, she was extremely annoyed at me for lying consistently. I was grounded for the whole summer and if I was to go out, I had to call her every hour to confirm I wasn’t out partying and I had a strict curfew. I didn’t hate it in all honesty. I was kind of glad because I was really put off drinking alcohol again.

I visited Elle a few days later. I was brought to tears when I had seen her. I squeezed her and said sorry over and over. She told me not to be so daft; the only thing she was worried about was that she had to have some of her hair cut off as it was matted with vomit and twigs, and that her mum threw her jeans away because they were stained and holey.

The weeks would go by a lot quicker than those spent at school, even the days spent in pyjamas watching Jeremy Kyle or films I had seen many times before but would still never get bored of them. In fact, I was happy to be staying in, especially with Elle. We mainly worked on our Welsh project, something we both enjoyed. I was just happy to be with my best friend.

That night at Foxwoods was a learning curve for us all, especially me and Elle. She was definitely the talk of the schools once we were back. People had even put on social media things like: I can’t believe some girl died at Foxwoods last night #RIP. That definitely made us laugh. We had never gotten so much attention before. Even the school tried spreading the awareness of alcohol misuse, something we would have ignored before that night.