Maddox, Bart and Tristan sit in the parking lot in Maddox's mom's Kia mini-van. We pass an open bottle of Jamison whiskey around to kill the butterflies in our stomachs. Bart is holding the bottle, taking forever to take a swig. The sun dips under the horizon, leaving the sky a dim blue, its soft light filling the windows of the mom-wagon.

"We should be popping molly instead of this shit," Tristan says.

"You have a hook up?" Bart says.

"I'm sure there's someone inside selling," I say.

"Fuck that, undercover po-po in there," says Maddox. Hashtag no balls.

I take two swigs from the bottle and make the whiskey disappear. We all look at each other and nod wordlessly, exiting the mini-van, preparing for our pilgrimage to the thumping base in the distance.

The lineup wraps around the convention center building. The windows by the roof of the building are vibrating with each heavy electronic beat. In the line, everyone is wearing weird shit, like denim overalls, 90s windbreakers, and colored sunglasses even though the sun's not up. The girl in front of us has a smiley face sticker on her cheek. A tall guy behind us is sucking on a baby pacifier. I feel out of place in my jeans and grey tee.

I hear someone ahead of us is blowing on a whistle in repetitive beats.

The line is long but moving fast. We focus ahead, taking baby steps and not speaking, too shy to look at the people around us. I have to take a piss so bad but don't want to lose a place in line.

We reach the front entrance to the building and the lineup branches off into five shorter lines leading to bouncers wearing black. They're frisking us, and I don't want a guy's hand on my crotch so I step into the female bouncer's lineup, even though it was the longest one.

Finally, at the end of the lineup, the chubby bouncer girl waves me to step forward, so I do, and raise my arms out to the side like everyone else did.

She runs her hands down my arms then sides, but stops to carefully to feel my waistline and pockets.

"Empty your pockets," she points at my pants. I dig out my wallet from my back pocket and my phone, keys, and a pack of gum from my side pockets. She peeks into the pack of gum and carefully pinches all around my wallet, probably looking for pills. She hands me back my stuff and I keep them in my hands as she continues feel down my legs. She even slips her fingers inside my shoe, her finger exploring around my ankle.

She motions to the tall glass doors and I see Maddox, Tristan and Bart waiting for me, unfolding their printed tickets in their hands. I slip the the folded ticket from my wallet and follow the herd passed a couple of kids  holding barcode scanners. A kid who looks twelve scans my ticket and finally, I'm in.

The ceilings are tall, like a dark warehouse. The entrance area is empty, as if we're in a lobby, and everyone around us keeps pushing ahead towards the front of the building where the people are. My eyes take time to adjust to the darkness.

I scan the vast space for washroom signs. Thank God, there's one in the corner closeby.

"Hold on."

In the washroom, a girl exists a stall and I think I'm in the wrong room until I see urinals against the wall. A dude with a Knicks jersey enters behind me. A wiry thin girl fills up an Evian bottle from the faucet. I jump into a stall and I can barely hear the rumble of piss hitting water over the muffled electronic music on the other side of the wall. 

Back on the empty floor I see the guys waiting for me. "Let's go," we follow Tristan towards the stage. Someone passes us, his eyes wide open, his bottom jaw sticking out.

We stop by the edge of the packed crowd pressing against the DJ stage. I guess this is our spot. A cloud of dry ice rolls over the outlines of heads and shoulders. Red, purple and blue spot lights from the ceiling and stage shine through the dry ice, turning and spinning, and the loud pounding music makes me feel like I've entered another dimension. Bart looks at me, smiling. Maddox looks like a deer in headlights staring into the crowd. Tristan is dancing, I think. His head bobbing as he shifts his weight side to side. A girl with a feather scarf flots by and gives us each a lollipop. I just met you. This is crazy. Here's my number. Fuck you, call me.

"Want to find molly?" I ask Maddox.

"What?" Maddox yells.

"Molly!" I shout.

He shakes his head, still staring into the horde.

There's some kind of dance battle in front of us between two girls who look like twins, both wearing small backpacks and shutter shades. They face off, stepping to the beat in some stiff, hyper dance. Their boobs are bouncing under their sports bras and I feel uncomfortable standing with my friends, bobbing our heads at the edge of the crowd, transfixed on the two dancing girls, secretly hoping they would make the first move to talk to us.

A guy that looks like Jesus comes and shares a vape pen with all of us. I take a pull and don't feel anything from it until a few minutes later.

The vape is stronger than regular weed, and my thoughts begin to speed up. I close my eyes and try not to think of anything, but instead I can only think about how everyone around me must be staring at me. I open my eyes and no one is looking at me, but I know they see us. A group of nobodies. We don't belong here.

I leave them to wander around. It doesn't take long for someone to stop me.

"You cool?" says a short kid dressed like Where's Waldo.

"Yea."

"You want some White Elephants?"

I look around at the people around me, dancing like they don't care.

"Sure."

"30 a pop."

I give him two twenties and he gives me a $10. He reaches into a pocket of his man purse as he pulls out a baggie with white capsules. He pinches a capsule out of the baggie and drops it into my palm.

I stare down at the thing and wonder what the big deal is. When I look up, Where's Waldo is gone.

The butterflies build in my belly. I swallow the capsule without water before I can change my mind.

I start wandering the walls of the huge venue. A posse of Asian kids are sitting cross legged against the wall. I wonder when the high will hit me when I notice there's an opening in the wall to another big room. I move through the crowd that bottle necks through the opening, and as I walk through, the electronic bass from the main room melts away and is replaced by the speedy drums of ragga jungle. A girl with pigtails pivots on one foot, spinning left and right, swinging her pig tales side to side. She waves glow-sticks in her hand, one red and one green, leaving streaks of light through the air. 

Suddenly, I feel something. Sounds get all gooey, like I'm listening to the music underwater. I get that good feeling you get when you're being massaged, but I'm not being massaged, I'm just standing there. My eyes roll back. Pigtails comes closer until we're face to face.

"Do you know that model Reeva Steenkamp?" I lean into her and yell. "She tweeted 'what do you have up your sleeve for your love tomorrow' hours before her boyfriend killed her."

I don't think she hears me. She moves the glow sticks around my face, going passed and around my head. I can't move, my feet are stuck.

My sight goes black, and all I see are trails of red and green lights painting the air around my head. The beat of the bass stops, and the tenor builds to a crescendo, higher, higher, and higher. My teeth grind together. Then all of a sudden, the tenor holds at its highest pitch for a long time before a loud bass beat drops, and a dam of tension I didn't know was building inside me rushes out in a glorious catharsis.

Without thinking, I hug pig tails and she squeezes me back.

Hashtag the best hug of my life.

I'm back in the main room. The beat is slower than the other room. I avoid the edge of the crowd where Maddox and them might be. I'm chilling with a group of other kids giving each other light shows and backrubs. Some dude is massaging my hand and it doesn't feel gay at all. What's gay and straight anyway when everyone is fucking the same thing—molly.

I try to look at the time on my phone but my vision is doubling. I bring the phone closer than further, trying to adjust my vision. Oh my God, only fifteen minutes has passed. I could have sworn I've been here all night.

I don't feel hot but my shirt is soaked in sweat. I take it off without a thought, stuff it into my back pocket so it hangs out, and I'm surprised at how easy it was. Normally, I'd be afraid people would stare at me topless -- judge me for it. What is this skinny kid doing with his shirt off, they'd whisper to each other. What a weirdo.

But at a rave, on molly, being weird was okay. Being different is being the same. And being the same is also being the same. We are one.

Synthetic melodies blare over rumbling bass. I mimic a kid with a Mohawk who's bouncing to the beat, though I'm probably doing it wrong.

A yellow spotlight pans over the crowd and seems to hold on a brunette with Princess Lea buns who looks a lot like Nadia Ricci. But I'm hallucinating, right?

I move closer to her, she's shuffle dancing in a red cheerleader skirt, her eyes closed.

I stand directly in front of her thinking the hallucination is remarkable. She looks exactly like Nadia.

"Nadia!" my voice carries.

The brunette opens her eyes and her lips part in a crooked smile. She hugs me and the butterflies come back. It is Nadia.

Nadia shuffles in front of me.

I look around, still in shock, the happiness creeping up inside me. I study the faces around us and my high almost plummets when I see Connor. His fuckboy uniform makes me sick, a long white tee and ripped skinny jeans.

But wait. Becca is facing him. Or Mandy, I can't tell. Kind of like Facebook's face recognition software, outlining her face in a photo, offering a drop down menu of names of who she might be: Becca, Mandy, Melanie, Brandi.

Her baggy jeans hang low on her hips and Connor's hands squeeze her waist. Then they're faces lean into each other and they make out.

I tap on Nadia's shoulder and I motion for her to look at Connor. She looks at them and then starts dancing again, like nothing had happened.

I look one more time at Connor then suddenly get sick of looking at him.

Nadia is inches away, dancing in front of me. I study her, bobbing my head.

She seems like she's dancing in slow motion, or maybe it's the molly. What are you doing with him, Nadia? Just look at you. Look at how much better you are.

I can't stand it anymore so I tell her I want her.

"What?" she says.

I want you.

"What?" she says.

I want to feed on your neck.

"What?" she says.

I want to devour your open mouth.

"What?" she says.

Her repetitive movements put me in a trance and her image vibrates.

"Come," she presses my shoulders down, sitting me on the floor.

She joins me on the floor and our faces are inches apart. She puts a Vicks nasal inhaler backwards in her mouth and starts massaging the sides of my head while blowing through the inhaler onto my face. My eyes roll back as cool minty air tingles the skin on my cheeks and strong fingers rub at my scalp. Think of the best massage you've ever gotten, now multiply that by a hundred. It's unreal. I swear this is better than nutting.

"How was that?" she stops. Her image doubles.

I grab her by the elbows and pull her into a kiss. My head dizzies, not really knowing what I'm doing. Her lips are soft, and she parts them perfectly. I find her waist with my fingers, touching the strip of bare skin on her lower back, and slide my hands up her top. She jerks, then relaxes. I open my eyes and can see her eyes are closed.

Then our lips break free. A pink spotlight catches her face, strangely distinct.

She looks around and I do, too. Connor is gone. The people around us seem like new people, like we teleported onto another spot on the floor.

She pushes on my shoulders for balance and stands.

"Where you going?"

"The washroom," she flashes her crooked smile and saunters away, swaying her head to the beat of the bass.

What just happened?

I stand up too and wait for her. Time is weird when you're rolling. I decide to look for her, but I get lost in a sea of moving bodies and lights. Colored spot lights soaks the silhouettes of dancing bodies in the dry ice fog.

Outside in the parking lot, the sun is not quite up yet, but the sky is turning orange by the horizon. I'm smoking weed with Edwin and Crane, or is it Erwin and Cain -- two fuckboys who I never speak to at school, but here, it feels like we've been friends forever. Erwin sits on the hood of a pickup truck and Cain leans on the grill. I stand facing them as we pass a blunt around, comfortable in our own silence. We each stare into space, our eyes wide and our jaws grinding. We look kind of scary in the morning light.

"What's up?" Abner sneaks up beside us. Erwin and Cain nod at him. Then Abner looks at me with dilated pupils and smiles. "What's up?"

I nod back. I can feel my heart beat faster in my chest.

We all stay quiet for what seems like a few minutes, staring into space. At school we'd be forced to talk to break the tension of awkward silence. But here...what's tension?

"Hey," I think Abner is talking to them but when I look up he's looking at me, holding a fanned out deck of cards. "Pick a card."

The deck looks thin though, like half a deck. I pick a card in the middle and hide it from him.

"Go ahead, show me," I flip over a four of clubs.

"Four of clubs, that means you'll live a long life," Abner squeezes my shoulder which triggers the high again. "Now don't lose that card. Keep it with you, for good luck."

He strides away and I put the card in my wallet. The sunrays peak out from behind one of the industrial buildings. The warm rays kiss the skin on my face and I close my eyes.

The night was Nutella.