Antonio Gets Wise and Goes Home

• • •

Antonio notices that his vision is a little blurry, and the room is swaying a bit. He remembers now what they said at school about alcohol, how it impairs your vision, balance, and thinking. Could that be happening to him?

He grabs hold of the doorway and tries to focus on where he is and what’s going on, but the room keeps swaying.

“I better go,” he agrees.

When he’s out of sight of Vanessa’s house, he sits down on the ground and puts his head between his knees. He feels nauseous, dizzy, like he can’t get his brain to straighten out and think. He can’t go home like this. It’s probably not a good idea to try to go anywhere else, either.

Antonio lies down and watches the light fading from the sky. What a dumb, dumb, dumbass thing to do, he thinks. He doesn’t know when he’s going to sober up or what his parents are going to say when he walks in, but he does think this is probably the last time he is going to do something so dumb.