The Sunset Strip Diaries by Amy Asbury Page B

something. I went home and cried my eyes out. Things were not going as planned. I was supposed to be flipping my hair in slow motion somewhere.
     
    I was reeling into a deep depression. I knew I couldn’t turn back time and take my virginity back. I did a lot of walking around by myself during that time- I walked around my neighborhood, crying and smoking. I was usually barefoot- I couldn’t tell you why. I think it was the beginning of a mental illness. My mind was splitting open and I just stopped caring.
     
    I remember pouring a big mug of orange soda and walking down the hallway to my room. In the middle of walking, I threw the mug against the wall and kept walking. The soda splattered all over the wall and the mug and ice cubes fell to the carpet. I didn’t even look back or miss a beat. It was that feeling of just truly not caring. Nothing mattered- why was I even alive? I went in my room, shut the door, and started writing. My dad opened the door not too much later and asked me if the mug was mine. I lifelessly said yes. He threw each ice cube at me with force. It hurt, and I knew I shouldn’t have dropped my drink on purpose, but I didn’t care . I didn’t care about anything . I just sat there, letting him pelt me with ice cubes, watching the look of anger on his face.
     
    I ended up getting my period. I wasn’t pregnant. God gave me a pass. Did I learn my lesson? No. I put on a Guns N’ Roses shirt that Todd Lewis had given me (because he was now into Public Enemy), and went out to find more trouble. I did do one smart thing though: I put myself on birth control pills. If I was going to have sex or even just be too drunk to know what was going on, then I needed a safety net. I didn’t want to add an unwanted pregnancy to the mix.
     
    In mid-November, I was walking down the street yet again. A big red truck rolled by with a Sunset Strip Tattoo bumper sticker on the back. It was a sign of Hollywood, where I wanted to be. I thought, This is my chance. I won’t mess up this time. A cute guy and his friend leaned out the window to talk to me and I felt adrenaline. I didn’t think, Walk away. Now. You are in enough trouble . I thought, This will be exciting. Older guys! From Hollywood! I chatted with them for a few minutes, asking about the bumper sticker and trying to feel out if they actually hung on the Sunset Strip. They did. I gave them my number. Soon thereafter, the main guy, Casey, was picking me up from school and from my house more times than I cared for.
     
    It was cool the first day. I went to one of his friend’s houses and it was amusing. We drove to a hip record store in Sherman Oaks called Moby Disc, and Casey shoved a cassette tape down my pants and made me steal it. I had stolen plenty before, so I wasn’t scared. I was excited to hang out with him and his friends, who were nineteen, twenty. One the guys had been in the Metal Years movie. I felt like I was getting somewhere.
     
    After hanging out a few times, I started to realize two things: One was that Casey was not planning on bringing me to hang on the Sunset Strip with him. He wanted to scam on girls. Two, I didn’t much like Casey. He was rude, he was disgusting, and he was fatter than I had remembered. He had a gut, a double chin, and frightful hair extensions. His head must’ve looked okay out of his truck window, because the rest of him looked like he had fallen from the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. To make matters worse, he didn’t seem to have a conscience. I knew I needed to end the relationship or whatever it was, but I didn’t know how to do it.
     
    I was so intensely nervous around Casey and his friends that I never spoke. I decided I needed alcohol to calm my nerves. I meekly asked him for Southern Comfort, remembering the initial buzz I felt when riding in the car with Jamie. Casey all too gladly provided my fifteen-year-old ass with hard liquor. As soon as that occurred, things started sliding