“Don’t sleep. Wake up. You’re pretty with no make up. Don’t sle—“ My phone alarm blasts the Cody Simpson song right into to my ear. Why did I think sleeping with my phone right beside my pillow was a good idea? The instant my eyes open I regret it. It feels like someone is beating me in the head with a hammer relentlessly. I glance at the glowing screen beside me and read the white numbers at the top. It’s only 6:30. I have to be at school by 8:00. I can probably make it there in twenty minutes if I drive fast enough. So if I skip a shower I can sleep for another half an hour. After doing the only kind of math my mind is able to comprehend this early in the morning, I reset my alarm. Before I let myself close my eyes again I swallow two Advil and wash it down with a gulp of the warm water on my nightstand.
As I pull my white Mustang into the school parking lot I take another look at myself in the car mirror. I’m still wearing the makeup from last night, it looks the same only slightly
smudged. Who cares? Makeup always looks better the second day anyways. My hair shows signs of it once being curled, now in a mess of long, dark brown tangled waves. So what if it looks like I have sex hair? It’s kinda hot. Although it’s hard to look at my outfit in full effect while sitting in the car, I glance down anyways. The oversized pink sweater and tight black leggings matched with my favorite black booties looks just careless enough to be presentable. You know, for being hungover and running on about 3 hours of sleep, I look pretty damn good.
  “Hey Peyton!” Even before I look I know that perky voice can only belong to one person.
“Hey Marissa,” I hear myself mumble as I walk over to our lockers. She goes to hug me, like she has every morning at school since we became friends in the fifth grade, but this time I just shrug her off. At first she seems hurt, but then I receive an understanding, almost pitiful look from her.

“I hate to say this, but you look like hell,” she whispers it to me as if it’s some kind of secret, like the whole school can’t see me in all of my hungover glory.
“Well we can’t all wake up like a ray of sunshine after partying all night, now can we?” The b****iness in my tone can only be blamed on my lack of sleep mixed with the fact that I feel like I could puke at any moment and I can feel the Advil starting to wear off. Regardless, I automatically feel bad for snapping at her like that. “I’m sorry Mo, I just… I feel like absolute s***.”
“It’s fine Pey. Trust me, I know how much you drank last night. You must be suffering the hangover from hell right now.” Something about the way she says it makes me think. Do I even know how much I drank last night? I didn’t think it was that much… A hint of worry starts to creep into my mind but as the first bell rings I quickly toss that out of my head and grab my stuff.
“C’mon Mo, we can’t be late for French again.”
After block one, I head to Chemistry. I am the only sophomore in the class which is otherwise filled with juniors. I hate this class because it is the only time during the day I have to be separated from Marissa. We’ve been in the same classes since we were ten until this year. For some reason my schedule got messed up and I got placed in this class instead of Biology. Usually I sit alone because most of these people aren’t worth talking to, and those that are wouldn’t be caught dead being friends with an underclassman. So I get extremely weirded out when Josh Canon, one of the hottest juniors in Anderson High school, comes over and sit right beside me.

“Hey, you’re Peyton Hart right?” It may be my imagination but I’m pretty sure he winked when he said that.
“Uhh… yea. Can I help you?” Oh now you’ve done it you idiot. The hottest guy in school comes over to talk to you and you decide to be a b**** to him.
“Actually I believe you can, I saw this video of you from Blake’s party last night,” At first I am relieved that he has completely disregarded my sass, but as I process what he is saying to me I begin to panic.
“Wait! What video?” I try to keep my voice steady and stay calm, but something in me is growing. I can’t tell if it is worry, anger, or both. What video is he talking about? What did I do? Why can’t I remember?
“Oh s***! You haven’t seen it? You know, the one of you… you know… all over those guys from Jackson High?” This time I’m sure I see him wink at me.
We both turn to face the front of the class as Mrs. Hopkins starts talking. I don’t hear a single word and it takes all I have in me to even copy the pictures from the board into my notebook. One question continues to race through my brain. What happened last night? And why can’t I remember?
I suffered through the rest of block two. My concentration was shot but I’m pretty good at faking it. Josh didn’t say another word to me the rest of the class, and part of me was thankful for that. Now I have to go to lunch and get to the bottom of this. My books are shoved into my locker as I race to the café. Where is Mo?

As soon as I spot her perfectly straightened blonde hair and the shiny pink ribbon she always wears, I speedily walk over to her.
“Marissa, can I talk to you for a moment?” It takes all I have to spit it out through my gritted teeth. Deep breaths Peyton. Calm down. Everything is fine. Mo finally stops the conversation I rudely interrupted and walks towards me. We sneak away from the bustle of the lunch room and go back into the now empty hallway.
“What is wrong with you? You’re acting like a crazy person,” I can’t help but notice the concerned look on her face.
“Mo, what happened last night? I don’t remember having more than a couple drinks, and Josh says I… well I don’t know… with some of the guys from Jackson, and there’s a video of me and—“
“Woah. Calm down Pey. I can’t understand you when you’re talking five miles a minute.”
“Long story short, there’s some video of me ‘slutting it up’ circulating the school, it’s giving me a reputation. I’m fine with being the cool sophomore that parties with upperclassman, but not the sophomore slut!”
“Peyton, you were pretty drunk by the time I left. I didn’t see anything that would brand you a slut though. You do get pretty, touchy, when you drink but I’m sure no one thinks you’re a slut. From one night? No way. Just try to calm down. Do you know who has the video?” “Josh has it, on his phone I think, he’s the one that asked me about it.” My breathing finally slows down and I start to calm down.

“Well then go ask him, if we see the video then we know exactly what we’re dealing with here.”
After lunch I make my way to the junior hallway. I try to ignore the b****y stares from envious girls and cat calls from the d*****bag guys. When I walk up to him I can tell he already knows what I need to talk to him about.
“Peyton! How can I help you? Finally decide to… help me out?” He whispers the last part as if he doesn’t want others to know what he’s asking me for. I don’t even know what he’s asking me for. I just ignore it.
“Josh, can I see the video? I’m having a hell of a time trying to remember what went down last night. I have an idea of somethings that may have happened before I got completely wasted but after that it’s a blur. Scratch that. It’s more of a just a blank.”
“Yea sure, but don’t shoot the messenger okay?” He grabs his black IPhone from his locker and pulls up a five-minute video. I stare at the little rectangular screen anxiously. He presses play and I watch myself in the recording. But what I see doesn’t help me recall a single thing. If anything it just confuses me even more. I don’t recognize anyone in the video, and the room we’re in doesn’t resemble a single room in Blake’s house.
Who are those people? Where is that? How drunk was I? What happened last night?