Once in a while when we got really bored, we’d drive fifteen minutes away (a huge distance back then) to the UC Berkeley campus, dressed in our cutest-I’m-in-college outfits, and act like we were not high schoolers, dressed in slutty outfits (that we’d hidden from our parents), pretending to be in college. We’d go to frat parties, drink frat punch, flirt with frat boys, dance with frat boys, sometimes get in drunken fights with frat boys, and leave before they found out we were in high school. Now, I wouldn’t be caught dead doing such things. I’m actually embarrassed writing about it now. But that was eight years ago; I am older and wiser having attended more frat parties than I’d like to admit, during my tenure in college.
After a summer of BBQs, parties, old friends, and teary goodbyes to the people I shared my life with since I was four, I started a new life at my alma mater, the University of Washington. I left Tyrone behind at my parents’ house, the paint on his hood peeling from wear and tear, the interior marked with countless stains from diet coke and other unknown substances, a cigarette hole from when my friend Lauren smoked in my car, and it blew back burning a hole in the rear seat. Poor Tyrone. He sure was a mess. We’d been through some good times together though, and he contributed to me having one of the best years of my youth.
I would always come back home for breaks and summers, and Tyrone would be there ready to take me on long cruises around familiar neighborhoods with familiar faces, ready to endure spills, burns, and my latest mixed tape. My sophomore year I came home for winter vacation and Tyrone was nowhere to be found. I was perplexed, confused. Where was Tyrone? My parents sat me down, like they were about to tell me my dog just died, and came the dreaded conversation:
Mom and Dad: “I’m sorry, we sold your car, we didn’t want to tell you over the phone, because we knew you’d get upset.”
