$10 Bildungsroman.

The flashing lights did nothing to the mood. She was a ghost. The kids bumped, grinded, and she no longer belonged. She never belonged at these gatherings- they were a waste if money and an evening. Her temperament was much better suited for a movie or game of cards. Yet here she was.

Her emotions for him, of course were animalistic. She found his form appealing, and, as a way to release stress, hoped for the chance to ride it. The only reason she came.

Once, she knew love. He was two hundred miles away, enjoying the rapture of college life. She was his ghost. His class had been her class, for a time. For a time, they had told each other everything, done everything with and to each other. Maybe she was romanticizing, but what she felt for him was deep- more than angry lust and possessiveness over a completely unrealistic, incompatable boy. But he was the closest thing she knew to the man she once had.

In pursuit of the ecstasy he had left her with on their last night together, she was in a dirty gym, adorned with Christmas lights and Top 40 hits. The kids were grinding, searching for the same thing she was. Only they had never known it. She did. She wanted it again, she needed her fix. Her cocaine was gone, she'd have to chew cocoa leaves. Anything.

It was to no avail. Her substitute was indifferent towards her, he had his own cocaine to chase. Besides that he was being chased by two other girls, closer to him in age and experience. She was too old for this scene. She graduated when he graduated, this endless year was her purgatory for following a man she knew she couldn't have.