Last night I walked into SingSing totally unattached and walked out with six guys phone numbers, nintey minutes later. This was preceded by an eveing at a chic, trendy tappas bar in Chelsea and a round of drinks at my favoraite little east village bar, RedHotDevil. On the way home in the cab I felt sick — not from alcohol because I didn’t have a drink all night — but sick for no reason, like I felt something was wrong.
When I got home there was an MSN box blinking orange and blue, iconed on my desktop, from Jan. “Manda…laurel passed away…IM me when you get this”. Although I hadn’t really thought about Laurel Mitchell since my days at Immaculate Conception High School, I immediately knew Jan was talking about her. “IM me when you get this”. She was offline and I had nobody to ask. The sick feeling got worse so I took 2 pain killers and fell into bed, worried and upset.
Today I got the full story. This afternoon, after the gym. I spoke to another classmate whom I hadn’t seen in years. She told me Laurel died from a fever in the hospital in her sleep. Nobody knows what the fever was caused by, but it seems to be a side-effect of a perscribed stress medication. She just graduated from college in November and had a good job lined up. In July, Laurel would’ve been 22.
My first day of 7th grade I walked over to the lockers on the far side of the classroom and chose the seat in the second row. Laurel sat one up and to my left. She had a funny laugh that made everyone else start laughing too. She was really smart and really hard working. We were 7th grade friends. Now she’s dead.
twenty-one years old. just out of college. dead. what a waste. what a waste! people always say cheesey things like ‘life is so fragile’ and ‘make the most of today’. my thoughts are all along the lines of ‘why am i ever sober?’ and ‘i should be drunk and eating nothign but chocolate for the rest of my life if something like this can jsut happen!’ Poor Laurel. Poor her friends, poor her family. That sick feeling is starting again.
