It started with a red cup at someone’s brother’s party— too loud, too dark, too much everything. And I drank. It burned like truth and felt like permission. By thirteen, I knew how to hide it: mouthwash, eye drops, a tilted smile in morning classes. I memorized the lie: I’m just tired. I’m just fine. I’m just. There was a girl who said she liked how I laughed when I drank. There was a night I forgot how to stop. There were mornings I didn’t remember what I’d said, who I was, where my dignity had wandered off to. I kept drinking because it made me quiet inside. Because it gave me something to blame for the way I already felt. Because the bottle never asked why I was so sad in a hoodie and headphones at 8 a.m. The other kids thought it was funny— that I was bold, that I could chug like a legend, that I was ”crazy.” They didn’t see the shaking. They didn’t see the crying in the shower. They didn’t see me googling “how to stop” with a drink in my hand. And I’m scared that this will be the story I keep retelling, forever, instead of becoming someone else.