One-Eighty
February 2nd, 2022
This morning I woke up with a hangover. It wasn’t because of the one beer I’d had in the afternoon, or those few hits of a joint in the evening. A girl had texted me on Instagram, to alarm me about a guy in my group. She told me he was a notorious sex offender in New Zealand, and that there were heavy allegations going against him. I read them: They were even worse than she said.
In the hostel, there had been so many men who gave off creepy vibes. But with this guy, I hadn’t sensed it. Despite looking like he’d just walked off Love Island, he didn’t seem like a pervert. Though he’d been hungry for female attention at the beach, he just seemed social. He wasn’t harassing anyone under my watch. I also felt safe around him. He treated me like I was one of his bro’s.
My alarm bell had rung only once, at the beginning of the afternoon when he said he’d had to leave New Zealand in a rush. My gut had told me to ditch the guy, but I’d ignored it. I can be too uptight and too judgy which are terrible traits for solo-travellers. So I ignored it, going along with the situation. Only half an hour later, we had so much fun that I’d forgotten about the worry.
When I knew his other side, I decided not to hang out with him anymore. I notified my friends, who had the same stance. So we took off to Malibu with the group, without him. It was the best day ever.
We nearly sunk knee deep into the quicksand as an LA guy had led us down an adventurous path. The funny thing was: I knew there was a paved trail. I’d mentioned the safer alternative multiple times. Still we were determined to do it the LA-way and get ourselves into some shit. When I’d survived the sand as the first one and looked over to watch the others still stumble, I laughed the hardest laughter I’ve ever released. I was this close to falling over into the mud again.
When we made it to Malibu beach, we watched the most beautiful sunset of my life. It sounds like a typical LA exaggeration, like I just don’t know any adjectives for different levels of beauty, but I’m serious. I’ve never seen a sunset like that before.
As planned, the guys did some flips, the girls made many pics, and we had a picnic on the sand. We ended the day with some Caliweed - hitting me hella hard. I couldn’t believe that the sky was actually that bright of orange, or that we could actually see the contours of the shadow on the moon. If someone told me it was a screen, I wouldn’t have doubted it.
On our way back, we sat in the car with some musical music. I was in the ending scene of La La Land, where Emma Stone accidentally stepped into Ryan Gosling’s jazz bar and on the brink of tears offered him a last smile. She knew the meaning of the song.
