Walking up the stairs to the second level of the apartment, my heart filled with anticipation. Was she here? What would happen if she was?

We walked through the front door of the apartment to a darkly lit room, and at first glance it appeared that most of the people I graduated with were in the apartment, everyone engaged in different conversations.

“Just a few people,” I thought to myself, remembering what Stosh said about the number of people that would be at this party.

I didn’t know if he tricked me or not, because I probably wouldn’t have agreed to come if he told me there was going to be more than 50 people here. Regardless, I was now here, and I helped myself to some alcohol, thinking it might help me forget about any anxiety I had.

Though I didn’t like much being in crowds, there was actually a decent atmosphere here. Everyone seemed like they were having a good time. For two years, minus the summer, I would see most of these people every week, but it had been just over a year since I had seen any of them. Most likely, some of them still hung out together after school finished. Even some people I had minor issues with came 100 percent correct, and it was like nothing ever happened between us. I think we were all just glad to see each other again, like the old days.

I saw some of my old co-stars from Drama Club that I was heavily engaged with and caught up with them a little. I laughed with one guy I met only one time before named Jason because a friend of mine, also from Drama Club who wasn’t here tonight, tricked him into thinking he was smoking something that was laced with cocaine at his house one night, while those of us who knew better were quietly laughing to keep the joke hidden.

“I’m so drunk right now that…I’ll still do it anyway,” he said way back then.

He admitted to being freaked out about his decision to go ahead with it.

Most of these guys were the high-achievers — members of student government, honor roll students, athletes, etc. The thing I liked about East was that there was no wall that kept these people separate from me. They all knew who I was, and I had interacted with nearly all of them at least once. I’m not sure what they really thought about me. I came in out of nowhere junior year, and only a few people in the school knew me from before, when most of them had probably grown up together. I certainly wasn’t one of them, but at the same time, it seemed like there was a purpose to be among them all that time. A lot of very meaningful interactions occurred during my short time at East. I might not have been part of the cliques that these people had, but I also didn’t feel completely excluded either.

I was having such a good time drinking and talking about old times with everyone, moving around the dimly-lit apartment, that I forgot about everything else, until suddenly, I remembered that I told the south side crew that I was going to come back before midnight. I checked the time and it was only about 15 minutes until midnight.

I jumped to action, but I couldn’t remember where exactly I parked. As I headed for the front door of the apartment, a few girls were heading out just in front of me.

“Do you know where I parked? I don’t know where I parked!” I said to one of them.

“Follow us,” she said.

I must’ve had too many beers to realize the girl wouldn’t have possibly known where I parked, and I wasn’t sure where they were leading me.

There was a small landing halfway between the first and second floors, and as I stepped onto it, someone else did the same from the other side and we met in the middle. My vision was slightly impaired, but I looked up at their face, and it was…Lisa! She stood in front of me with a blank expression on her face and vacant eyes, and I stared back into her deep brown eyes, unable to move or speak. We were both just standing there in front of each other, as though something else was holding us frozen in this position.

It could’ve been anywhere between five and ten seconds that we were standing there like that, but finally I awoke from the trance.

“Happy New Year!” I said as I gave her a hug, and then proceeded down the stairs after the girls who told me to follow them.

Though it was nice to see Lisa again after a year of being haunted by her memory, and at this apartment that was numbered 111, when I kept seeing signs that the number was somehow the key to finding her again, I still had matters to take care of.

The girls led me to an apartment on the first floor of the same building where the party was. It seemed that one of the girls lived here, and they were preparing to go somewhere else. I finally recognized the girl who told me to follow them as the older sister of one of the people I used to be in plays with. She might’ve recognized me too, and that might’ve been why she told me to follow them.

After about five minutes we walked out of the apartment building to an area nearby where the brother of this girl, my former fellow Drama Club member, another former member, and several other East graduates of mixed classes were lighting off fireworks from on top of a mound and passing around a bottle of champagne. We were all one big crowd, celebrating the New Year together. This was all very unexpected to me, because I didn’t expect to get sucked into a crowd like this tonight. Some of these guys I had just met the previous winter when Stosh invited me to go with them all to Ho-Chunk and stay at one of their cabins. The rest I knew from school.

It was probably a good thing I didn’t know where I parked because after I took a couple drinks from the bottle of champagne, everything started going black. I remembered that the clock hit midnight, we took some drunk group photos, and it was now the beginning of a new millennium.

I woke up early the next morning to find myself on the couch back at the apartment that I originally went to with Stosh, although neither Stosh, nor anyone else was anywhere I could see.

“How did I get back here?” I thought.

That was the first time I had ever blacked out from drinking. I didn’t remember drinking all that much, but there was a lot I didn’t remember, like anything that happened after midnight.

“I’d better get over to Shorty’s house. All those guys are probably wondering what happened to me last night,” I thought.

I left the now empty apartment, found my vehicle, and drove to Shorty’s house across town. I found Shorty, crashed-out by himself in his room, still wearing all his clothes, even his hat, and on the floor like he might’ve passed out that way.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“They all left,” he said, barely awake.

I wasn’t trying to ditch them. I DID try to come back, but it wasn’t happening.

We definitely did party like it was 1999. Whatever disasters were supposed to happen at the beginning of the new millennium didn’t, and time kept passing like it usually did.

Some people have told me I have a good memory. My first memory was from when I was one year old, watching Mr. Rogers Neighborhood on a high-chair, eating lunch at my babysitter’s house in Eagle Heights. People are surprised when I remember events they were present for but have almost no memory of. Somehow, even blacking out on New Year’s Eve wasn’t enough to stop my memory. Within a few days, all of the events that took place after midnight, like how I got back to the apartment and what happened afterwards started to return until I was able to put the whole story back together again, and it left me with more questions than answers. At the center of those questions, was once again, Lisa.