Marooned
The sailing regatta began and there I was in a dinghy together with █████ and "the Wookie" of all people. The bottom feeders of our class, thrown together to race the cool kids. How the hell had I ended up here? To be fair, half the class had simply assigned me my old role from before I left for a year abroad. The other half were thrown off by how much I'd changed and treated me like a newcomer. Who was I? The old loser or the new alien? Either way I accepted my fate and got ready to lose. But first, let's go back to the beginning of the week...
I had just returned to my old high school in Germany after ten months in the US, arriving just in time for a week-long school trip to a lake in Austria. Having been thrown back into the old social circle of my class I realized quickly how much I had transformed - from the shy computer nerd with glasses who blushed whenever he talked to girls, to a relatively self-confident alternative surfpunk type dude who knew cool bands that hadn't even made it to Europe yet.
Fortunately, some of my formerly cooler friends had been impressed enough by me, or maybe rather the music I'd introduced them to on the train ride, that they let me stay with them in their hostel room. While half the class headed to a local pub around the corner with our two teachers, I followed my roommates outside. We stopped at a nearby gas station, where they picked up a six-pack of cheap beer and a bottle of some clear liquor. I tagged along with a can of soda. Then we headed to a nearby parking lot, where they lit a few hand-rolled cigarettes. It didn't take long to notice these weren't regular cigarettes. The smoke carried a thick, unmistakably herbal scent. Wait. Was this...?
When we got back to the hostel later that night, the others had already returned from the pub, and judging by the noise, everyone was tipsy and nowhere near done partying. It seemed I had a lot of catching up to do. Back in the States, where drinking wasn't legal until 21, I'd only heard stories about the secret parties I was never invited to - let alone allowed to attend. Before my exchange year the majority of classmates had still been half children, with a few usual prematurely rebellious suspects who were already spiking their drinks and puffing cigarettes. Meanwhile, in less than a year, adolescence had apparently turned half my classmates into seasoned drinkers and some of them into dopeheads.
We spent most of our days at the lake, where half the class took a windsurfing course and the other half learned to sail. I was part of the latter group. We learned different knots, nautical terminology, and practiced sailing maneuvers like gybing and tacking, turning with or through the wind and trying not to capsize in the process. I genuinely enjoyed learning all of it, though I seemed to be in the minority. Most people were busy recovering from hangovers and already looking forward to the next round of drinking after sunset.
The regatta on the final day was less about sailing talent and more about who was still functional after a week of partying. That was exactly how I ended up in a boat with █████ and the "the Wookie", since the three of us were among the very few who had actually paid attention and cared about what we were doing out on the water.
Unfortunately, nerdy interest in sailing turned out not to be enough to win races. A minute into the regatta, it became increasingly obvious that my two shipmates had not exactly spent the previous evenings practicing knots. Their reactions were slow, their timing completely off, and every other maneuver dissolved into confused giggling.
We crossed the finish line gloriously second last.