Angst (23 page)

“You can take your clothes off and wait on the table for Dr.
Perkins,” says the nurse in multi-colored scrubs, gesturing to the paper-lined
table with foot stirrups.
Medieval torture, the rack anyone? Shit, my
stomach clenches up just looking at those little stirrups.
“Put on this
johnny and leave it open in the back,” she instructs, gathering a gown from a
drawer under the table.

Oh God, here I go. Now it starts, now I freak out, now it
goes over the top.
I’m breathing hard, trying to stop trembling but I can’t
stop it and soon I feel like I’m floating, eyes glassy and unfocused. The nurse
leaves, telling me that the doctor will be along shortly and I begin to slowly
remove my clothes, trying desperately to focus on what I’m doing and not on
what is to come.

Shoes off first
, I tell myself, untying my sneakers
and placing them under a wooden chair against one wall.
Next, are my pants
and shirt
, I think in a singsong voice, unbuttoning the top button of my
jeans. Suddenly before I can remove them I’m gripped with a fresh wave of
panic. I sit down abruptly on the hard wooden seat, my heart racing, brow covered
in sweat. I bend over, trying to stop the terrible ache that suddenly attacks
my stomach, twisting it all up inside.
I can’t do it. I have to leave here
now! I can’t take my clothes off and sit on that table until she comes in here.
I can’t!

My stomach growls and I feel like I’m going to throw up.
How
can I sit here and let someone examine me? I’ll feel trapped on that table.
Trapped with a horrible device in me that I can’t remove. My stomach churns and
I’m thinking,
I have no choice, I’ve got to find a bathroom
. My stomach
heaves again, bile rising up my throat and I get up.
I’ve got to go. Now
.
I pull my shoes on as quickly as I can, one arm wrapped tightly around my
middle to stop the stomach contractions. Finally I’m out in the hallway,
rushing for the restroom, just barely making it there in time before I lose my
lunch. I slam open the door to a stall and think,
I am gross! I. Can’t. Do. Anything.
Anymore.

Finally I’m done heaving and I sit back. My throat feels
raw. I keep thinking,
that’s it. That’s all the food I’ve had for days. There
cannot be anymore.
But before I know it, there is more. I’m like a machine
designed for making myself sick.

I lean back again, wiping my mouth with my lower arm.
Fucking
gross
. The doctor will be waiting. I have to get up. I have to go back in
there and take off my clothes. What will I say? My stomach heaves again and
again I’m sick.
Goddamn!!
I’m doing this shit to myself and it is
absolutely fuckin disgusting. The bathroom door opens and someone walks in. I
cringe.
Let this be it. Let it be over. I have to GO!

I struggle up, weak kneed and rush out of the stall. I turn
on the water at the sink full blast and quickly rinse my mouth.
Hurry up!
I hurry down the hall, just as the doctor arrives at the door to the exam room.

“Victoria?” she asks, peering at me over her tiny glasses.

“Yes,” I say breathlessly. “I had to run to the bathroom.” She
smiles at me and motions me inside. My stomach is still clenching, but I try to
ignore it, pulling off my clothes behind the screen she indicates. Finally I
sit down on the crinkly paper covering.

“Ok, let’s start again, I’m Dr. Perkins,” she says,
businesslike, extending her hand to nervous me who shakes it with a tight
little smile.

“Is this your first time for a pelvic exam?” she asks,
sitting down on the wooden chair with a clip board on her lap.

“Yes,” I reply as we begin to go through the array of
questions that are usually asked during a physical exam. Finally she wants to
begin the procedure. Luckily she keeps talking as she preps the tools, asking
me to lie back. My damn stomach clenches anew and my legs shake in the
stirrups.
God I’m so weak.

“Ok, Victoria, I’m going to be touching you between your
legs now, you’re going to feel me sliding in the speculum. It’s going to be a
little uncomfortable while I get it into place, but afterward you should have
very little discomfort,” she says, guiding me through the process.

There is some strange discomfort and I try to suppress my
fidgeting and relax my tight stomach muscles. Finally the device is in and the
doctor uses different swabs to take cultures. I’m panicking inside, trying to
keep my legs from shaking, trying not to inch back on the table. It’s all I
want to do, to close that thing up and rip it out of me, but all I can picture
is it somehow pinching me if I move away so I force myself to lie still.
Hurry
up!
I’m pretty much hyperventilating now, as quietly as possible, and I
feel light headed, but so far it seems like she hasn’t noticed how I’m
reacting. I’m pretty good at hiding this shit.

“Everything looks really normal, Victoria, but I am going to
swab you for STD’s since you indicated that you have been with one partner and
are no longer abstinent.”

I clench up as she uses the final swab. It feels like
someone is pinching me inside. My stomach aches and I feel quivery and suddenly
I hyper-focus on STD’s.
I hope to God I don’t have anything. Please let me
be okay.

Finally the doctor removes the speculum and I sigh in
relief. This part of the process is over. The doctor does a quick breast exam
and then she leaves the room so I can put my clothes back on. Suddenly I feel
better, this trial is almost over. Now I just have to sit through another
conversation about test results and birth control options and then I can leave.
The worst is over.

I want to party. I…I…I…want to party. New semester, new
chances.
Now…just to get myself there in one piece. I’m standing next to my
car in A lot in indecision, my arms flimsy, without strength, my heavy backpack
tugging at them. I need to walk to Hannah’s dorm but my panic keeps growing and
growing, my knees suddenly weak, and I’m hot under my heavy coat even though
the air is cold and an icy wind blows past me every few minutes.
This is it,
my last chance to bail before going forward with the evening.
Once it
starts there is no going home, no driving anywhere. I’m shivering, quaking
inside at the thought, but finally after trying to reason with myself, I
straighten a bit and put my muscles to work. I
can do this. Nothing bad will
happen, besides I’ve got all the savior I need in this bag.
I gather my
courage and the bag and march up the steps out of A lot and down the snow lined
street. Tonight will be fun, I demand it. I’ve had enough depression, enough
fucking around with anxiety.

While I walk, I’m obsessing about Jared. Is he interested? Does
he give a shit? Will Seth tell him that he saw me kissing Cheater-ex-Nick? Speaking
of which, I’m so glad I didn’t do anything else with him. I sigh, I have this
teeny tiny thread of hope that Jared will talk to me tonight. But another part
of me is fairly certain that things are d-e-a-d between us. Otherwise he would
have called me right?

Kayla and Celeste are already present, lounging on Hannah’s
futon doing finishing touches to their make up in hand mirrors when I arrive.

“Hey, skank,” says Kayla with a smile, staring into the
mirror with one eye closed, looking like some insanely beautiful one-eyed pirate,
her left hand expertly drawing a thin line of black eye liner on to her lid.

“It’s Victoria!!!” says Celeste with a smile, coming up to
air kiss me on the cheek. “You ready for some beer guzzling, pill poppin, and
drug smoking?” she asks with a grin.

“Hey girls…whassssuuuppp,” I reply, plunking my heavy
backpack on the floor. It makes a nice sloshing sound.

“What’s in the bag?” asks Hannah with a sly smirk, sliding
up to me. I haven’t told her about my alcohol stash yet, so the girls will be
pretty excited when I pull out my ace card.

“I dunno, why don’t you find out?” I say with a grin,
nudging the bag toward Hannah with my toe. The bag sloshes again and Hannah
looks at me with a huge smirk.

“Is this what I think it is?” she asks, crouching down to
unzip the bag and find out.

“Water bottles, Victoria?” she finally says, looking up at
me with disbelief. “You’re shitting me. What the fuck…are you hoping your next
hangover won’t be as bad if you drink enough water? Fuck, you had me going
there for a minute.”

I smile at her. “Oh stop your bitching and open the top. Take
a nice sniff.” She opens the top, takes a long sniff and her smile widens
across her face.

“Why, Victoria, you shouldn’t have! You’re so kind. Vodka,
ladies!” she says in a loud whisper, always afraid that her RA next door will
hear her through the thin walls. Hannah pulls out her shot glass collection and
soon we’re throwing back shots, giggling around the circle, talking about guys,
clothes, and tonight.

I take a few extra shots, secretly, when the other girls
aren’t paying attention and soon vodka starts to blur the edges of my anxiety
and I begin to relax. I’m looking to reach Nirvana tonight, the place where I
can no longer feel my ever present panic sensations or the thoughts that race
through my mind every single day.
God that makes me fuckin depressed that I
can only feel that way when drunk!
But I push these thoughts away, no time
for that shit now.
I’m gonna paaarty!

We set out from Hannah’s building, following the faint sound
of pumping music coming from a long low set of apartments down the street. Snow
is silently falling, large flakes that stick to eye lashes, disintegrate on
perfectly coifed hair and land and melt on exposed cleavage and bare mid-riffs
under open coats. As we get closer I can see a bunch of police on bikes,
pedaling by silently in blue uniforms.
Authority.
But I remind myself
that as long as we don’t do anything stupid we’ll be fine. We cross the street,
making our way to the Ghettos, a grungy set of apartments just off campus.

“Victoria, you totally missed Celeste’s performance last
weekend. We got back to campus early and there was this little party going on
at ATO, so we went down there. You’ll never guess what she did,” drawls Kayla
with a smile.

“What did she do?!” I ask.

“Well, first off she was wasted and rolling on some X that I
procured and then she flashed the frat boys. Showed um her tits,” Kayla states
with a laugh.

“Haha Kayla-bitch,” says Celeste, smacking her friend on the
arm. “I did do it, Vic, I flashed those guys and they fuckin loved it. They
loved
it
,” she reiterates. Kayla laughs again.

“They did. They fuckin’ loved it. One of them…Jeremiah or
something, took her right up to his room and had his way with her, the little
skank.”

My stomach flipflops. Who is Jeremiah? I hope Kayla doesn’t
mean Jared. I smile and laugh along with the girls, pretending that images of
Jared sleeping with Celeste or Kayla aren’t running through my head.

“I’m not a skank!” protests Celeste, making a fake sad face.
“You’re a whore, Whore,” she says with a giggle.

“Well I did find myself a hottie that night too. It’s true,
I can slut like the best of them,” Kayla says with another smirk. “I want to
find him again tonight, if I can recognize him. He was some piece. His dick was
this longgggg,” she says, moving her hands wider and wider apart. “You shouldda
seen my eyes, getting bigger as he pulls that huge fucking thing out of his
pants. ‘Holy shit,’ I said to him, ‘Is that some kind of penis extension you’ve
got on there?’ I fuck you not, that thing was enormous. Nearly broke me in two.
But I still rode it like a damn cowgirl. Yeeeehaaaaawwww, bitches!”

I can tell that Kayla’s already had her fair share of
pre-game, probably even before my vodka. She always gets dirty and crude when
she drinks, mouthing off, swearing, talking about all her past penis
performances. It’s hilarious and even though she has a pretty damn high
tolerance for alcohol, she always gets rowdy right away. It’s her style. Not
that the rest of us don’t swear like crazy. I have one mouth for my mother,
teachers and work and another dirty raunchy mouth for my friends. The more
fucks, shits, bitches, and whores, the better.

When we arrive at the Ghettos, we head toward a first floor
apartment to the sounds of loud bumping rap music. Kayla pushes through a crowd
of guys and girls ripping off butts outside the front door and we follow. Through
the half-open door I can see people dancing or standing around drinking and
what I can see of the crowd is mostly guys. I immediately spot the glinting keg
in the corner while Celeste and Kayla greet their friend Sarah who lives
upstairs and invited us to her neighbor Sean’s party.

I stare at the keg for a moment while they talk and realize
that for once it’s less important to me since we’ve our own stash in Celeste’s
large purse. My vodka from earlier in the night is now pre-mixed with soda and
ready for consumption, after all, we can get drunk faster with the hard stuff. Finally
we do push our way inside to the keg, anyway, grabbing cups off the dirty
counter ‘cause “you should never turn down free beer,” as Kayla likes to say.

While I wait to fill my new red cup, I take in Sean’s
apartment. It’s small, with couches against two walls and an open space in the
middle for dancing. Several bedrooms and a bathroom open off this open space
and the kitchen is toward the front, also open concept. It’s pretty trashed
too, posters hanging sideways, bikini babes, weed posters and the floor looks
pretty gross with strewn cups, paper towels and food containers. While I wait
for my turn at the keg, I catch a glimpse what looks like a huge orange street
cone in the bathroom in the tub.
WTH?
I laugh, pointing it out to
Celeste who says that this apartment is known for their street cone bathtub
gravity bong.
Sweet.