Angst (33 page)

I cradle my head in my hands, my poor head pounding like a
bass beat, thump, thump, thump, throbbing. I stand up and I’m light headed,
dizzy, disorientated, all the blood rushing behind my eyes. My vision finally
clears and my body aches and my stomach growls. I must leave. Where are my
friends, where is Hannah? My stomach rolls again and I’m sick, leaning over the
bowl again to purge. Finally I straighten up, seeing stars for the second time.
I put my hand against the wall and just lean there for a few moments, breathing
deeply.

A thought suddenly occurs to me, seemingly out of nowhere.
Did
we use protection last night?
I have no idea. I’m shaking hard now and I
don’t want to leave the room, but I must. I need to get away from here before I
have to face Jared. But I can’t just walk out of here. I wish my car was
outside but it’s not and I need a ride. I need Hannah or Amanda.
My phone?
I search my pockets, uselessly, knowing it’s not there. Where can it be? My
jacket? I’d hung it in the hallway closet. I quickly rinse out my mouth at the
sink, staring at myself in the mirror above. For some reason I am looking
exceptionally well this morning. My eyes are blood shot, makeup smeared a bit
but my hair is nicely mussed and my cheeks are red and my lips extra red and
almost chapped, but in an attractive sexual flush kind of way.
I’ve had
sex…with Jared.
I’m over it now. I’m free. Maybe…Maybe not…

I smile a bit in the mirror, and finish washing my hands. I
crack open the door to the bathroom and look outside. No one is around. Everything
is dead quiet. I pad down the hallway in my bare feet finally reaching the
entryway. I pull open the closet and my phone is inside my jacket pocket. I
light up the screen and it says five new text messages, four from Hannah, one
from Amanda. I open them.

Snatch where are you, you slut?

Seriously Victoria, we need to leave, where are yoooou?

Call me ASAP, I’m worried about you. You went off with Jared
and now we can’t find you. We want to leave. Call me bitch!!!

Hannah’s final message. Andy says he knows you’re with
Jared, so we’re leaving. Call me, please!

Amanda’s; Vic, WTF, Call us.

I groan. Everyone is looking for me. I spent the night in
bed with Jared, I probably bled all over him and he’s going to think I’m
disgusting or wonder why. I have to go. I type a message to Hannah letting her
know I need to be picked up at the house, hoping she’s in her dorm room a few
miles down the road and will wake up and come get me. Suddenly I feel trapped.
I
can’t walk out of here!
It’s cold and snowy outside and the walk is several
miles and I’m certainly not dressed for it with a tiny tank top and a light
jacket and boots that were not made for snow. I need to leave. I feel horrid. I
can’t believe what I’ve done. Jared will laugh in my face. Where can I hide?

I’m just about to turn to walk back down the hall to camp
out in the bathroom for a little while longer when someone rounds the corner. Jared.
He’s dressed in jeans and nothing else, padding on bare feet, his expression
when he sees me is questioning, wondering and he looks so hot, hair ruffled,
muscles moving beneath the skin.
OMG, I feel shitty.

“There you are,” he says with a tiny smile and I smile back,
stiffly.

“Hi,” I say, feeling totally awkward, totally at a loss. Things
were easier last night. It’s much easier to say what I want when I’m drunk.

“Do you want to go home?” he asks.

“Yes,” I reply, avoiding his eyes, looking at my phone. “I’m
hoping Hannah or Amanda will answer my text and come back to get me.”

“I’ll drive you back,” he says and I nod. I cannot believe
this. I am totally trapped, losing it, hung over, feeling atrocious and now I’m
stuck dealing with him, the guy I’m crushing on, the guy I slept with last
night when I was out of my mind drunk.
I can’t do it.
Heat flushes over
me and I push past him toward the room down the hall to gather my clothes. If
we’re leaving, the sooner the better because I can escape him and this
situation.

I gather my clothes off the floor, socks, my bra, stuffing
it into the pocket of my jacket, along with my phone. Jared is right behind me
now, gathering his clothes and we’re silent. What can be said? Finally I plop
down on the bed, facing away from him, waiting for him to finish getting
dressed. He’s taking his sweet time with his belt and shoes, pulling his shirt
over his head and finally he comes to stand beside me.

“Listen, I have to say this. I can’t avoid it,” he says,
looking at me and I keep my eyes averted. I cannot look him in the face right
now. “There was some blood on my leg, did I hurt you?” he asks and I actually
do look up, surprised by this turn of events. “Please tell me I didn’t hurt
you? I think I remember you saying yes, that you wanted it and we were both
really drunk,” he’s pleading with me now, brown eyes clear and sincere.

“No, you didn’t hurt me. I was a virgin,” I say, facts
spilling out of me against my will, deadpan. He starts at these words and grips
my shoulder, turning me to face him.

“I’m sorry, Victoria, I’m really sorry,” he says earnestly.

“Don’t be sorry,” I reply. “It’s nothing, not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal, Victoria, that is not how I would have
treated you if I had known,” he replies, forcing me to look at him again.

“I’m sorry for the things I said last night. I had no idea. I’m
still not sure I can believe it. You were a virgin?,” he says, shaking his
head.

“Believe it,” I reply, leaning back onto the bed. “Now take
me home.”

I’m lost in thought in his car, not talking to him, staring
out the window. The silence is thick with unspoken words. Questions I want to
ask, things he wants to say, but neither of us says anything. I’m detached, as
if this is not really happening. Finally I force myself to break the silence.

“Did we use protection? I need to know,” I ask, arms
crossed, still facing out the window. I can feel him flinch in the seat next to
me. A hot flash blazes over me like a forest fire. He hadn’t thought of it, he
hadn’t noticed a condom.
Oh God no...

“I hadn’t thought about that,” he says in reply. “I don’t
know. I didn’t see any condom or remember using one. I usually have one in my
wallet, so I can check. Let’s go back to my place for a few minutes?” he asks,
looking over at me. I nod, looking straight ahead.
Whatever he wants.
I’m
tired, useless right now, too useless even to panic. It’s a low lying feeling
in me, a quivery anxiety at the baseline of my existence, like I’m waiting for
some kind of major catastrophe to hit. I guess I’m waiting for the bomb to
detonate and I have a feeling I don’t have long to wait.

We pull up to his apartment and he opens the door and we’re
inside now. I sit on his couch, awkwardly staring straight ahead again. Everything
is like slow-motion now, the opposite of last night. He sits down next to me
and opens his wallet. He reaches into the tiny bottom pocket underneath his
debit and credit cards and pulls out…a condom. It’s in the wrapper,
not
used.

“Jesus,” he says, flinging his wallet and the condom onto the
floor. “Fuck.”

We sit there for a moment. Silence. I’m sick, really sick
with worry, heavy, like a boulder in my belly. A physical manifestation of how
seriously I’ve fucked up.
Pregnancy. STD. FUCK. FUCK!

“Are you on birth control?” he asks, looking over at me,
eyes anguished.

“No,” I reply and lean back against his couch. Tears start
at the corner of my eyes and I cannot believe this.
I am a fucking idiot
.
We sit there for a while, when finally he turns toward me.

“Uhh…I could take you down to Health Services and you could
get the morning after pill?”

“Fine,” I reply and we get up off the couch, tears streaming
down my face. He stops for a moment, fully seeing my face now and pulls me
toward him.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry,” he says and pulls me into his arms,
hugging me. I lay my head against his shoulder. This is awkward, this is fucked
up. I cannot believe this is my life. This is not how I imagined my first time
having sex.

#######################

Was it all a fantasy, a dream, a hallucination? I can hardly
believe I had lived. Did I die? Did you show me the world? Did I look in your
eyes? I had you at my hot burning fingertips. Can’t you speak to me now? Say a
word? Say my name? Would you do it again? Would you scream my name, show me the
world? Could I die and yet live? Could I over-exaggerate? Could you be under
the influence? Can I scream your name and show you my world? Can I know you? Am
I allowed to breathe, to live? Show you myself half naked? Did I create you? Let
you breathe? Make you mine? Was I trashed, totally drunk? For one second you
became mine, in my hands. For a second in time and when that second was gone,
so were you. Leaving my world. Saying goodbye, like it was weird already. Was I
insane? Under the influence of you? What did I think? Was I alive at that
point? Were you?

I didn’t think at all. I felt.

I know you want me physically, especially when you’re
drunk. I’ve seen it in your eyes and in your touch. I turn you on. This much I
know. But I can’t take up your time, your space, your energy. I’m no one to
you.

***

A chemical exchange, fluid in motion

like waves to sand

A perfect liquid line

Not straight, but curving in and out to your touch

Interlocking pieces molded into space

My fingertips trace your contour

One stroke, long and unbroken

A strong impression of heat

Two solid objects, melting

Into one another and out of one another

Forming shapes enflamed in red

When he opens the door, 17 days after he last really saw me,
I imagine how I appear. A girl, dark hair, tangled and wind-blown, skin very
pale in the morning light, shoulders slumped, black rimmed eyes that are puffy,
bloodshot and glittering with unshed tears.

“Oh, hi,” he says, startled and then questioning. “What’s
wrong?” eyes sweeping over my face, studying my expression. He frowns, pulling
me through the open doorway, up the stairs and into his small apartment living
room. He looks devastatingly good in jeans and a dark blue zip up NHU
sweatshirt, smelling clean and fresh like he’s just had a shower, which makes
me feel even worse. He finally turns to face me, questioningly, and my eyes
tear up again.

I look away, crossing my arms over my chest. I don’t want to
be here. I can’t believe I have to tell him my news, my disgusting, cringe worthy,
sickening news. It was all I could do to even get myself here and now I’m a
mess, quivering, trying to hold back tears. I almost didn’t come at all. Plus
it’s not as if we left things friendly last time. We had been civil at Health
Services and then he dropped me at my car. That was it and even though I’ve
seen him from a distance since then, he hasn’t seen me or really looked at me.

“We need to talk,” I say, not wanting to tell him the truth,
yet wanting to scream at him at the same time. How could he have done this to
me? I sort of blame him, but more than that I blame myself.
Stupid, idiot
Victoria, I’m such a dumb betch.
I plop down on his couch, elbows on knees,
chin in hand. He stands in front of me, arms crossed, waiting. I look up at him
for a moment and wince.
This can’t be my life.

“We have Chlamydia and here’s your fuckin prescription,” I
say, throwing the piece of paper at him, not looking up, sulking teenager
personified. I don’t want to see his expression, so I stare at his shoes.
Grey
and black Sauconys.
They look new, shiny, surreally normal in my new topsy
turvy world. Out of the corner of my eye I can see that he doesn’t even try to
catch the 4x4 square of paper as it drifts to the floor. He’s just staring at
me, apparently nothing to say.

“What?” he finally asks, and I look up at him and see
confusion first and then suddenly dawning realization as he gets what I’m
saying. His face falls, brow clouding, hand moving to cover his jaw, rubbing
his stubble. He starts to pace and I just sit there, rocking back and forth on
the couch, fingers interlaced around my knees, wishing myself dead, wishing
that this was not happening. He’s turned away when finally he speaks again.

“You’re telling me that we have an STD? That you needed to
come here and tell me because of what happened between us that night?”

“Yes.”

“Can it be cured? I don’t remember about these things,” he
says, turning to look at me from the corner of his eye.

“Yes, we take a pill, it goes away,” I say. I am without
emotion right now, too beat down to argue or cry or even care what happens to
me. All except for my eyes, which keep trying to betray me. Suddenly his body
posture changes, shoulders tensing, muscles moving beneath his clothes, his
neck somehow straighter now.
Shit. Slouching dejection to tense pissed off
fireball?
He faces me, arms crossed tightly, sneering expression
resurrected. It seems familiar now from the night we were together.

“Am I the only one you’re visiting today with your little
prescription, or is there a whole list of guys you have to see?” he accuses.

“Oh fuck you, Jared. I did not come here to fight with you.”
I reply, trying to be cool. Trying to accept that he hates my guts right now
and thinks I’m a total skank-whore. I won’t cry in front of him. I can’t show
him how much this hurts me.

“Wow, you fucking did this to me and to think I used to
believe…” he says, his harsh bite of laugher breaking the momentary silence and
then under his breath, “You fucked with Goddamn Brad Winter, didn’t you?” His
eyes are blazing, fists clenching.
Is this de ja vu?