Angst (30 page)

Finally I’m outside the food court and when Henry arrives
and I jump into the car with him. I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my
life to see my little 16 year old brother. I almost want to kiss him, however I
know that at his age he’s likely to make me get back out of the car again if I
try anything like that, so I restrain myself.

“Are you really sick?” he asks after a while, not looking at
me, his focus on driving. But Henry knows me. He knows what goes on with me,
even if it’s mostly unspoken. When I don’t reply right away, not sure if I feel
like explaining the entire thing to him, he speaks again.

“You know, sometimes it happens to me,” he says, looking over
for a second before looking back at the road, his face genuine, caring, my
darling little brother. “I just never say anything about it. I don’t want mom
to know,” he says. “I don’t know if you remember but when we were in Florida
and I was just a little kid, I remember what happened. I saw mom cry like I
have never seen her cry since and I don’t want to see that happen again.” He
pauses. It‘s funny for me to see this side of him. It’s introspective, caring,
thoughtful, not at all like a teenage boy is supposed to act. But now and then,
there it is, reminding me what a good guy he really is.

“Yeah I did kinda know that, she told me a few years ago,” I
say, thinking about my mom sobbing because of what happened to me, sobbing
because her child was going to experience her pain and fear.

“Yeah she couldn’t stop crying. I got up out of bed after
you were asleep and I saw mom in the bathroom crying her eyes out. I didn’t
know exactly why at the time, but I knew she was hurting. I’ve put two and two
together since then.” I reach over and squeeze his arm.

“Thank you for picking me up,” I say, barely able to hold
back tears. I’m glad that at least a few people in the world know about my
problem and support me. I lean back in the seat and sigh.

Why can’t someone love me? I know what love is and no one
has this for me. No one just plain cares about me. There are always lies and
games, so much deceit. I would be truthful to you if you were mine, I’d never
cheat. I’d be all yours day and night. If you were mine…

Do you think of me? In your spare time do you think “I
miss her”? Well I do. I think of you sometimes and miss what you’re about. Not
individual things, but your essence. What makes you, you. Unique. I could care
so much, but I won’t. I can’t. You don’t give a shit. Why can’t I be good
enough? I am so very depressed.

I am freezing. Colder and more alone than anyone should
ever have to be. Shaded, sheltered from everything and everyone, but not
because I choose to be. I don’t want to be alone or cold. I want so much it
hurts and it’s not going to happen. I’ll stay alone and wishing I wasn’t. I
want very much to sleep. I don’t want to be who I am, I didn’t ask for it. I
didn’t ask to be stepped on. Life is happening to me and it sucks.

Amanda called. She wanted to know if I wanted to go to a
party just off campus at one of her co-worker’s parents’ house. The guy goes to
my college and his parents live nearby in a rich neighborhood. It was actually
a relief to have something else to do, somewhere else to go rather than the
frat. I asked her if I could invite Hannah and she said yes. Now, finally I’m
dressed, slutted up and ready to hit the town. I really feel like partying. Not
thinking about all my problems. About how I can’t understand Jared, about how
he rejected me, about how I can’t stop the panic. I just want an alcohol
induced coma to come over me, freeing me, and then the sleep of the dead. Sleep
is the only peaceful place I can be. I’m like a drunk useless bitch. I hate my
life sometimes. I’m tired of heartache. I’m tired of mind-games. I just want to
drown my sorrows. I mean honestly, what do I have to look forward to? Disappointment,
panic, anxiety, rejection, mind games, no love. The only way to go on, is to
have something to look forward to, something to get excited about.

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

I’m sitting in my car in A lot, quivering because I know I
have to walk to Hannah’s in just a few moments. I’m sober and terrified. Heat
flushes over me and my stomach scrunches down to half its normal size. I can’t
ride to the party with Amanda and Hannah in Amanda’s car. I know we agreed on
it, I know I’m supposed to, but I can’t get out of the car and walk up to
Hannah’s dorm to get her and wait for Amanda. The best part is that I’ve
arrived early enough to have time to sit and contemplate the monsters in my
brain.
The Fear.
God, I don’t want to do it, but I have to. I have come
to this.

I pull the water bottle from my backpack on the passenger’s
side and open the cap. It smells like floor cleaner, but what’s inside is the
only way I know how to stop me from being me. I take a swill and the cheap
vodka burns all the way down, sending another rush of heat over me as it
settles in my tiny scrunched tummy. I still feel horrible and my stomach jumps
up and then down again, getting smaller this time and pushing toward my back.
I
can’t handle it.
I take another swig and another, grimacing. I’ve got to
hide behind the alcohol so the monsters can’t find me. I deactivate them with
booze and narcotics and then I’m finally able to be the girl I should have been
if my brain wasn’t fucked up.

Finally things begin to blur and I know the alcohol is
starting to work and the new exciting, sexy, normal Victoria is almost here. I
take a few more swills just to be sure and, checking the time on my dashboard,
realize I have to get out and walk to Hannah’s front door. It is time and I am
finally prepared. In fact, I feel rather excited about the fact that I’m going
out
. I’m going to slut my brains out tonight. I don’t give a shit about
Jared.

After introductions are over, Hannah and Amanda seem to hit
it off right away, falling into conversation in the car as easily as old
friends, mostly discussing me as I sit in the backseat, turning every now and
then to grin at me over the seat as one or the other brings up an embarrassing
or funny story. But I’m lost in my own thoughts for the moment, trying to tamp
down the tiny panic tremors that are racing through my body. I keep repeating
my damn mantra in a sing song voice. And this is happening even with the vodka
swills.
Dammit!

“…remember when we were in Florida and my brother gave us
some alcohol and we got drunk and stumbled around the beach. That was fucking
awesome,” says Amanda with a smile over her shoulder reaching over to flick the
station to something more bumpin.

I force a laugh and nod with a tense smile and she doesn’t
seem to notice, just goes back to talking with Hannah. I’m finding it hard to
pay attention with the fear clouding me, so I’m not really listening to
anything either of them has to say. Ever since the trip to the mall I’ve been
extremely on edge. Every day has been a struggle to do normal activities,
including going to class, work, even a trip to the eye doctor is something to
panic over. I’m loath to admit,
seriously, who thinks that,
damn you
English major
, that my problem is escalating. It’s amazing I’m here with
Amanda and Hannah at all.

I keep thinking about the secret guzzling sips and how,
right now, when I’m sitting here in the situation it doesn’t feel like enough. Plus
it’s embarrassing to admit, even to myself, which is why I’m trying not to
think about it. But the words
secret drinker
and
alcoholic
keep
coming to mind.
Does anyone else drink to escape their own crazy brain?

Finally we arrive at the house and I realize that I was only
able to get through the short drive because of my swigs of vodka. Otherwise I’m
positive that “out of control” me would have been a raving shaking mess,
screaming inside my own head, trapped in the backseat. As it is, even with the
alcoholic help, I’m just barely on the edge of sanity. Amanda parks the car and
we get out and I notice that my legs are shaky.
Shit.
I distract myself
by looking up at the huge house in front of us, all lit up sitting in a large
field. I take just a moment to be bowled over by how the other half lives,
lucky
rich bastards
, as we climb up the granite steps to the huge double wooden
doors.

But then my stomach lurches, a reminder that I need alcohol.
So, it’s distraction again, until I find the stash.
Once we’re inside,
I’m relieved to note that it seems as though I don’t know anyone here. I pass a
variety of male faces and no one seems familiar, although I do spot several
hotties that I would enjoy fucking around with. Maybe by the end of the night I
could make my self-loathing complete with a little soulless making out and dry
humping. A smile widens across my face as I spot the large array of alcohol in
the huge kitchen and promptly make myself the largest rum and coke I can fit in
the blue Solo Cup.
All the way to the tippy top.
Amanda and Hannah are
still chatting away, apparently oblivious to the fact that I’ve only smiled and
nodded at anything they’ve had to say.

Now that we all have drinks we make our way into the huge
finished and well-furnished room in the basement where a DJ table has been set
up and people are dancing. Others are gathered around a pool table on one side
of the room and there are a few drinking games set up too. I’m all for dancing because
my first few large sips of rum and coke turn my mouth up in a sour grimace
which means I made it right and I’m on my fucking way.
I have skillzzz to
pay the billzzz bitches.
I start grinding and Amanda and Hannah join in,
giggling and laughing, pointing out attractive guys to each other and I smile
too, finally able to release the tension in my stomach.

Suddenly I realize that someone near the DJ table looks
surprisingly familiar from behind. It looks like Jared, but I can’t imagine
that he could possibly be at the same place as me.
It’s not possible. It
can’t be.
But suddenly the guy I’m eyeing moves and I catch his profile and
it’s definitely a Jared profile.
Damn it! Really??
Now the stomach
clenching begins anew, especially when seconds later I spot a short top-heavy
blonde run up to him and throw her arms around his neck, smiling up at him.
Stacia.
God…oh shit!
My heart breaks into a gallop, full speed and I fake smile at
the girls as we continue to dance because I don’t want them to notice Jared and
therefore speak about him out loud. I’m going to be doing enough thinking and
obsessing in my own brain about him and I don’t need help. Not yet anyway.

Seriously, how can Jared be here, and not just here, but
here with her? How could he approach me, make it real, leave me, reject me and
then mysteriously tell me that I’m wicked by drawing a devil on me???
Ok,
that just sounds fucked up.
What the hell does it all mean? I guess it’s
just plain old rejection even if it makes no sense whatsoever. And now here he
is,
damn him
, with Stacia all over him. Does he want her? Are they
getting together? It seems like he’s interested because she’s really vivacious,
talking, smiling, laughing at him and he’s following right along. This is going
to ruin my night. How can I avoid him and
her
?

“Holy shit girls, look at that slut all over that guy,”
whispers one of Amanda’s friends with a laugh to Amanda, Hannah and me. I smile
tightly, Hannah hasn’t noticed it’s Jared and Stacia with their backs to us. But
I can because I’ve seen their faces.

Oh how I hate Stacia
, watching her smile at him, her
tits oozing out of her top, her expression fake and overly animated. Will she
tell Jared about how I embarrassed myself on the mall trip? I gasp
involuntarily at this thought and feel faint.
Oh my God, I can’t have him
find out about that! Talk about fucking embarrassment!
Suddenly, I’m on
fire, hot and squirming and I turn around, not wanting him to see me but at the
same time wishing he would approach me and say something, as long as she hasn’t
said
something
to him first.

We’re dancing when Amanda looks over at me and squeals,
“Vic, remember this song from high school! Whoop whoop!” and I smile and dance
with her, trying to act normal and distract myself from the anxiety, the rejection
and the terrible depression. And for a while I’m able to avoid detection by
Jared, but finally it’s over because as I look up, I see that he is watching us
or maybe he’s looking at me? His expression is serious, not revealing much.
God
he turns me on.
He looks damn good tonight in dark jeans, and another tight
white t-shirt with some kind of writing on it, accentuating his hot body, the
white making his skin look tan, his messy hair even darker. He does something
primal to me.
God I want to fuck him
. For some reason alcohol always has
that effect on me, making me hot, turned on, ultra slutty.

One of my favorite songs blares over the speakers and I sing
along with Amanda and Hannah, an old favorite from several years ago, Dr. Dre,
Chronic 2000. As I dance, grindin to the low bump of the bass beat, I notice
that Stacia is wrapped right around him now, nuzzling against his neck and for
a moment I’m shocked, stunned into a statue, not moving or dancing. And then I
realize what I’m doing and quickly start to dance again stiffly.
Shit
, I
can’t seem to keep my eyes off him as she rubs herself against him, pulling his
ear down to whisper something and he smiles at her. My stomach clenches into a
tight little ball,
probably trying to eat itself alive.

Holy shit, this hurts.
I know he’s seen me with other
guys, but this is the first time I’ve seen him with her like this. It isn’t
pleasant. I literally feel like I want to throw up, I’m that affected by it. Maybe
she’s his girlfriend and I have absolutely zero chance of ever being with him
again. My heart plummets.
Despair
. If he wants a girl like that after
what he told me the other night, I don’t want him. I want no part.
But…shit,
I do! I want him!
Why would he do this to me? Why would reject me, be
totally cryptic last time at the black light party and now he’s with her?
Stupid,
shallow, bitchy, mean Stacia. Sure, yeah, she’s better than me. Good choice,
asshole!