Chapter 4: 4

He disappears into the crowd with the force of my assault and I move fast, knowing better than to stick around for him to come back, trying to get out of sight before he gets back to his original spot. Heart racing a little as adrenaline flows and sense tells me to duck and weave faster to the safety of the dark, back wall of the club.

Men in this club are known for being aggressive and perverted at the best of times, and I’ve been groped on more than one occasion to know it’s true. One weekend had seen too close a call with one hot-tempered asshole who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Arrick had shown up just in time and broken his nose when he had refused to back down. Arry my pro boxing hero.

“Leave me alone!” I yell back as an afterthought, almost coherently, to the general direction he’s fallen back; my slurring voice non-existent under the thumping house music and intent on just finding a quiet place to get off my tired legs to hide. I’m exhausted.

I wish Arry was here already and helping me out to his car, so I can lie down and go to sleep. The thought of him coming for me is all that is keeping me sane right now; alcohol and tears are never a good mix. I’m disheveled, out of place and vulnerable. I’m not sure if I should even tell him about why I’m upset this time, why I have been crying.

Arrick hates my friends, not that I can’t see why, as they’re all pretty pathetic and really just the crowd I fell into when I came here.

I can’t ever seem to form real friendships with people, no matter how hard I try, and I know it’s because I don’t ever let them past my outer wall. It’s the same with men I date. I hide who I really am behind that mask of party girl and reckless persona and attract the wrong kind. Arrick hates the men I date almost as much as I hate his girlfriend Natasha, and another sob story about how hard done to I am by one of them again, will just annoy him. I can’t say that I blame him; it annoys me too, that I’ve become this pathetic doormat that men wipe their feet on, and I let them.

My stomach churns like a washing machine, my throat aches, painfully parched. I sobbed for an hour before even calling him this time, letting the hazy flurry of booze clear a little so I didn’t slur as much on the phone to him, and it’s left me feeling raw and woozy.

I have no idea where my so-called friends are, and last time I saw my handbag it was in the hands of that slimy prick Terry. I left him to hold it for me when I’d gone to dance. Terry is the guy I’ve been dating, on and off, most recently, nothing serious. Just looking for that guy who may be different this time, maybe care more than the last.

Now very much off, due to the fact I ventured to the bathroom and walked right in on him snorting coke from that whore Dionne’s naked breasts while banging her up against a vanity. At first, the disbelief made me stand in open-mouthed silence, before shock, and then outrage hit me. Reacting like a crazy jealous bitch, I yanked him off her and reined a flurry of slaps and abuse at his upper shoulders and head, blinded by overwhelming black rage as my heart twisted itself into a contortion of pain.

They both scrambled for discarded clothes and belongings, before scurrying off like cowardly assholes, and I only realized my bag was with him after I slumped down on a closed toilet and cried my eyes out.

Completely betrayed by two people I should have been able to trust, with more heartache to add to my ever-growing memory album. I sobbed until this numbness took effect and wiped me out, although I’m still feeling fragile, I’m mostly just empty.

Dionne played the role of girly best friend for weeks. Looking back, I now see that she was milking me for anything she could get; a never-ending stream of money on tick with promises to pay it back. My clothes, my shoes and now my man. Luckily, my cell was in the back pocket of my denim skirt, a habit Arry drilled into me from an early age. To always keep my cell phone on me in case I ever need him …

no matter what. My lifeline to my boy.

My other friends seem to have vanished as quickly. As soon as I stumbled out of the ladies’ room, tear-

stained and lightheaded to find them, I realized I’d been abandoned. We all came here to get drunk before our main event; a huge party in some exclusive bar across Manhattan, and my time in the bathroom was long enough to get ditched. Again.

This isn’t the first time they have all gone on to the next place and left me to it. None of them cares about me, they only care that I pay my share, or more, of the booze, and don’t cause drama. No one bothers even looking for me and it’s why I always end up calling on Arry to come find me. He’s the only person I ever really count on. He never lets me down.

Whenever I feel this way, he’s all I want, all I need to feel better. That hero coming to rescue me and take care of me for a while, that guy who never abandons me, even if he is pissed at me for calling. It’s stopped me falling off the edge of the cliff I’m dangerously walking along many a time. My haven of calm, my island in a storm, and I miss him so much since our lives started to take different paths.

I’m so tired of this scene, tired of the endless, backstabbing, shallow assholes that befriend me and just don’t give an actual shit, and generally tired of life. Tired of being the one left wandering alone and relying on Arry to come find me when I need him and knowing that I’m only pushing him away every time I do. Tired of the way my friends are only around for the party but never the aftermath, and even then, only around as long as my allowance doesn’t run out. Tired of being used and discarded by men when they move on to someone else, as though I’m worth no more than a cheap night out when I am no longer a lure for them. I’m just sick of everything, sick of the life I’ve made for myself and don’t know how to get out of anymore. I feel spent inside and tired, to the point that I know it’s no longer alcohol related. I’m not happy living this way and chasing this life to make myself happy just doesn’t work out at all.

I manage to push and claw my way through the last crowded expanse to the empty back seats of the club, into the darkest and quieter shadows, despite Arry telling me never to venture back here alone.

Into the depths, but I’m so consumed with needing to sit down and put my head on something to stop it from spinning. I need to just sit and breathe before he gets here.

The tears that dried on my cheeks have made my skin tight and sore, my heart is bruised, but it will still beat to fight another day. Neither Terry nor Dionne mean that much to me in the grand scheme of things. This isn’t the first cheating asshole I dated, and the constant nagging to have sex with him won’t be missed any more than he will. I held him off for a month, and I guess not giving him what he wanted is why he clearly found it in someone else.

Story of my life.

Sex is not an option for me, not now, not ever. Sex is something I doubt I will ever have the urge to share with some random asshole I hook up with. Especially when all they do is pressure me and paw me, even when I tell them I’m not ready. I’ve no idea if I ever will be, and therein lies the problem.

What man will want a girl who doesn’t ever want to have sex with him?

Years of being abused by my father until I ran away from home at fourteen made sure that it’s only repulsion when a male gets his hands anywhere near my body. My skin crawls with what feels like fire ants running all over me. My stomach turns at the mere thought of hands or body parts down there, touching mine. I can handle kissing, and minor upper body petting, when drunk, if I really force myself.

If I have to endure it for whatever guy I’m seeing, but anything below the waist sends me into a panicking mess of fear and fire, igniting that bitch side who lashes out and becomes violent.

I don’t really suffer from the flashbacks or memories anymore, rarely anyway. I dealt with those demons a long while back with Arry’s help. I know how to control letting that sick fuck back in my head, learned how not to let those scars control me. But touch, down there ignites some deep-frozen fear that sends me spiraling into defensive rage impulsively. I know that it’s partly because I trust no one to go down there. So afraid of the memories.

What hope is there for any sort of relationship with that as the outcome?

I’ve dated so many men in the last months that to an outsider I’m just a slut who switches men, like her underwear, jumping from one handsome guy to another. On the surface, I can flirt, kiss, and dance sexily with any guy. I’ve become amazing at behaving like a mentally normal person who can function in the real world when it comes to sex.