I don’t know what it is about our generation. Why it seems like no one can be happy with themselves, with who they are. Why no one can just see the good in anything. We live in an era where followers mean more than friendship. Where texting is the norm. Where people don’t talk in person anymore unless they already know each other. Everything is so divisive, even internally. And somehow, we all feed into it and off of it. I’m not sure there’s ever a way to go back from it. Not until we stop idolizing perfection, dream lives, dream bodies. Impossible things that we think are just going to magically manifest and make our goals attainable. We are all bored, all casualties of always wanting more.
My phone dings. I look at the home screen, pray. It’s Charlie. Sometimes prayers are answered. Maybe you just have to pray hard enough. Put enough of what you want out there into the universe.
“Lol,” he says.
Reset.
I stop the timer. Start it over.
I wait another three minutes and forty-eight seconds to see if he’s going to say anything else. He doesn’t. I wait some more.
Eighteen minutes and fifty-two seconds later I realize that was it. His entire response. All he had to say was Lol. I should take a hint. Accept the fact that he clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, or anything. But I don’t.
Because if you want something in life, you go for it. There are always more butterflies to chase. And there is one right here, right now.
“Should I take that as a no?” I ask.
Reset.
I start the timer. Close the DM. Mentally prepare myself for another half hour or more before he responds. But my phone dings before I can even get off the bed.
I check the timer. Two minutes, twenty-one seconds.
“I don’t even know you,” he says.
“That’s the point,” I say back. I don’t make him wait. He responded fast, so I do. You have to strike when the iron is hot. I don’t think I ever fully understood that phrase until this very moment. Hanging onto an ember from Charlie O’Sullivan, walking across the coals as I try not to burn my feet. I can’t ruin this. Not before we start. Not if he feels like talking.
Reset.
Two hours and thirteen minutes go by before I resign myself to the fact that he’s done answering. I know I shouldn’t, but I give in. I check the DM. Maybe just to punish myself. Maybe to give myself the answer I know I already have.
Seen.
He saw my message. He didn’t respond. It’s over.
He just doesn’t want to talk to me.
I bury my face into the pillow but then remember I have makeup on and don’t want to smudge it. Maybe sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you pray. How much you want something. It’s the lesson I am continually learning. Maybe it’s just masochism. Wanting things you know you can’t have. Torturing yourself over it. Striving for it. Because really, is there anything more disappointing than getting your hopes up for something and it not happening? Is there anything more depressing than failing at something you really try for? I want to go to sleep but it’s only the afternoon. It’s too early. And I remind myself of the advice I give my “patients”. Stop being so hard on yourself.
I open my phone again. Switch to my regular IG account. Log out of Psychiatrists on the Gram. I check to see if I have any new notifications but I don’t. On either account. I close it and I text Nikki.
“Come over?” I send.
“B right there,” she says. “Do you have any weed?”
“A little.”
“Coming. I’ll bring the Jack.”
I close my phone again. This is what my days are like. Smoking, drinking, partying. With Nikki and her friends. With all her friends that are not Charlie.
Ten
I am still preoccupied with thoughts of Charlie when Nikki comes barging through the basement door without knocking. I’m on my bed, fiddling with my phone in my hands.
“Your room is a disaster,” she says, tossing the bottle of Jack at me.
It lands with a soft bounce on the mattress and I pick it up and take a swig from it. “I know. I have to do laundry. I just don’t have the energy.”
“Are you still moping around about Brett? You need to get over that loser.”
“I could care less about Brett,” I say. And it’s true.
There are always more butterflies to chase. And I found one. With brown eyes and a Boston accent.
She eyes me suspiciously. “I dunnoooo,” she says, dragging out the last syllable, plugging in her iPhone to play music through the speakers.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You fall for people and you fall hard. So no. I don’t believe you’re over him. Not unless, wait!” She plops down on the bed next to me. “Did you meet someone else?”
Yes. “No,” I say. “Nikki, you’re with me almost every second of every day. When would I meet someone else? And how?”
She narrows her eyes to see if I’m telling the truth, studies my face. “I don’t know. It’s a big world out there, kid.” She slaps my leg. “Either way, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. Speaking of, I don’t know, maybe you made a profile on there, or Bumble, Tinder, whatever.”
I roll my eyes. “I didn’t. I’m not that desperate. Yet.”
“Why do you have to be desperate to try it? I’ve been on them. There are so many cute guys on there. I mean, granted, most of them turn out to be real shit heads, but still. They’re fun to play with.”
“Well if I wanted to play with anyone I’m sure I could find someone at school,” I say.
“Yeah, true, but they’re even bigger shit heads. Plus I think you’ve made your rounds there.”
“Bitch!” I say, hitting her with a pillow.
We both laugh for a minute as Lana Del Rey plays through the speakers, singing Young and Beautiful in the background.
“You wanna go to the lake today?” she asks.
“If Brett is gonna be there, no.”
“Fuck him. Let’s go. Come on, pretty, get your bathing suit on,” she says. “Oh, and there’s a party at AJ’s later. His parents are in Florida. I heard Charlie might be there.”
My heart stops and I swallow. “What’d you say?”
She stands up and goes to the mirror to check her makeup and use some of my lotion. It’s a given with friends, you use each other’s shit without asking because you can. Because what’s yours is theirs and what’s theirs is yours.
“You heard me, darlin.” She turns around and gives me a knowing smile. “Maybe you’ll actually have the balls to talk to him for once, I hope. I’m so sick of hearing you talk about him anymore. I need some action here!”
“I don’t talk about him that much,” I say, and I hope she can hear the roll in my eyes through my tone.
She turns and crosses her arms and looks at me, challenging me.
“I don’t!” I say.
“Bullshit. You’re basically in love with the guy and you don’t even know anything about him.”
“I know things about him,” I snap. I take offense to this and make it obvious.
I know more about Charlie than she does. I know he relates to certain things, because somewhere inside him, he understands pain and loss. Grief. Trauma. Little does she know we’ve already talked. Sure, maybe he didn’t know he was talking to me, but we talked. We started something here. She underestimates the size of my balls. Mistakes my bravery in taking chances at love for weakness. And this thing she does, making me feel dumb because I’m younger than her, it’s the biggest issue in our friendship. Not for her, but for me. It gets old, hearing the same things on repeat. Having it drilled into your head that you are crazy, young, stupid.
“Yeah? Like what?” she asks.
I take another swig from the Jack. “Fine. I’ll talk to him.” Thump. Thump. My heart is beating frantically inside this cage, just thinking about it. Just knowing that maybe, later, I will see him. That maybe, I can finally talk to him, and not behind a screen. That I can talk t
o him and he will know it is me talking to him. Things could be different. Things could happen in person. What if he tries to kiss me? What if he sees me and realizes he wants me, too? This romance, it could be real. It could be more than a dream.
“I keep trying to tell you. This little girl crush stuff, you have to stop it. Most of the times these guys aren’t as great as you think they are. Trust me, I’ve lived it. You’ll grow out of it.”
And here she goes again. Equating my feelings to my age. To the fact that I’m two years younger than she is. Nikki, nineteen and all-knowing. Me, seventeen and oblivious. The silly little boy-crazy friend. Voted most likely to sleep with anyone who gives her any attention. Behind my back, of course. The girl everyone thinks will stalk you if you so much as smile at her.
But if it weren’t for Nikki, I’d have no friends. Everyone in my own grade has taken the other route. They have traveled the path most taken, believed the lies. She knows I’m not crazy, so do her friends. Maybe I hang out with an older crowd because they believe me, because they give me a chance and let me be myself. Maybe I hang out with them because somewhere in my soul or heart or whatever it is, I’m older than it seems. I sure as hell feel older than I am. Spiritually. Emotionally. Every aspect other than physically.
That’s a lie. Sometimes I feel it physically, too. Some days I’m so fucking tired I can’t even begin to think about getting out of bed, even after a full eight hours of sleep. Even after eleven hours. Sometimes I wonder if I feel this way now, how will I feel when I’m thirty? Forty? Fifty? Will I even make it that long at the rate I’m going? I feel old. In my bones. In my heart. In the way life has beaten me down. I feel like I’ve already lived a hundred lives and they’ve just been condensed into seventeen years.
Although sometimes I still feel like the eleven-year-old girl whose mother just died. Sometimes I wonder if I’m trapped in that body, that mind, suspended in time, still walking to her casket. Still mourning her loss. Still looking for someone to love me the way she did.
Eleven
“What are you gonna wear tonight?” Nikki asks me, lying face down on the sand, her top untied behind her back.
“I dunno,” I say. “Jeans and a T-shirt, probably.” I’m in the same position as her.
We roll over at the same times. We get the same tan lines. I’m a little darker than she is. The Cuban in me, the natural olive skin tone, it makes me tan faster than she does and she hates it, curses me for it.
She huffs. “Love, you might see Charlie and you’re just gonna wear jeans and a T-shirt?” There is disapproval in her voice. Shock, even.
“Fine. A crop top and jeans,” I say, sounding genuinely disinterested. Even though, in my head, it’s all I can think about. What I’ll wear. What I’ll say. Who I should pretend to be to get him to like me. We’re facing each other in the sand and she rolls her eyes.
“You need to try a little harder than that,” she says. “You’re already younger than he is and there will be chicks there half-naked I’m sure. Maybe full nude with the rate everyone is going.”
“I’m not going full or even half nude to this party. Plus, you don’t even know for sure if he’ll be there.”
“AJ might have texted me confirming.” A grin lights up her face but she tries to play it cool.
I almost sit up but I remember my boobs will fall out in public if I do. So I tie my bikini string behind my back first. Once I’m sitting up and facing her I am able to form words. “Wait, what did you just say?”
She laughs. “I said he’s going!”
I lean back, putting my elbows in the sand, and stare straight ahead. Charlie is going. He’s going. And so am I. “Come on. We have to go get ready,” I say.
“The party isn’t for like, another five hours,” she says. “Plus, don’t you want to get a fresh tan first? Just close your eyes. Take a nap or something.”
But sleep is far away, too far. All I can think about is Charlie.
“Okay, how do I look?” I ask Nikki. I’m wearing a tight-fitting short-sleeve, off-the-shoulder black crop top with light acid washed high-waisted jeans.
She’s lying on my bed on her side, propped up on her elbow. “God, you’re lucky you’re so hot. This was a good idea. It says, ‘I’m trying, but I’m not trying too hard.’”
“So it’s Nikki approved?” I ask, turning to face the mirror. My hair isn’t straight enough. It’s frizzing a little from the summer humidity.
I think I hear her say “Yes” and something else. I’m trying to hang on to every word she says but I’m distracted by thoughts of what could transpire. I grab any product I can and spray my hair. Smoothing spray. Shine spray. Humidity-control spray. The next thing I know she is beside me in the mirror.
“Okay, put the hairspray down. You’re gonna make it look greasy if you put too much shit in it,” she says, taking the bottle of hairspray from my not-so-steady hand.
She’s right. I let her take it. I watch her put it down. I haven’t checked my POTG page in almost an hour and I’m getting antsy, wondering if he messaged me. Wondering where my phone is and if she will see the notification pop up on my phone if he were to message me for any reason. Would it be so ludicrous to think he might actually want to talk to me? I take a deep breath, trying not to show my nerves.
“You’ll be fine, Love. He’s just a guy,” she reminds me. “You might not even like him in reality.”
I nod, but I know that’s not possible. “I’ll be right back. I have to go to the bathroom.”
I leave the basement and head up the stairs, making sure I grab my phone on the way out. Once I reach the familiar white tile I close the door behind me and sit on the toilet and open my phone. No new message from Charlie. I check his page. He posted something on his story but I can’t watch it. He’ll see. He’ll know I was watching and a psychiatrist wouldn’t be curious enough to watch a stranger’s story. She’d be off doing psychiatrist things and helping people. I search his page for any sort of clue. Any sign. Any morsel of a hint. But there’s none.
I look at myself in the mirror. You can do this. You’ll be fine. This has been a long time coming and I remind myself that I will not and cannot screw this up. I check my regular page. Nothing new. I head back downstairs to the basement where Nikki is smoking a cigarette, doing her nails.
“We have to get going soon,” she says. “Dan’s on his way to pick us up.”
Dan was Nikki’s latest thing. That’s what she called it. It was rarely anything serious when it came to her and she preferred it that way.
I take a deep breath and look at my nails. I go back to the mirror to check my hair.
“Are you good?” she asks.
“Yeah, I’m good. Just do me a favor, don’t let me say or do anything stupid, okay?” I beg. I think there’s a hint of desperation in my voice because her face changes. I see something I recognize. It looks like pity.
“You’re not going to, because you’re not stupid. You’re a catch. Just remember that. And don’t try to impress him. Just be yourself.”
I want to take her advice. Just be myself. But I’m not even sure who that is anymore.
Isn’t it sad that I’ve been trying so hard for so long to be who other people want me to be that I don’t even remember who myself is? Isn’t it a shame that if I was locked in a room with myself I probably wouldn’t recognize me?
Twelve
We pull up to the party and it is all lights and music and noise. Laughter is bouncing around somewhere in the house and echoing in the driveway outside as I close Dan’s car door and stare. Is this happening? Is tonight the night everything changes? Nikki links her arm with Dan’s as he gets out of the car and they make their way to where I’m standing. Just outside the rear passenger door. Standing there like a deer who doesn’t know if she should run this way or that way. Back into the woods for cover, safety, or dart out into the street and hope she doesn’t get hit by a truck. But the truck has a name and his name is Charlie.
I’m almost unaware of my eyes scanning the yard, the people standing around. On some subconscious level I realize I am searching for him before I even plan to. My thoughts are zeroed in on him. Finding him. Seeing him. On him seeing me for the first time, possibly across the yard. He’ll stop in his tracks and smile. We’ll make eye contact, nervously look away. A rom-com moment at its finest.
But it doesn’t happen like that.
I step in a pile of dog shit on my way to the front door, originally thinking it’d be cool to walk through the grass instead of up the long driveway. It turns out, it was very un-cool. A group of three girls starts laughing as I pick up my shoe and inspect it. They’re older than I am. I recognize them from other parties I’ve been to. They know Nikki, and by association, they sort of know me. They just pretend they don’t.
But the joke’s on them because I’m used to that. People pretending like I don’t exist. Hell, my own father does it. And they’re not why I’m here. Charlie is. I would take out my phone but it’s buried somewhere in the black hole that is my tiny crossover body bag. I’ll never understand how things get so lost in bags. Even when they’re almost microscopic in comparison to the gigantic totes that swallow everything. If you ever want to know true frustration, search for a quarter in a tote bag.
I’m barely getting the shit off my shoe when Nikki tells me to hurry up. She’s wearing her impatient voice. Probably embarrassed that I screwed up our grand entrance by stepping in dog crap. The night can only get better from here, though. I hope.
I tell her I’m coming, that I don’t want to be the asshole that tracks poop all over the floors. She shrugs and waits, holds my arm up while I balance and furiously wipe my foot in the grass. What are friends for, amirite?
The Gorgeous Slaughter Page 4
