Beautiful Failure

by Mariah Cole

  I catch Amy standing near the back of the room, behind a tall stack of crates.

  She’s laughing along with everyone else, and mid-laugh I see her raising a remote and pressing a button, stopping tonight’s masterpiece from going any further.

  The crowd is clapping, yelling “Slutty freshman bitch!” “It’s okay, Parker!” and “Bros before Hos!” The noise is deafening and the girls in the crowd—the ones who recognize me as the star of the show, are smirking and pointing, snapping pictures on their cell phones.

  “Alright! Alright! Back to the fucking party!” The DJ’s voice comes over the speakers and the music blasts again, but I can’t hear anything but the taunts.

  I narrow my eyes at Amy and take several deep breaths before I react. I keep my eyes locked on her as I think about what Leah would do in this situation. Settling on an answer, I walk across the dance floor, watching Amy’s eyes widen as I approach.

  One of the girls standing nearby crosses her arms and steps in front of her. I roll my eyes and push her out of the way.

  “This is why you invited me out tonight?” I’m in Amy’s face, ten seconds away from punching her. “What exactly was the point you were trying to make?”

  “I told you I wanted Parker on move in day. That was one of the first things I said.”

  “And I told you he wasn’t attracted to you. He said that. He was very clear.”

  “You just hadddd to bat your big green eyes at him didn’t you? I told you that he and I grew up together, that he and I were best friends, and you just—”

  “Are you fucking kidding me, bitch?”

  She opens her mouth to say something else, but I turn away and walk off.

  If I was in New Jersey, I would be beating her into the ground right now, but this is college. And since her friends outnumber mine (six plus to zero), I have to be more strategic...

  I run the full five miles back to campus, letting an unfamiliar wetness fall down my cheeks. My chest is burning and my body is begging me to stop, to slow down because it hurts to drive on the empty fumes of alcohol.

  But I don’t stop.

  I run faster and faster, until I make it to my room.

  I strip out of my clothes, cover myself in a robe, and rush into the communal shower down the hall.

  There’s no one else in any of the other stalls—I double check, so I step inside the one at the end and turn the water on the hottest bearable setting.

  I hold my face underneath the scalding streams and tell myself to suck everything up, that crying never solves a goddamn thing, but I can’t help it. The tears are falling as fast as the water, and my chest is heaving uncontrollably—shaking my body so violently that it’s hard to stand up straight.

  I’m confused as to how Amy could betray me like that, how she could lure me out to a party just to humiliate me—days after she’d invited me to go with her and her family to their country club in the suburbs.

  It doesn’t make any sense...

  Besides the fact that what she’s done is beyond cruel, the fact that I had sex with Parker’s friend was nothing more than a mistake. A thoughtless, drunken mistake.

  He’d followed me to my dorm after freshman orientation and I could’ve sworn I told Amy not to leave us in the room alone, but she’d been drunk too (I thought) and she’d left anyway.

  I was horny and desperately lonely, so I allowed myself to kiss him back—wondering if sex with him would actually be pleasurable, but it wasn’t. Only his kisses were good.

  It wasn’t until the morning after that I realized what I’d done, but I didn’t allow myself to feel bad about it. I chalked it up to being a simple mistake and put it behind me.

  A few weeks later, I met Parker—the frat boy with a soft side, and made him believe that I really liked him.

  Although the sex with him never made me feel anything and I’d never been a fan of his desire to cuddle, he always treated me nicely. He even seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me, but I never let him get close.

  Maybe I should’ve...

  Confused, I look down and notice that my skin is starting to redden underneath the steamy water. Taking several deep breaths, I manage to slow my sobs until they eventually fade into nothing more than staggered breaths.

  When they’re finally gone and the only noise is the splattering of water against the tile, I start to think.

  I need to come up with a way to deal with this, a way that’s more than sleep and alcohol. I know I can’t show my face on campus for a few days, but I can’t act like that video hurts me. I can’t let people think that I’m weak or easily intimidated, and I need to get rid of Amy. First.

  I turn off the shower and look up and down the hallway before slipping back into our room.

  I look around our shared space—shaking my head at all the high priced furniture and art her filthy-rich parents have shipped. There’s a Picasso—a fucking Picasso!—framed high above our full length mirror.

  I walk over to it and lift it from its hook. Then I toss it onto the ground, shattering it to pieces.

  I open my drawer and pull out my half-drunken bottle of tequila—the stuff I drink on my worst days, and prepare myself for what’s to come.

  I know exactly how I’m going to get rid of this bitch...

  At four in the morning, the door to our room opens, and Amy stumbles in—laughing with one of her friends.

  She hits the lights and her eyes immediately meet mine. “Well, if it isn’t NYU’s number one whore! Emerald ‘I Fucked Two Fraternity Brothers’ Anderson!” She slurs. “That’s what happens when you cross me. I’m Amy Houston...Amy fuckin’ Houston, and you should remember that for the rest of the year while you’re busy whoring it up.”

  Her friend helps her to stand, and when she takes a few steps forward, she looks over at her side of the room and sucks in breath after breath.

  I wait for the reality of what I’ve done to all of her things to settle in, wait for her to realize who the real queen bitch is.

  All of her designer bed-sheets and clothes are in a pile on the floor, doused in my un-washable black acrylic paint. Her mattress is cut wide open—an automatic seven hundred and fifty dollar fee, and on her fifty inch flat-screen that hangs on our wall I have a video playing. It’s showing her giving our Ethics T.A. a blow job in our room last week.

  She’s on her knees and he’s caressing the back of her neck, begging her to take him deeper and deeper into her mouth.

  “I accidentally recorded that while I was gone,” I say flatly. “I left my webcam on and was planning to show it to you tomorrow so we could laugh about it over vodka. I was going to delete it right after.”

  “That is not me...” She swallows.

  “Ohhhh...Amy...Fuck...” The T.A. moans on the screen. “Fuckkkk...”

  “Right.” I roll my eyes and turn the volume down. “Let me tell you how the next twenty four hours are going to go, Amy fuckin’ Houston. You’re going to have all of your shit moved out of my room by the morning. I don’t care what you tell our R.A., but you won’t mention my name at all. If you do, I’ll be the bitch you were to me and put this lovely video on Facebook, after I send a few copies to your parents’ colleagues. I’m sure the daughter of the governor’s top advisors would make front page news if this tape ever went viral.”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “I’m not done.” I cut her off and notice that her friend’s eyes are as wide as saucers. “You’re not sleeping here tonight. I don’t want you to ever make eye contact with me on campus, and I swear to God if I catch wind of you even whispering my name, I’ll personally make sure it’s the last word you ever say.”

  She blinks and then she bursts into uncontrollable laughter. “Trace...” She looks at her friend. “Can you believe this slut? Is she seriously threatening me? Me?” She laughs harder and purses her lips. “First you’re a whore and now you’re what? Some type of mob person? Are you going to make me disappear if I don’
t move out?”

  “Try me.”

  She stops laughing and raises her eyebrow.

  I’m not flinching. I’m not bluffing. And if she does anything but walk out of our room, I’ll give her the black and bloody eye she rightfully deserves.

  “I’ll um...” She’s wavering. “I’ll um...I’ll be back at seven.”

  I cross my arms and wait for her to leave the room, and as soon as the door shuts I hit “post” on my Facebook wall. By this afternoon, the first fifteen seconds of that video—the part that shows her pulling some man’s pants down, will be seen by everyone.

  I have to make sure she knows I’m not playing games. I’ll release the whole thing if she even breathes in my direction.

  Although it feels good to put her in her place, I know my bliss is only temporary. The second that this alcohol stops coursing through my veins, I’ll have to let myself feel the gravity of this situation all over again.

  I don’t even try to fall asleep. There’s no point.

  I leave the room and head for the only place that brings me peace: the library. After finding a deserted couch in the back. I bring my knees up to my chest and shut my eyes—wishing that this semester would magically come to an end so I won’t have to deal with the aftermath.

  I have no idea how I’m going to put that tape behind me, how I’m going to recover.

  And I don’t.

  I never do.

  For the rest of the semester, I don’t do anything but go to art class. I keep my mini fridge stocked with things I buy from the campus grocery store afterhours—Ramen noodles, yogurt, and canned ravioli, so I won’t have to eat in any of the dining halls.

  I stay confined to my room and write for hours at a time. And whenever it becomes too hurtful to read what I’ve written, I paint abstracts.

  On the rare occasion that I do show my face on campus—to go to my one and only class, the stares, whispers, and smirks follow close behind. Sometimes people aren’t even polite enough to whisper. They just call out loudly.

  “You want to fuck somebody who knows what he’s doing, Emerald?” “You interested in making a sex tape with me?” “Parker was way too good for you anyway!”

  Sometimes I see Amy hanging with her group of minions, but she never makes eye contact and she always walks away before I can get close.

  I slowly slip into a state of nothingness—where all my days blur together, where no matter how hard I try to look past that sex tape, it’s always there. Still, I try to heal myself with the things that have worked in the past—vodka, cigarettes, hot showers, and weed.

  With each new semester that passes by, I ignore the numerous “academic probation” and “academic counseling suggestion” letters that are stuffed into my mailbox. I enroll in new classes that I never attend—except for the art ones. I always go to the art ones.

  Each time my advisor emails me about setting up an “emergency meeting” I tell him I’m unavailable, if I bother to respond at all.

  It’s not until the last day of finals week—during the fall semester of my sophomore year, that I receive a letter telling me that I’ve been expelled from the university, that I need to have all of my things moved out of the dormitory before the spring semester begins.

  With a heavy heart, I call the only people I know and quickly find myself packing all of my belongings into my grandmother’s pickup truck.

  As she drives me from the bustling city of New York and towards the dirt roads that await us in Blythe, she cries.

  She says it’s her fault that she pushed me into going to college so soon, that she should’ve let me take a year off to simply live in the South and get over Leah’s passing. Then she blames herself for not checking on me more often.

  I don’t intervene and tell her about the sex tape because it’s pointless. She wouldn’t understand.

  “You’re going to be okay...” She squeezes my knee as she steers the truck onto a ramp. “Things will only get better from this point on. Just hold onto that belief. You’re beautiful and talented, and no matter what anyone else says you’re going to do something great with your life one day...”

  I tune her out because I’ve heard this speech a million times before, but not from her. I’ve heard Leah say those exact same words to herself in the mirror over the years, and I know that right now my grandmother isn’t really talking to me.

  She’s talking to Leah.

  Chapter 3

  Sometimes I try to make myself believe that the life I’m living isn’t really my life at all. I like to think that I’m merely an actress playing the part of a miserable girl who has very few options left.

  That could possibly explain why I’m currently sitting in a brightly lit room with paper smiley faces hanging from the ceiling, staring at people who have been testing my last nerve for the past two hours.

  “Miss Anderson?” A soft voice snaps me out of my thoughts.

  “Yeah?”

  “Care to introduce yourself to the group?”

  I sigh and stand up. “My name is Emerald Anderson... And I’m an alcoholic.”

  “Hi, Emerald.” The addict group says dryly.

  I take my seat again and cross my arms, impatiently counting the remaining minutes of today’s session.

  Everyone in this room is an alcoholic—except me, and if it wasn’t for this past Saturday I wouldn’t even be here. As a matter of fact, I’m still trying to figure out what exactly landed me in this room full of crybabies.

  It was a typical Saturday and I was getting the mail: Another stack of rejections from the big publishers in New York—“Your writing is too descriptive for the market.” “Now is not the time for a story like this.” “We don’t believe you’d be a good fit for our agency, but we wish you the best in your ongoing search.”

  Right after I taped them onto my “ceiling of failure,” I decided to check my email. Ten new messages that all said the same thing: “Thank you for applying, but...”

  I needed to get away to breathe so I drove to a bar on the other side of town.

  Four shots of vodka. Three shots of tequila. Three drinks from strangers I’d just met, and a seven shot jumbo margarita just for fun.

  Child’s play.

  It wasn’t enough.

  I ordered two stiff brandy and gin concoctions—resulting in a raised eyebrow from the bartender, but I could handle it.

  I could always handle it.

  Hours later, when I was buzzed out of my mind, I convinced myself that I had a story idea that I needed to immediately write down. I stood up from the bar and stumbled outside, rummaging through my purse for my car keys.

  Once I found them, I realized I wasn’t standing in front of my own car. Confused, I searched the lot in a daze—telling myself that I was definitely going to sleep in my backseat for a while before driving home.

  There was vomit at some point—as usual, and then I realized I was standing in the middle of a street, holding a stop sign I didn’t remember picking up.

  There were bright headlights. Then a sudden blackness.

  That’s all I remember before seeing my grandparents bail me out of the county jail the next morning.

  I honestly thought I’d served my time, but one hour apparently wasn’t enough.

  The judge berated me for being “foolish, reckless, and utterly out of control” and blamed me for causing a driver to swerve off the road and hit a streetlamp. And that stop sign I’d picked up was supposedly “so new” that the city had yet to permanently cement it into the sidewalk.

  I stared straight ahead and counted the paint cracks on the wall as she continued to tell me how awful of a person I was.

  I was halfway listening until I heard her say, “Miss Anderson, you have two options. Since you are a first time offender and a community citizen—Virginia Marsh, has so adamantly vouched for your character...You can serve ninety days in the county jail and upon release be remanded to six months’ probation with an $8,000 fine for the city’s damaged p
roperty, or...”

  She hesitated and I bit my tongue, hoping that the second option would be better.

  “You can serve ninety days of community service with the $8,000 fine, and attend mandatory rehab for the next three months.”

  My lawyer tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “She’s being very lenient with you. Take it.”

  Now that I’m listening to a woman cry about how her daddy never loved her, I’m starting to think I should’ve picked the first option.

  “That’s why I turned to alcohol,” the woman says. “Whiskey loved me back.” She’s sobbing ten times louder now, shaking her head and being absolutely pathetic.

  The twenty other people in the room are chanting words of encouragement—“It’s okay, hun.” “Let it all out.” “Way not to hold back.”—and she wipes her eyes and smiles.

  “Well done...” The session leader, a man named Tim with thick glasses, pulls a number out of the ‘share bowl.’ “Number eighteen?”

  Everyone is quiet.

  “Number eighteen?” he says a little louder. “Who pulled number eighteen when you walked through the door today?”

  I sigh and raise my hand.

  “Oh! Okay then!” He’s a little too excited. “Can you tell us why you’re here today?”

  “I don’t fucking know.”

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?” He furrows his brow. “Why do you think you belong here?”

  “I don’t belong here,” I say dryly. “I was in an accident and I happened to be drunk when it happened. I wasn’t even driving.”

  “So...You’re not an alcoholic?”

  “I’m here because the court says I have to be, not because I’m a drunken idiot. So, if you could leave me out of these little heartwarming activities until my sentence is over, I would really appreciate it.”

  The room is dead silent now and all the alcoholics are staring at me in shock.

  Tim frowns, but he quickly collects himself. “Whenever you’re ready to share we’ll be here,” he says as he pulls another paper from the bowl. “Number seven?”