by K. Ryan
He was right about everything. I just wished I knew what to do about it...how to be stronger, how to be braver. I wanted to be; I really did. Getting there, though, that was the real problem. With that bleak thought, I peeled myself off the couch and padded into the bathroom. My face felt sticky from my tears and splashing some water on it might help. But after I wiped my face clean with a towel, I dropped it onto the sink and leaned forward, glaring at my reflection.
“I’m so sick of you,” I whispered into the mirror.
I didn’t recognize the girl staring back at me with her swollen eyes, splotchy skin, and tangled hair. It wasn’t even just the appearance that I didn’t recognize—it was the way I felt, too. Hating myself, blaming myself, punishing myself...I was so sick of it. I’d become everything I always thought I’d never be: weak, passive, and a victim.
I was so sick of being a victim. So sick of feeling unclean and unworthy. So sick of letting other people dictate how I saw myself. So sick of living in fear of other people. So sick of letting other people define me.
I jabbed a finger at the mirror as another tear slipped down my cheek. “You’re better than this. You’ve always been better than this. How did you let it happen?”
My jaw tightened as I glared at my reflection.
“Get it together. I’m serious. Get your shit together. Now.”
More tears ran down my cheeks, but I furiously wiped them away with the back of my hand.
“No. You’re done crying. When you walk out of this bathroom, you’re done crying. You’re done being weak. You’re done being passive. You’re done being a fucking victim. You let it happen and now you have to make it stop.”
My breath surged in and out, heavy with the weight of this moment, and I could feel the change before I saw it.
“You pushed him away because you thought you didn’t deserve him. It was all bullshit and it was all in your head. You thought you weren’t worthy of him because of those fucking pictures,” I pointed at my reflection again just to reiterate my point. “Well, guess what? You’re not a slut. And even if you were, he would’ve loved you anyway. Why shouldn’t you be happy? Why shouldn’t you be with someone who loves you back? You deserve it. You really do.”
That was it. The reason why I’d pushed Finn away and tore our relationship apart.
There were no explosions or fireworks. No standing on a rooftop. No screaming or wailing. No magic wand waving up and down to transform this sad, pathetic girl into the survivor she needed to be.
When I looked in the mirror, I was still me. I was just a different me. The girl I was before those pictures set my life on fire just didn’t exist anymore and sooner or later, I needed to make peace with that. The life I’d had in Hickory was over and so was the life I’d had when I lived across the hallway from Finn.
Up until this moment, those changes to my life had been nothing but devastating and destructive. I couldn’t stop Justin from posting those pictures on the internet anymore than I could stop those kids from commenting on them. But I could’ve done something. I could’ve fought harder.
I didn’t though. That was the problem.
So, I splashed some water on my face one last time, wiped my face, and took a deep breath.
Then I walked out the door.
. . .
The next morning, I felt like I had to physically pry open my eyes just so I could see. My throat burned like someone had shoved gravel down it and I gasped, probing the coffee table for the first thing I could get my hands on even though I was still face-down on my couch. God, this was probably the worst hangover I’d ever had in my life. It felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer and pounded it into my head until all that was left was just a flat sheet teetering on top of my neck.
In my blind attempt at groping for something to drink, which, let’s face it, there probably wasn’t anything there besides warm, stale wine anyway, my fingers closed around my phone instead. It buzzed in my hand, signaling that I had a text message I’d yet to read and I groaned. Probably just a message from Noah or Cris to wish me a merry Christmas...not that I was all that surprised, but it was also probably for the best that I’d missed it.
Texting and drinking did not mix. Who knows how I would’ve responded?
I stretched my neck from side to side to shake out the stiffness and when I hit the home button on my phone, my heart shot up into my throat.
Finn: I miss you too. Merry Christmas, Em.
My eyes widened and I couldn’t breathe. I swiped my index finger across my screen, panic seizing just about every working faculty I had left, and I swiped to my text messages. When my eyes skimmed what I’d texted him, my entire body crumbled in mortification.
Three messages. Each one just as pitiful and poorly-timed as the last.
Just because it’s Christmas.
And at Christmas you tell the truth.
I miss you.
This was a new low. Hello, rock bottom. Nice to see you again. How’ve you been?
Note to self: Do not, I repeat, do not under any circumstances allow yourself within 10 feet of your phone ever again while drinking.
Texting and drinking. There had to be some statistics out there detailing all the carnage it created or some sort of lame public service announcement declaring its evils and all the harm it could potentially cause your life. Hell, I could be the face of that public service announcement if I wasn’t already the perfect candidate for a different one.
There was a tiny part of me that felt a sliver of hope. He’d texted me back...he told me he missed me too, hadn’t he? Wasn’t that a sign that maybe—nope. Not going there. I drunk-texted him on Christmas. He didn’t know about the drunk part, but still...it was Christmas. People were always a little bit nicer, a little bit more civil on the holidays.
Telling me he missed me didn’t mean he was telling me he wanted to try again or even that he’d be willing to talk to me beyond that brief exchange. I was the one who’d pushed him away and because of that, I had no business trying to push my way back in.
At this point, I was more embarrassed than hopeful, which should probably tell me something.
But that still didn’t change the fact that every word I’d said was true. Even though I quoted that stupid, God-awful movie...it was all true.
I missed Finn.
I missed the way his eyes crinkled up when he smiled. I missed the way he laughed—his whole body seemed like it was in on the joke. I missed that crazy obsession with the Packers. I missed watching games with him and cheering with him. I missed going to bed with him at night and waking up with him in the morning. I missed the way everything seemed a little bit brighter because he was there with me. I missed sitting on my patio with him and listening to him strum along on his guitar. I missed the way he touched me, how I felt it all the way down to my toes, how it felt like everything else around me could fade away as long as his hands were somewhere on my body. I missed the way he understood me, even if I didn’t understand myself...he took one look at me and he knew everything I couldn’t say.
I loved him and I’d thrown it all away.
Finn had left this giant, gaping hole in my life. I hadn’t even realized what I’d been missing until he found me. And every day, I found myself falling deeper and deeper into that hole, flailing head-first to the bottom.
Finn deserved someone who wasn’t a mess. Someone who could actually say ‘I love you’ without running for the hills and smashing everything in her wake. I just wasn’t that girl.
This wasn’t going to get any better. Trying to forget Finn was like trying to get Oliver not to spend his whole day sleeping. Or Aaron Rodgers to quit football. It just wasn’t going to happen. Lately, I felt like I sucked at just about everything in my life—blogging, maintaining relationships, texting and drinking responsibly—and there was nothing I sucked more at than trying to forget Finn. Maybe it was for the best that I just call this what it was, think realistically, and focus on what I could control.
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So, a few hours later, after a shower and some greasy food to combat the effects of my massive wine hangover—seriously, wine hangovers were the worst—I once again found myself sitting in front of my computer. This time, I’d decided to forego the glass of wine and settled on caffeine instead, but I scrolled through my music library, looking for something that could settle my mood.
Ugh. Everything just sounded so stupid. Nothing fit. Nothing worked. Nothing would really make me feel better.
I clicked over to a search and before I even really knew what I was doing, I typed in Kings of Leon. This wasn’t going to end well, but I just couldn’t help myself. My lips quirked up when I found that the first songs listed in my search as the most popular were “Use Somebody” and “Sex On Fire”. I could practically see Finn rolling his eyes and hear him grumbling, “Go figure.”
All my admissions and declarations in front of my mirror last night didn’t mean that I couldn’t mourn Finn, so I decided to do a little experimenting. I went down the line until I landed on “Supersoaker” and listened with a small smile on my face, bobbing my head to the buoyant beat and wistfully imagining Finn listening to this same song at this exact moment, even if I knew just how stupid that was. Then I moved on to “Molly’s Chambers”, laughing at the euphemism about Molly’s ‘chambers’ having a hold on his ‘pistol’. It was funny how “Supersoaker” sort of sounded like if “Sex On Fire” and “Molly’s Chambers” had a baby, meshing their old stuff with their newer stuff to create one coherent sound.
Yeah. I could see why Finn loved this band so much. I’d only heard a couple songs and I was already a convert.
Next, I moved on to “Ragoo”, a Rasta-inspired jam that had me bobbing to the music all the way into my kitchen as I filled up my coffee and I’d even laughed in spite of myself as the lead singer crooned about being caught with his pants down. By the end, I was singing along and I’d never felt so close to Finn, but so far away all at the same time. I wished he was here right now...he’d probably launch into the behind-the-music story of how all those songs came to be and throw out factoids about the band that probably would’ve been as weird as they were entertaining.
When “Charmer” started playing, the rollicking, furious guitar riffs caught me off-guard. When the lead singer screamed before even singing a line, my head reared back in shock, my eyes wide, and for a second, I had to double-check that something hadn’t gotten messed up on iTunes...nope, this was still the same band. It sounded different than any other song I’d listened to so far and there was something almost sinister about the guitar progressions, combined with the screaming that held me at rapt attention.
Maybe the music hypnotized me. Maybe it was just exactly what I needed to hear. Either way, while I nodded along to the beat, my blood began to simmer. At first listen, from what I could tell, it sounded like a preacher’s wife was acting a little like a creeper, touting the line, “She’s aaaalways lookin’ at me.”
But on second listen, after I immediately downloaded it of course, I found myself Googling the band and through a quick skim of their Wikipedia page—a great source for legit information, I know—I learned that the band, three brothers and a cousin, were actually raised in a devout Pentecostal environment and that the three brothers were, literally, sons of a preacher man. They’d even went to parochial schools growing up, too, just like me. The basis of the song, and the name for the album the song came from, revolved around experiences from church conferences they’d attended as kids.
What a strange little coincidence that was—the band I was currently listening to had rebelled from their religious upbringing through sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I couldn’t exactly say I was a rebellious child growing up, but I’d more or less been trying to shake my own religious upbringing for longer than I cared to admit, not to mention the fact that my non-existent relationship with my mom was primarily due to differences of spiritual opinion.
And when the singer sang with that tinge of paranoia, “She’s aaaalways lookin’ at me,” I murmured right back, “Yeah, you creeper, stop lookin’ at him.” As the song went on, I was like a woman possessed and “Charmer” was my theme song. My fingers flew over my keys until I found what I was looking for and I hit play on that nefarious video before I could stop myself with “Charmer” still playing in the background.
That cruel and insensitive senior skit played back for me and that simmering turned up to a boil as the song reached it’s crescendo of ominous guitar riffs. The laughing, the jokes, the fact that no one even attempted to stop it...it was all bullshit. Every single second of it and every single person involved with it was a heartless asshole. How the hell did those little shits think that was okay? Why would they even think that was funny? To publicly humiliate me all over again...especially since I wasn’t even there to defend myself?
Maybe the answer was in the question—I wasn’t there to defend myself and even if I had been there, I probably wouldn’t have defended myself anyway.
That video, those pictures, those kids...they’d ruined my life. Ruined what little joy I’d had in my job. Ruined any hope I had of a normal, stable life. Ruined my reputation….everyone thought I was a slut and why? Because I’d taken some sexy pictures for my boyfriend when I was 19? Because I’d sent him those pictures?
The pictures weren’t the problem.
“Stop looking at me,” I murmured to my screen as the ferocious beat surrounded me. “Stop fucking looking at me.”
I closed out of my still-unfinished November favorites blog post and opened a new document instead. With my cursor blinking back at me and the strains of “Charmer” still blasting through my speakers, I began to type:
Motherfuckers.
That felt good. So I did it again:
Motherfuckers. Motherfucking assholes.
I started typing that four letter c-word, but quickly deleted it. Even in my flurry of rage, I still couldn’t bring myself to use that word. Now, the words flowed out of me, streaming from my pent-up frustrations and everything I’d never allowed myself to say:
My mom, those stupid kids, the administration, the town, the internet…they’re the problem. I’m the problem, too.
My attention shifted to my music library for just a moment and I hit shuffle just to see what would happen. When “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance started playing, I burst out laughing. Oh, the marvelous irony of the lyrics, “Teenagers scare the living shit out of me.” When they all got together and conspired against someone or something, they were a force to be reckoned with. They did have power, but that power also should’ve been reined in the first time someone commented on my pictures. And now, all the internet did was give them more power. With that thought, I clicked on another song and let the strains of “Virtuality” by Rush set the tone for my next rant.
“Net boy, net girl/Let your fingers walk and talk…”
Then I just kept on writing:
These stupid kids don’t really know how to use the power they have. There’s no accountability there if they don’t have to say it to someone’s face. They think they’re indestructible. Whatever they tweet or post, that somehow makes them a god if it gets enough retweets or likes. Who gives a shit about anyone else?
Nothing I did makes me a slut.
My breath hitched in my throat as I stared at what I’d just typed. There was that word again and all it’s inevitable variations: Slutty. Easy. Whore. Nympho. Ho. My fingers flew across the keys:
Why is it that a guy can turn around and do exactly what I did and no one cares? Why do girls get that scarlet letter ‘A’ written into their chests and scrawled across their whiteboards and all guys get are high-fives?
What’s the big deal with sex? Nobody cares what you do behind closed doors, but as soon as those doors open and your sexual habits are out there for everyone to see, suddenly everyone has a right to pass judgment on you when they’re just doing the exact same thing, albeit behind the safety of closed doors.
&
nbsp; I should’ve sued the school district’s ass off. I should’ve reported every last one of those little jerks. Instead, I laid down like a good little girl and took my public whipping because that’s exactly what I was raised to do. I hate myself for that. Other people’s opinions about me was never worse than the way I thought about myself. I accepted the blame for something that wasn’t my fault...not for one second.
My blood boiled over, churning and bristling, until white-hot rage engulfed every single one of my senses. Suddenly, I lurched forward and sent my coffee cup flying into the wall with a sick crash. Oliver went running, but I was past the point of caring.
I was angry. So fucking angry I could barely see straight. How had this happened? How had my life gone so dramatically off the rails like this?
And better yet...what could I do to get it back?
They didn’t get to win. They didn’t get to continue ruining my life over and over again, taking what little good I had and crumbling it before it even really had a chance to get started.
I was a victim no more.
Then the change really began. Following the coattails of my written rant, I found myself standing in the middle of my walk-in closet, staring at all my old teacher clothes with my hands on my hips. These were the clothes I’d worn in my past life, but I wasn’t a teacher anymore. I would never be a teacher again and it was time to let that go.
It was almost a new year and it was time for a new me. I was sick of the old me, the pathetic me, the depressing me, the self-destructive me, and now, I needed to shed the old me like a snake sheds its skin.
