Twisted Love

by R. C. Stephens

  “Hey Dylan, there’s a basketball game tonight, the Heat against the Celtics. Are you in?” Brad asked, willing me to say yes. I wasn’t a gambler by any means, but I had to admit the rush of putting money on a team and even better, a nice winning stash felt good. My parents paid my tuition and gave me a small sum of money every month, but it felt nice to have real cash. Brad and I had slowly built up a nice savings over the last five months and we were both sitting at twenty grand each. Of course we bared the brunt of losses and it sucked, but it felt oh so good to win. I knew I was straying from my path, from my good boy persona, but fuck, my heart took such a hard hit with Lexi, I would do just about anything to numb the pain. Other than fuck another girl.

  “Yeah Brad I’m in,” I muttered hesitantly. “But that’s it for me, I need to quit while I’m ahead. I’m no trust fund baby like you.”

  “Yeah, yeah. K man, let’s go,” Brad said typing into his phone. “I just sent Trent a text. We’re good, let’s hope the Celtics win tonight,” he smacked me on the shoulder and left the dorm room and I followed him.

  As we walked down the hall Brad was texting again, I figured he was planning a hook-up. He had fucked so many girls since we arrived that I was sure he lost count.

  “Brad, you know I’m good with the drinking and even the chatting, but I ain’t taking no chicks to bed, I can’t do it to Lexi.”

  “You’re not even with her man, she hasn’t tried to contact you once since you arrived here. You said you saw her across the lawn at Christmas and you didn’t go to her,” Brad said reminding me of what a coward I was. She was standing there perfect and beautiful in the snow covered driveway pacing up and down. It was Christmas Eve and she looked sad. Every bone in my body ached to go after her and claim her, but I couldn’t. Something told me she needed more time.

  “It’s not like that man, she’s still mine and I won’t go there with some chick.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” Brad waved me off.

  The music was pumping loud and there were bodies strewn everywhere when we entered the dorm room that had a sign 'Party in Here' hung on the door. I don’t know why people insisted on dorm parties, the space was limited and people who weren’t invited almost always showed up.

  “Hey, Dylan, I need to meet someone outside, be back in a few,” Brad shouted as he walked out the front door. I went over to a table covered with all the alcohol a person could want.

  “Hey, what can I get you?” a voice from behind me asked.

  I turned my head, it was a pretty girl with bright green eyes and long brown hair, she was hot, I can admit that, but I didn’t want her.

  “Oh, I’ll take a beer,” I said reaching for one of the closed bottles on the table.

  “I’m Santana,” she extended her hand. “This is my room, I share it with Carlie over there,” she pointed to a short girl with a blonde pixie cut on the other side of the room.

  “Nice,” I nodded. “Thanks, for holding the party, I’m Dylan,” I said extending my hand to shake hers. She gripped my hand a moment longer than expected and smiled widely.

  “So Dylan, what’s your major?” she asked clearly interested in me and trying to make small talk.

  “Pre-med. And you?”

  “Journalism,” she smiled even brighter batting her eyes at me. All I could think of was how to get away. I got cornered by chicks a lot at parties. It was hard to brush them off all the time, especially when I was drunk and feeling sorry for myself and missing Lexi on top of it.

  I turned my head when Brad came busting through the door doing some sort of head banging dance to the music. “Let’s get wasted,” he hollered.

  “Dylan, my man, let’s do some shots.” He placed an arm over my shoulder leaning over me and getting into Santana’s face. Santana smiled brightly at him too. I followed Brad and we each threw back about three shots of tequila. Yup, I was definitely feeling warm now. We continued chatting it up with Santana. She was a funny girl and had crazy stories to tell about her journalism class and her father who was a journalist with CNN.

  “Dylan man, I got something for us,” Brad said looking my way with a devilish grin. I knew that Brad was a wild one and that I had to be careful around him especially when he wore that grin. “Come with me,” he tilted his head and got up from the couch motioning for me to follow.

  I followed him out to the hallway, swaying. He looked both ways checking if the coast was clear. Then he pulled out a small plastic bag with some pills and held it up to my face with a pleased look on his face.

  “No way, hell no,” I began to protest.

  “Shut up Dylan, it’s just ecstasy, it’s going to make you feel good, everyone has to try it once, and honestly it will make you want to fuck your brains out all evening,” he explained quietly.

  “Then sure as hell no,” I protested some more.

  “Dylan, man, trust me, you need this. I’ve done it before, it’s no big deal. Let’s get crazy tonight and then tomorrow we hit the books and start to study hard, I’ll even study with you. We’ll both get our shit together, one night to fuck up and that’s it,” he said smacking me on the back hard.

  “Fuck,” I took the bag out of his hand and took one of the pills. Did I feel wary? Hell yes.

  I swallowed the pill, so did Brad and then we walked back into the dorm party, by then things were in full swing. Couples making out on the couch, people chatting it up. Couples making out against the walls. Even some threesomes were beginning to form, I’m not going to lie, I’m a guy, of course I’ve fantasized about being with two women. As I walked back in the room, my blood felt warm and my heart beat fast in my chest. The warmth I felt in my chest was welcoming, and I found myself feeling very friendly.

  Even Santana found me again. “Dylan where did you run off too?” she asked draping her arm around my shoulder. It suddenly felt very welcoming and we took a seat together on the couch. Having her tight body pressed up against me was doing things to my body. I felt overly horny like I could take her right there and fuck her hard, I felt almost animalistic. My blood was thrumming and my dick was straining against my jeans. “Hey Carlie, come meet Dylan,” she laughed hard to another girl that approached us. Whoa, she was cute too with her blonde pixie cut and petite body. Carlie flopped down on the other side of me and started running her fingers through my hair. The room began to spin a bit, but I didn’t care, I was suddenly having lots of fun for the first time since I got to Harvard.

  “Hey Dylan, looks like you’re doing good.” Brad walked by with a chick on each arm and went into the bedroom. Lucky Bastard.

  I turned back to look at Santana, her pretty face close to mine and I noticed some white powder on the tip of her nose. “Let me get that for you,” I muttered wiping her nose and feeling too high to think anything of it. A moment later she hopped on top of me, spread eagle and all I could think of doing was driving my dick into her hard. From the side of me, Carlie pulled my head toward her and shoved her tongue down my throat, the girls looked at each other knowingly and took me by the hand, guiding me to the bedroom.

  “Ah, I think Brad is in there,” I think I muttered, but I could have just been thinking it.

  “No worries, there are two beds,” Carlie laughed throwing her head back.

  I followed the girls into the room as they both took turns undressing me and themselves. At one point they were both kissing me, then they were kissing each other. Carlie dropped to her knees sucking on my dick while I stuck my fingers inside Santana, it was fucking heaven and I felt like I was ten thousand miles away from reality.

  Then the fucking began and whoa was it good sticking my dick in two girls, I didn’t need to mope around anymore. I could do this. I could have fun and I wouldn’t feel guilty. Love was in the air, sex and lust pervading my senses. I could hear Brad getting off on the next bed and although a part of me knew the situation was fucked up, I was too high to have a care in the world.

  After a night of hard fucking and mind blowing intensity, I
crashed. Boy, did I crash. I wasn’t expecting the low that hit me once the drug wore off. I picked up my head at one point and saw Brad passed out in a mangled mess with some girls in a bed that was definitely too small to fit all three of them. I looked down at myself to see that I was in a similar predicament and then my eyes closed and I was off to sleep, it was too hard to wake up. My pounding headache kept me locked in place. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I had to get back to my dorm and shower and get ready for class, but I couldn’t move and everyone else was sleeping so why bother.

  When I finally awoke it was dark outside and I looked at my phone to see that I missed an entire day. I had a missed call from my mother too, shit! I looked to my side and the girls were still asleep but when I started to move Carlie, I think that was her name, opened one eyelid and then the next.

  “Hey,” she murmured.

  “Hey,” I replied feeling like even that one word was too loud for my pounding headache. A part of me tried to remember the night before, but it was like a blur of memories. Brad began to stir on the bed next to us and the girls beside him began to get up and get dressed slowly. All of us in the same slow painful motion. The only one that wasn’t waking was Santana.

  “Doesn’t your friend need to get up?” I asked Carlie. She had put on a t-shirt and jeans with no underwear or bra.

  “Nah, she likes to sleep,” she waved me off and left the room. For some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off Santana, the way she was sleeping, motionless. I don’t know if it was my knowledge of medicine, but suddenly I was struck with an urgency to check her, it looked like she wasn’t breathing. With my t-shirt and jeans back on I walked around the bed to check her pulse, my own pulse was beating frantically. Only Santana didn’t have a pulse, she didn’t have a pulse. I began to panic quietly not wanting to alarm all the other people in the room. Trickles of sweat burst from my temples and I felt airy.

  “Brad, come here,” I ordered. He looked at me like I was crazy, not used to that kind of tone. “Brad,” I insisted when he didn’t budge.

  “Fuck, Dylan, what’s your problem?” He pulled his jeans up and walked over to me. I leaned toward his ear basically telling him that Santana was dead. His eyes bugged out of his head. A closer look at Santana and we saw dry blood around her nose. FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.

  At that point I lost it, I was a sobbing ball of tears, I thought that maybe I did something to kill her and for the life of me I couldn’t remember what. My life, everything I worked for, was washed down the drain. Shame branded itself on me like a permanent tattoo.

  “Dylan, calm the fuck down, I’m making a call,” Brad said dialing on his phone, I could tell his hands were shaking. This. Was. Bad.

  “Darian, fuck I need help…” he said walking off to the corner of the room. The other two girls that were in Brad’s bad were eyeing him warily. I kept raking my fingers through my hair not knowing what to do. 'I killed a girl. I killed a girl,' was all I could think, this was all my fault. I would never be a doctor, I could never face Lexi again after what I did.

  “Someone will be here soon.” Brad tapped me on the back. “But it will take him about half a day to fly out here. In the meantime he said we have no choice, we have to call 911.”

  “I know,” I answered knowing full well, that this one night, this one mistake, was going to end it for me.

  Brad called 911, and the ambulance came to take away her body. Of course the news was all over it. Brad wanted to avoid the news because of his family status, but I got stuck in the circus of journalists that flooded the front lawn of the dormitory. This was high profile, her father was David Smithers a long-time journalist with CNN.

  I had no choice, I had to call my father and tell him that I fucked up big time. The worst part came when Brad and I were arrested and brought in for questioning. The media circus shifted to him, and his uncle came down on him, hard. He flew all the way to Boston to tell Brad that he was a disgrace to the family and that he was disowning him.

  Nothing prepared me for the way my father looked into my eyes when he got to the police station. The look of regret, remorse and disappointment was pasted all over his face. It didn’t help that we weren’t granted bail either and the university intervened saying that we would be put on a probationary leave until definite charges were laid.

  Darian arrived the same afternoon as my father, he was a retiree from the secret service and Brad looked at him as if he weren’t human.

  “Don’t worry Dylan, Darian is here now, he will find a way to get us out of here,” Brad said looking at me defeated.

  “I hope so,” I replied feeling the same defeat. Sitting in a stinking cell and not being able to shower, not knowing what our destiny held, felt like torture. What was even worse was that I was trying to understand how I could be responsible for taking someone’s life. I was meant to be a doctor, to save lives. How could I have fucked up so badly?

  A few hours later Darian returned with news. “Boys she was addicted to cocaine,” he said sternly standing on the other side of the jail cell bars. “I’m pretty sure she overdosed. Her roommate Carlie claims that she had a problem and insisted she get help but she never listened and she kept on sniffing. I took a sample of her bathroom counter and there are definitely remnants of cocaine in her dorm room. I’ve advised the officers here and they will be conducting an autopsy,” Darian explained. He had this serious voice and was very matter-of-fact.

  “Where does that leave us?” I asked. Brad looked at me knowingly. I felt bad for him, his family had disowned him.

  “They are going to grant you boys bail,” Darian paused.

  “What about me?” Brad asked. I understood what he was asking, he had no one to vouch for him. My father stuck around but I could barely look him in the eye.

  “I’ve got you kid.” Darian cracked half a smile that seemed so unnatural on his warrior like features. Brad looked at him graciously.

  “Thanks Darian,” he responded looking to the soldier with warmth.

  A moment later an officer came by and let us out. My father stood outside waiting for me, his hands in his pockets, his eyes cast to the ground. He couldn’t look at me, my father couldn’t look at me. Something inside me broke, the shame I originally felt intensified and I was locked into a world of self-loathing. I would never touch drugs again, but that wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t bring back Santana.

  The autopsy results returned three long days later. Three days that I had spent holed up in my dorm unable to attend classes, three days that I wallowed in a deep pool of self-pity. The results were definite, Santana died of an overdose, but I still blamed myself, if I had not been high as a kite I could have probably noticed her distress. I could have probably done something to save her.

  ***

  Dylan

  Present

  As I sit in my apartment waiting for Lexi to return, hoping and praying that Lexi will actually return, all my self-doubt has come crashing down on me. My mistake with Santana stuck with me forever. I realize that on some level I’m no better than Blanchard, after all, he was high as a kite when he beat Lexi, when he killed our baby. Comparing our mistakes only makes us seem more similar. My mind drifts back to Brad, to the past seven years of my life. I stare out the window of my condominium remembering how that awful night changed Brad and I. He remained a close friend, but that experience switched something off in both of us. Something died in me.

  I began to focus hard on my school work and my grades shot up through the roof. I even began to fast track my way through undergrad and got an early acceptance to medical school, but I couldn’t bring myself to come home. My mom came to visit me for a few days each winter and spring but I could sense the disappointment in her eyes too, even though she didn’t say anything and she still treated me in the same loving way she always had.

  I also started hooking up with girls. I couldn’t get enough, I had convinced myself that Lexi and I would never be together and I was wallowing in self-pity hoping
to drown my sorrows in the next fuck. Of course I made sure they were the type of girls that didn’t do drugs and I still drank alcohol, only I never got smashed enough that I would regret anything in the morning. The problem was that I became an unregretful douche.

  Summers came and summers went and I couldn’t bring myself to face my family and friends back home. I enrolled in Doctors Without Borders thinking I needed to give back in some way. I still blamed myself for Santana’s death and I had to do something good in her honor. Even though I didn’t know her at all really, and I didn’t know what made her choose cocaine as a life style. What I did know was that I took a drug that altered my ability to think and perform normally and as a result, a life was lost.

  The years went by, but my yearning for Lexi remained, all the meaningless fucks were exactly that - meaningless. My heart had a hole in it, and no matter how many girls I fucked, no matter how hard I tried to replace her, there would never be anyone but her.

  One year away from home turned into four, which was the start of my first year at Harvard Medical. The dream I dreamt for so long had come true, but the guilt I felt over Santana was like a constant ache, a knife twisting in my chest. One evening Brad threw my dorm room open like he usually did.

  “Dylan, man, I got an inside tip. We have to put all the money we have together and buy this stock,” he said showing me a piece of newspaper. I had stopped gambling after Santana died and the money I had I put into savings.

  “Seriously Brad, I’m not a gambler, I’m not betting,” I said continuing to look at my text book.

  “Dylan, I know I steered you wrong before, trust me I know, and I’m sorry for it brother. I owe you more than I’ve ever owed anyone else…” he trailed off.

  “You don’t owe me anything, we’re friends, friends have each other’s back,” I said turning to slap him on the back. I noticed his face scrunch up like he was feeling emotional.