Prime: A Bad Boy Romance

by Stephanie Brother

  I’ll face that when I can, I’ll have to, of course, but right now, I have to work out where I am and how the hell I get out of here and back to normality. Initially, I just presume I’m at home, but when I dare myself to look, I realize I’m somewhere else entirely.

  I think I know this place, but the memory seems so distant I doubt I actually really do. Perhaps there’s a fragment of this scene from last night that entered my subconscious, or the whole hangover thing is just fucking with my perception. I’m alone, I know that. I also know that this isn’t Marcy’s house, unless she’s recently redesigned, and it isn’t the hospital or the police station which is seriously good news.

  I’m on a bed, with a towel underneath me (not such good news), and thankfully I’m still wearing clothes.

  I don’t think I’ve been sick, although I can’t exactly be sure. I certainly feel like I want to be now. If I move my eyes too quickly from one side of my face to the other a wave of nausea rapidly descends on me, so God knows what will happen when I finally have to move the rest of my body for real.

  I also know that the longer I leave it, the harder it’s going to be. I need to work out where I am, sort myself out, get home and explain to my parents that I’m not dead or missing and I haven’t turned into an alcoholic, and then bury my head for the rest of the summer and hope everyone has the common decency to forget all about what might have happened in the swimming pool, around the beer pong table or out in the garden when everyone was looking.

  I don’t feel good at all. Mentally, physically, spiritually, my body and soul feel like they’ve been crushed up into tiny pieces and put back together again incorrectly. I’m never drinking again. Shots, slammers, depth charges or buckets. My short lived life as a drinker has come to an abrupt end. And fuck smoking. Who’s idea was that anyway?

  Just thinking about it all isn’t helping, nor is trying to work out where I am or how I got here without better clues. If my memory isn’t going to help, the best I can do is force myself out of bed to get a good look at this room or at least the view from the window, before I dare myself out of the door, and as quickly as possible out of whoever’s house this is from the nearest exit.

  There is a good possibility I’m still at Alex’s house, and while I take deep breaths to prepare myself to move, I clutch desperately onto the notion that somewhere inside my brain, as long as I look hard enough, will be a memory of me calling my parents, telling them I’m staying over with Marcy before bidding everyone good night and making my way up the stairs without embarrassing myself any further to this room and falling asleep like a good little princess. Yeah, right.

  My mouth feels like sandpaper. I rake my tongue over my teeth and retch at the sensation. I start with my fingers, and make fists with my right hand, before attempting to lift it and bend my arm at the elbow. So far so good. The pain in my head is so intense it might make me pass out, but at least it doesn’t seem like it’s getting any worse. When I’ve convinced myself I’m probably not going to die, I roll onto my back and stretch out my legs.

  The lampshade is a novelty one I’ve definitely seen before but can’t place. It’s an oversized, slightly rounded football, made out of wire mesh and thin brown paper, and could equally as easily belong to a TV programme or film as it could my own memory banks. I blink up at it trying to work out how to focus without the room spinning gradually, but after less than half a minute I realize I can’t.

  Again, I quietly chastise myself for ending up in this position. I bet Marcy isn’t struggling with a hangover right now. I bet she’s downstairs still going strong, or outside in the pool with a guy on each arm. I bet no-one else feels like I do, least of all Donkey.

  It’ll just be my luck that Donkey got so turned off by my performance last night that they decided to shack up with someone else. They could all be in the room next door, doing exactly what it is that I’ve been dreaming about doing to them ever since I was dirty enough to imagine it.

  The compulsion to find out is more of an encouragement to move than the need to get back home, and suddenly filled with jealous thoughts I manage to grit my teeth and pull myself up into a seated position.

  Honestly, anyone would think I’ve just been in a car crash, or I’m recovering slowly from a serious accident, or a fall. The fact I’ve actually brought this on myself, with little other than cheap alcohol and even cheaper drugs is a little bit embarrassing.

  I’ll repent when I’ve got the energy. I’ll go straight and never sway from the path again, just as soon as I figure out how to make myself normal.

  I take another deep breath and swing my legs out over the side of the bed, quickly enough that I don't change my mind half-way through, melt back into the bed and wait like a fossil to be discovered.

  When I get to the window I can confirm beyond any doubt I’m still at Alex’s house. When I get up, I can find some water, some pain killers, some salvation. I can begin my journey into obscurity and anonymity, never once needing to prove anything again.

  The thought makes my whole body shudder. What the hell was I doing stripping down to my panties and bra and throwing myself off a stepladder diving board? That’s not me at all. The last thing I want to do is make people believe I’m somehow capable of doing things I’m clearly not able to.

  Window, deep breath, door, deep breath, stairs, deep breath, exit, home. The walk will do me good. Fresh air will sober me up. Marcy will cover for me if I need her to. Maybe I did call my parents after all, I just don’t remember it. Maybe I’m panicking about nothing, hangovers make people paranoid after all. Maybe whatever I think I did last night I didn’t do at all, and maybe there was someone else even drunker, even more outrageously behaved than I was, and right now they are talking about her and have forgotten completely about me.

  It takes me two attempts to stand. On the first attempt, I seem to have forgotten how to coordinate myself. When my brain sends a message to my knees, they rebel, wobble wildly and refuse to bear my weight. After a pause, a brief consultation and a warning of consequences for failure to comply, they do their best and seem willing if not to work as normal, to promise not to give up so easily and collapse under my weight.

  It is like that, stagger-walking, shivering and trembling, trying desperately not to puke, my eyes squinting against the brain-melting light, my head tilted to one side awkwardly where I’ve slept against my neck in an inadvisable position, I finally make it to the window.

  It takes a while for the outside to come into focus, even longer for my brain to process it.

  It’s... it can’t be. I blink and blink again, hoping somehow my brain is tricking me, but the view is the same. This is my view from my window, but it can’t possibly be because this room isn’t in my house. I look back into the room, twisting my whole body at once because my neck won’t work on it’s own, take in the set-up, the furniture, the decorations and the football posters and then turn back again to the window, something akin to absolute panic suddenly seeping into me.

  Fuck.

  “Hey”, says a voice from behind me, and it scares me so much I can’t help but scream.

  Chapter Ten

  Donkey are staring at me and I can’t work out whether this is a nightmare, a dream, the punchline to a joke or the opening set-up to one.

  What the absolute fuck am I doing in Donkey’s house?

  “How are you feeling?” Jack says.

  My eyes flit nervously from Jack to Zach like a frightened animal recently brought inside after a week sleeping rough in the city.

  “You were kind of dead to the world for quite a considerable amount of time”, Zach adds.

  My brain throbs against my skull, refusing to give up or back down.

  “What? How? Where?” I stutter, desperate to curl up in the bed again and have the world swallow me whole, but unable to coordinate myself to get there.

  This isn’t at all fair, Donkey look perfectly healthy and I feel like a husk of my former self. I never have much confidence
in front of these guys anyway, but at least I’m able to hide my crippling fear when I’m sober, right now I feel as naked as I would without any clothes on.

  “You asked us to take you home,”, Zach says.

  “Begged us actually”, Jack adds.

  I wince, imagining it, a hollow sensation gripping my belly.

  “We figured you wouldn’t want us to drop you at your place, considering you couldn’t really speak at that point, so we brought you here”, Jack says. “I hope you don’t mind. Zach let me stay in his room while, you know.”

  “I’m so sorry”, I begin, absolutely mortified. “How did we?”

  “I had the car”, Jack says. “You probably don’t remember much of it, but it took a while to get you into the back.”

  “Fuck”, I say, burying my face as much as I can into the palms of my hands.

  “Don’t worry about it”, Zach says, “the party was kind of winding down anyway.”

  “Marcy?” I ask.

  “Still there when we left”, Zach says. “She wanted to come too but we convinced her we’d look after you.”

  “Besides which”, Jacks adds, “she was kind of busy, if you know what I mean.”

  I want to smile, but I can’t. I can’t do anything but stand here, paralysed, and hope that whatever the fuck I’ve done can eventually be undone at some near point in the future.

  “My parents are going to kill me”, I say.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that, your parents think you’re at Marcy’s”, Zach says. “You might not remember calling them.”

  I shake my head my face reddening. What else don’t I remember?

  “I’m not drunk, I promise”, Jack says, a huge smile breaking out across his face. “I’ve only had a couple of beers and that was ages ago.”

  “They’re going to kill me”, I say again, the desire to cry beginning to overwhelm me.

  “It’s alright, I spoke to them as well”, Jack says. “We covered for you. They were fine.”

  “And what happens when I get back, stinking of alcohol and without Marcy?” I say.

  “Stay here as long as you want”, Zach says. “It’s cool with us. It’s been a long time since you’ve been round here.”

  “We’ll cover for you too, so you don’t need to worry about that”, Jack reassures me.

  “What about your parents?” I ask, it suddenly occuring to me that getting me up to this bedroom without them finding out might have been a bit complicated.

  “Mom and Dad have got there own problems”, Zach says. “They don’t know you’re here.”

  “Thank you”, I say. “You didn’t have to-.”

  “That’s cool”, Zach says.

  “But I should, you know, I mean, I’m not really thinking straight”, I stutter.

  Here I am in Jack’s bedroom, alone, with Donkey, and all I can think of is why this isn’t different and how much I want to escape. I hate myself right now, and this scene should be so different. If I hadn’t had some kind of alcohol induced false confidence boost, I might have woken up this morning in this same room, with these two either side of me. Instead, like some alcoholic in need of constant surveillance, I’m rescued, monitored and left to sober up with a towel underneath me just in case I can’t help puking. This is so embarrassing and I need to get out of here right away, regardless of what my parents say.

  My head is throbbing so badly I can barely see, but it’s not enough to keep me here. I stumble towards the bed, prop myself up momentarily and catch my breath.

  “There’s no rush, Jenny”, Jack says. “Seriously. Your parents were cool when we spoke to them and you’ve barely had enough hours of sleep to get your head together properly.”

  As much as I want to stay, I’m too embarrassed to do so. I can’t help but think that any opportunity I may have had with these two has now evaporated completely into thin air. So much for the super confident Jenny that literally tore her dress off to get into the pool, this meek and insecure Jenny is a world apart from that one, but unfortunately much closer to reality.

  I don’t deserve these guys at all. I don’t even deserve to fantasize about them. And then, suddenly, a new worry hits me. My bag, my notebook, my secret world.

  “My bag”, I stutter in panic, my skin turning cold. “Fuck, guys, my bag. What did I do with it?”

  I spin around, as much as my hangover will allow, about to die of fear when Jack speaks up. “It’s here”, he says, reaching for it. “I hung it up behind the door for you.”

  I take it, tentatively, unsure if I want to find out if my notebook is still inside or not.

  “Are you sure you don’t want breakfast?” Zach says, “I can make you some eggs or something if you’d like.”

  I shake my head, eyes on my bag, feeling the contents from the outside first, too scared to delve straight in. I can feel my phone, my purse, something that feels like it could be my notebook.

  “Cereal?” Jack ventures, while I open the zip, but I’m too distracted to answer, too worried it won’t be here.

  My heart skips a beat as I rummage inside, the contents rapidly moving from bag to palm and back again and then my hand from one side of the bag to the other. It’s not here.

  I can feel the blood drain from my face and my knees go weak.

  “Jen, are you ok?” Zach says, his voice a twist of concerned, matched in intensity with his expression.

  “It’s not here”, I say limply, and while the meaning of that dawns on me, I remain paralysed and unable to move.

  “What’s not there?” Jack asks innocently.

  Adrenaline pushes my pounding headache to the back of head as the severity of this new situation dawns on me. I can cope with lying to my parents, waking up in Donkey’s bedroom after passing out in their arms, acting like an absolute tit at an end of year party, but this? If my secret about Donkey gets out, and they find out how I feel about them, my life as I know it, no matter how shitty it already is, will officially be one hundred percent over. I might as well join a convent. I certainly won’t be able to look Donkey in the eyes again.

  “My notebook”, I mumble, and then not wanting to spend a single second longer in front of them, just in case they know already where it is, I rush through them towards the door.

  “Jenny?” Donkey call in unison, while I bolt down the stairs, fly out of the front door and into the front yard without a single idea of where I’m going or how I plan to solve this.

  Outside, a sudden rush of adrenaline and fresh air becoming too much for me, I can’t hold it back any longer.

  Bent over double, my head throbbing so much I think my brain is trying to escape to find a new home, Donkey undoubtedly watching down on me from the window above, I emphatically let myself go.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, it isn’t long before the sound brings out other spectators, until finally, through tear filled eyes I see my own parents approach, so tentatively, it makes me wonder if they recognise me at all.

  At the point where I’m supposed to be beginning my adult life, and certainly not here, in this state, like a seasoned street drinker, I can’t help but think that it might be as good as over already.

  Chapter Eleven

  Marcy shows me the video again. Two whole minutes of incriminating footage as I fool around in the pool in my panties and bra desperately seeking attention. On several occasions it sounds like I’m trying to say something, but even after the tenth viewing I still can’t make out what it is.

  I’m all over the internet. Passed around facebook like a chain letter and uploaded to youtube with almost a thousand views.

  “It could be worse”, Marcy says.

  “How, Marcy? How exactly could this be worse?” I ask her desperately.

  “The votes could be reversed. At least they like you”, she says unconvincingly.

  Nine hundred and sixty one thumbs up and three hundred and fifty likes doesn’t make this any better. Most of the school have seen this, Donkey included. I might as well
move away and start a new life.

  And if that wasn’t bad enough, I still haven’t been able to find my notebook. It wasn’t at Alex’s, nor in Marcy’s or Donkey’s car and I definitely don’t have it here at home with me.

  What with my new found fame as the drunkest girl at the party, as soon as the notebook turns up and whomever finds it realizes it belongs to the same girl, I’ll probably have the local TV channel around to interview me. As it is, I’m half expecting to see my video on one of those late night clip shows where they pull together all the weird and wonderful things on the web to embarrass the performers even further.

  “What am I going to do, Marcy?” I whine.

  Marcy shrugs. “There’s not a lot you can do. Move on, forget about it, get on with your new life. Soon enough people will forget about that party and concentrate on something else.”

  I’m not convinced. I haven’t seen anyone since that night partly because I’ve been grounded anyway, partly because I’ve been avoiding people like the plague, but what I’ve already seen on social media makes me believe that even years down the line when I’m grown up with kids and I’ve all but forgotten about that stepladder diving board, it will still come back to haunt me.

  “To be fair, you do look pretty hot. I mean, if it were me, I’d be pleased with how I look”, Marcy says.

  “I look drunk, Marcy”, I point out. “You shouldn’t have let me get that way.”

  Marcy holds her hands up. “You were way out of the realms of control by that second bottle of rum. I know it doesn’t look it, but what that video represents is effective damage limitation. It could have been so much worse.”

  That makes me feel worse not better. “I guess”, I say. “Thank you for looking after me.”

  “I’m not the ones who took you home”, Marcy says, unable to keep the smile off her face.

  I shake my head, mortified that I ended up in Jack’s bed but for all of the wrong reasons.

  “I’m such an idiot”, I say.

  “Come on, don’t be so hard on yourself, it could have happened to anybody. The begging to be taken home by Donkey was a little embarrassing, but you were basically passed out by that point anyway, so nobody really heard you”, she says.