by T Gray
Jake sat in the front with T.J., which was a good thing since his mere proximity sent me into cardiac arrest. I was sitting between Issy and Cindy who were both preoccupied. Issy was madly texting on her phone to multiple friends who were going to meet us. Cindy was giggling and whispering things to Blake that I certainly did not want to hear.
The mix of our perfumes was becoming stifling in the closed space, and I quietly wondered why in the world I had agreed to go. My stomach was now fully growling, as I forgot to eat after my run…ok, maybe forgot wasn’t exactly true. I didn’t really want to eat, since I was wearing tight jeans and going out with Jake. I was slightly regretting that decision now. My head was already swimming a little from the shot and I could tell by Issy’s conversations that more were coming.
We finally got to the club and paid our cover to get in. Issy and I got red stamps on our hands that said, “Under 21” and the rest of the crew got wristbands. Almost immediately after we got in the door, Issy pulled me into the bathroom, took nail polish remover out of her purse and wiped the ink off our hands. Next thing I knew, she put a matching wristband on both of us and smiled. “Happy Birthday. You just turned twenty-one.” Before I could say a word, she pulled me out of the bathroom and onto the dance floor.
It was eighties night at the Varsity, and Issy totally looked the part. She was wearing a short, black skirt with lace at the bottom and a black tank top with a loose white shirt over it. Her shirt had a black and white picture of Elvis on the front, which only added to its originality. On her right hand was a fingerless black glove and she had a black dog collar bracelet on her left wrist. The blue and purple from the other day had been replaced with long pink streaks. They were striking in the light and looked amazing against her dark hair.
I watched as she danced with complete freedom and saw how others were also drawn to her. I could feel the vibrations in my chest from the extremely loud music, and my eyes kept darting around the room as I wondered if people were looking at me while I bobbed next to Issy’s erratic dancing. Next thing I knew, Issy and I were surrounded by three guys, each rubbing themselves on us. At first, I tried to politely move, but they were not having any of it. Suddenly, there were strong hands wrapped around my waist and I was pulled out of the group. I knew immediately who had me, because he had a smell that I could pinpoint even in a crowded room.
“I told you I’d take care of you.” Jake eyes were smoldering as we danced so close his lips were almost touching mine. I stared at him, mesmerized. I no longer cared who was looking at me, only that I was in his arms. We stayed on the dance floor through two more songs, and I could feel sweat beading on my forehead. I suddenly felt self-conscious and took a step back.
“This isn’t really your scene, is it?” Jake yelled, trying to be heard over the music.
“No, it’s not…but, I’m still glad I came.”
“Let’s get a drink.” Jake held my hand and led me off the dance floor and over to the bar. He ordered a drink for himself and then gestured for my order.
“Oh, water please.”
With water in hand, we made our way to the back of the club where there were couches and chairs. Jake found one empty seat, sat down, and pulled me onto his lap. I was taken by how forward he was and butterflies bombarded my stomach. I had never felt such a physical reaction to a boy before. Sure, I had been kissed and even dated one guy for a month last semester, but none of them ever made every inch of me tingle. Even Aaron and Danny, who were both attractive, had nothing on the desire that raged through me whenever Jake even glanced my way.
I felt guilty for all those times I judged girls who absorbed themselves in the guys they dated. For the first time ever, I truly understood what pure, chemical attraction was to someone else, and Jake did it for me.
He was rubbing his hand up and down my back and playing with the nape of my neck, sending chills down my spine. He leaned in and I could feel his breath on my neck, making me almost moan out loud.
“Let’s go outside,” he whispered in my ear, rubbing his hands seductively up and down my arm. I stood and blindly followed him out as if in a trance. As soon as I felt the outside breeze lift my hair, my lungs begged for the freshness of it compared to the hot, stuffy club. Jake led me around the corner and backed me up to the wall. He had his leg jammed between mine and his chest was so close I could feel every breath he took. My body was shaking, overwhelmed by the physical attraction I felt for him.
He leaned in and started kissing my neck and then moved up until he firmly covered my mouth. My body raged with fire, as I brought my hands to his face and then up around his neck. I could hear my inner voice screaming at me, What are you doing? You are making out in public, outside a club. This is not you! But my inner voice was a soft roar compared to my desire to stay right where I was.
I’m not sure how long we stood there wrapped up in each other. It could have been seconds, minutes, or even hours. Time was of no consequence to me. Jake was the first to pull away, and I was left breathless, staring at him.
“We better get back in before Issy starts looking for us. I don’t think she’d be that keen on us kissing.” He looked as surprised as I was by the intense chemistry between us.
I looked down, trying to settle my trembling hands. “You’re right, we should go.”
Jake tilted my head back up, lightly kissing my lips again before he led me back into the club. The rest of the night was a blur, dancing and drinking, then more dancing. I felt like I was dancing in the clouds, and Jake never left my side the entire evening. At the end of the night, we all piled in the car. This time Issy was in the front seat and Jake was in the back with me. I laid my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. A perfect end to a perfect night...and I was right where I wanted to be.
When I woke the next morning, I thought it had all been a dream until I was slammed with the most excruciating headache I’d ever felt. My mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls, and I could actually smell alcohol coming out of my pores. I didn’t remember drinking that much, but honestly, I didn’t think about much after the kiss. In fact, the last thing I remembered at all was getting in the car to come home.
I looked down at my clothes; everything was intact minus the shoes. Did Jake put me to bed? Did I act like Issy had the night before? I was horrified. How could I not remember?
I pulled myself out of bed and into the shower. My clothes smelled like smoke, and my eyes had large dark circles under them. How in the world could Issy do this every night? It was already after twelve, and I started to panic. There was no way I was going to get my chapters read in time, not when I couldn’t even get my face to focus in the mirror. My body was full of toxins, and I couldn’t stop sweating, even in the shower. I threw my smelly clothes in the laundry bag and put on my running clothes. I had to get this stuff out of me.
In the kitchen I found a note on the fridge that said, “Hangover juice inside…you’re welcome.” I was officially starving, but everything I looked at made my stomach turn. I took the green hangover juice and brought it up to my face. It smelled and tasted like the produce department in the grocery store. Disgusting…but I just kept thinking of the transformation Issy had made and somehow managed to drink the thick liquid.
My head was swimming. Where was Jake? Did I embarrass him? Did I throw myself at him? The butterflies were rampant in my stomach as I relived every moment of him touching me. “Enough!” I told myself as I grabbed my headsets and headed out the door.
I could only go a mile, and it was a slow one…lots of walking. The heat of the day and the exercise was making me sweat profusely, and I felt like my body was finally ridding itself of the alcohol. The only positive I could find was that I felt really skinny. I had practically gone twenty-four hours without eating and was sure I’d dropped at least two pounds between the run and the dancing.
I hated to admit it, but the green juice was really helping. Issy could sell that stuff and make a fortune. Ok, new plan of actio
n. As soon as I got home, I would get dressed and head to the library. I still had time to get my work done if I really focused.
I walked into my apartment and stopped short when I saw Jake lounging on the couch watching TV.
“There you are,” he said, sitting upright. “Here I was coming over to check on you, and you are already out running again. I’m impressed.”
My stomach fluttered and I smiled. “Oh, don’t be that impressed. You should have seen me an hour ago.” I felt more nervous than ever, not knowing exactly how to act towards him after last night.
“It’s the hangover juice,” I heard Issy call out from the kitchen. “We brought home some lunch if you’re hungry.”
“Yes, thank you. Let me go shower first.”
“Wow, you were hammered last night,” Issy recalled, walking into the living room, while she popped a grape in her mouth. I stopped at my door and cringed. “You totally passed out in the car, and Jake had to carry you up the stairs. If he wasn’t here, you’d probably still be passed out in T.J’s car.”
She acted like it was the most amusing event ever, but I was mortified. Not just at the fact I’d passed out, but that Jake had to carry me. The insecurities of childhood flooded my mind as I imagined him straining as he tried to manage my weight. I wanted to crawl into the biggest hole I could find and never come out. I shook my head and shut the door, tears streaming down my face the whole time I showered.
“Lord, I know she will face temptation and disappointments. I pray you serve as her mighty deliverer. I pray you bring her peace in the midst of hardships and carry her when life’s burden’s are simply to much to bear…”
3. FAILURE
It had been five days since I last saw Jake. He had stayed most of Sunday afternoon with us watching the football game and acting like nothing had happened between us. He wasn’t rude or anything, just indifferent, like I was Issy’s friend who was hanging out. I was supposed to leave to go study, but I stayed, just hoping he would indicate in some way the attraction he had on Saturday night.
I kept wondering what changed, why he was so hot and than cold. When we were alone, our attraction was pure chemistry, but in the light of day, it felt awkward and forced. Was it Issy? Maybe she said something to him, like she did to me. That had to be it…unless it was the stairs. I shuddered at the thought. Who would be attracted to a girl who passes out and then makes you carry her to bed? No one!
I just felt so tired. I had spent three excruciating afternoons in the engineering lab taking samples every twenty minutes for one of the graduate students. Work study was a requirement for my scholarship. I didn’t mind it so much last year, but this semester, I had been assigned to the lab. I should have been studying while in there, but I couldn’t focus. I was already behind in my two hardest classes, and we were having a quiz on Monday.
Thank goodness it was the weekend. Issy was leaving this afternoon to go home for a couple of days, so it meant my apartment would actually be free of people for more than two hours. Turns out, Issy’s the social queen of our apartment complex and everyone wanted to be around her. She had some place for us to go every night this week and despite my growing “to do” list, I would go. We had conveniently “run into” Danny and Aaron a few times, but Issy never really gave him the time of day. I started to see Danny as a reflection of me and wondered if I looked as desperate as he appeared.
Truth was, I felt desperate. I had hoped to run into Jake every time we went somewhere, but he never showed. I refused to ask Issy about him, as I already knew her feelings on the subject. With each day that I didn’t hear from him, I started to second-guess everything that had happened.
Thankfully, I had kept the drinking to a minimum, unlike Issy who was truly a fish. It was no wonder she had already blown through her allowance this month and needed to do some serious groveling to her mom. I smiled as I thought of our conversation this morning.
“What will you do if she doesn’t give it to you?” I asked, thinking of my parents’ reaction if I had dared to do the same.
“Oh, well then I’ll just go see my dad. He feels guilty for abandoning our family when I was twelve, so I can usually say a few key words and get what I want.”
“Why not just go there first?”
“Because, there is nothing more excruciating than my stepmom, and how she goes on and on about her and my father’s son, and how perfect he is. Barf. Then I’ll get the lecture about my clothes and hair and how college will be over soon, and I need to get focused. Like I said…only if I’m desperate!” She was randomly balling up her clothes and stuffing them in her duffle bag. My type A instincts were screaming at me to grab her bag away and fold each item she threw in there, but I refrained, suddenly putting two and two together.
“Wait, isn’t your father’s son…your brother?”
“Don’t ever call him that again.” It was the first time I had actually heard a tone from Issy that wasn’t playful, and for a second, I thought I saw a glimpse of hurt in her eyes, but it went away as quickly as it came. “Now you, young Padawan, keep yourself out of trouble while I’m gone.”
I actually laughed out loud. Truth was, I had done nothing but get into trouble since I met Issy. “No worries there.”
The shuffling of books woke me up from my daydream. Class was over. I looked at the board and saw four problems due next Monday. Ugh. I rolled my eyes and wrote them down. For some reason, I hated my classes this year. Last year, my engineering classes were my favorite, but last year I didn’t have a life, so maybe that’s why.
“Hey Avery.” I looked up to see one of my classmates waving me over to the group. “We’re putting together a study group on Saturday morning around ten if you want to come. We figured we could knock out these problems and then focus on our Statics quiz.” The nice thing about engineering was that most of us took the same classes each semester, so we’d end up helping each other a lot throughout the year.
“Sure, that sounds great. I’ll be there,” I said as I made my way out of the room. I really liked that group to study with, but couldn’t really spend too much time with them without being totally bored. They had asked me to go to dinner with them a few times last year, but I just couldn’t do it. I admit that I’m a nerd and like math, but it is not dinner conversation in my opinion. After a while, they stopped asking and just kept me in the loop for study sessions, which felt ideal to me.
I walked through the center of campus on my way home. It was beautiful this time of year. We had no shortage of trees and they were turning every shade of orange, yellow and brown. The grassy center of the quad was covered in students studying, sunbathing or catching a quick power nap. A group of fraternity boys were doing a step routine outside the library that was drawing in a large crowd. Normally, I would have stopped to enjoy the show, but today already seemed like it had lasted a lifetime.
I got home, relishing the silence I hadn’t heard since I moved in, and checked my phone one more time to see if Jake had tried to call. Nothing. How was it that he hadn’t thought to call even once? It didn’t make sense!
I walked in my room and glanced at myself in the mirror. I looked horrible. I hadn’t run in three days, and my pants felt way tighter then usual. I lifted up my shirt and started to find every bulge that existed around my torso. I swear my butt looked huge today too…and not in a good way. I looked over at the scale, knowing I shouldn’t get on…it would only depress me. But I did anyway, and had gained a pound. How is that possible? I just weighed two days ago!
Tears sprang to my eyes as I started to get that feeling. I knew temptation was coming and began to panic. I wanted to escape; I wanted to get this weight off of me. I could feel it crushing my lungs. I got on the scale again—sure I had read it wrong the first time…I hadn’t. Feeling desperate, I tried calling Cara. Voicemail. I started to pace the apartment, telling myself it wasn’t worth it, that it wouldn’t make me feel any better…but I knew it would. I knew it would ease the ever-increasing pani
c and would make me feel like I had control of something in my life.
I opened the cabinets and refrigerator. Inside was cereal, little chocolate snack cakes and ice cream. That would work. None of those things would hurt on the way back up. I closed my eyes, willing myself to be strong and slammed the doors shut as hard as I could. I ran back in my bedroom and shut the door, fighting with everything I had. I didn’t want to do it here…not here.
Fifteen minutes passed and I started to believe the worst was behind me. I walked back to the living room, but the draw of the kitchen was just too strong. I could hear my heart racing as I looked for a coke. Jackpot. I just couldn’t fight it anymore.
As I poured my cereal and took the first bite, I felt the tears well up in my eyes. I hated that I needed this, hated every part of me that enjoyed each bite I took. But with each one, my body started to relax and turn numb. After ten minutes, I had eaten two large bowls of cereal and was currently on my second snack cake. My stomach was full…so full, and it was screaming at me to give it relief. I felt my heart start to race again in anticipation, and I knew I was at that critical point. I gulped down the coke and as I felt the carbonation rise up in my throat, I leaned over the toilet and let it all come out. My body heaved and heaved as it got rid of all the food I had just stuffed down my stomach.
My throat burned and my eyes watered, but I didn’t care. It felt so good to have the calories out of me. I sat on the floor, relieved, as I felt my heartbeat start to normalize. I looked around at the mess I had made, and immediately started cleaning it.
Pulling myself off the floor, I examined my face in the mirror and wondered if I looked swollen. Not yet. Just drained…exhausted really. The anxiety was gone and the desperation had finally passed, but with that came the reality that I had yet again failed, and the guilt and shame hit me like a ton of bricks. Once again, I lost my resolve and gave into the temptation, the easy fix. I felt so weak and disgusting. No one could ever love me like this. I glanced at my phone. Cara had called me back; I didn’t want to talk anymore.
