I like to think I was born pure.
that for a while I was like an angel.
(my mother named me after one, after all)
I guess it wasn’t in the master plan for me to
stay that way.
this sickness was put inside of me
by familiar hands.
I walk with the pretty people now.
the good.
but I am not.
I am not good.
In everyone’s life, there are definitive moments that change everything. There are lows you reach that kick off the cycle of changing you for the better. Sometimes you forget those moments; sometimes they stay with you forever. For me, crying in the middle of sex in a Las Vegas hotel room was one that would stay with me until the day I died.
No one wants to be that girl, and no man has anything remotely positive to say after an experience like this. I would never write a scene like this in one of my novellas.
My characters were strong and feisty. Yet here I was, their creator, behaving like the sniveling sidekick; the pathetic best friend with a series of hapless romances attached to her name. To make matters worse, the man on top of me took longer than I liked to notice my tears. When he did, he called me by the ridiculous nickname that he had been using for the past week, making the whole scene seem even direr.
“Aw, Ser-Bear. What’s wrong, Babe?” He sounded genuinely concerned. I would give him that; but we were both trashed. ‘Babe,’ too? I found it hard not to groan.
“Nothing,” I mumbled, pushing up on his chest. He disconnected and rolled onto his back, raking his hand across his face. I wondered if he would ask what was wrong again. I told him ‘no emotions’ between us, and he had kept to that, but my actions now were screaming ‘comfort me’. I was not holding up my end of the bargain.
My breakdown had nothing to do with him though. Earlier in the night, I had received a text from my best friend, Kat, from my hometown. “I have news,” she announced. Despite my incessant begging, she would not divulge the information, instead saying that she would call me in the morning. I only had one guess that felt right. She was pregnant.
Kat was married for five years now, and I knew she and her husband had been trying for the last two of those. My friend had always been the mothering type; she looked out for me most of my life. She always knew what to do. In high school, our friend Chelsy found herself pregnant our sophomore year and the first person she ran to was Kat. Not her parents, not her boyfriend, not the school counselor. Kat. Kat had an answer for everything, a soothing voice, and a level head.
If she had her way, a baby would have arrived much sooner, but her husband wanted to wait, arguing that his new law firm had to be more financially secure. Despite how this frustrated her, she was supportive of him in every way. If there was any role besides ‘mother’ that Kat was born to play, it was ‘wife.’
I had never been jealous of the life my friend had. I knew it was wonderful and she was lucky, but it was not for me. I had no boyfriends in high school, and dated little in college. Not for lack of attention, I just hated being tied to anyone, and my attention was hard to hold. Plus, it all made for great writing.
I suppose even the most inexperienced woman could write erotica, but I found that real life experience, to some extent, helped immensely, and was terribly fun. Until you are crying during sex, which brings me back to my current predicament.
After reading Kat’s text earlier, I felt excitement for her. I bought everyone in the bar a shot, even though she hadn’t officially told me. I hooted and hollered; I laughed and told everyone fond stories of Kat. My companions listened to me, drank with me, and eventually grew weary of the stories about some chick from the Midwest they didn’t know and could care less about.
Slowly fear and sadness crept inside me. My intoxicated thoughts ran wild. I was in the last half of my 29th year alive and wasted on a Tuesday night. I had never been in a serious relationship, and my current fling with the lead actor of the Vegas show that was running in my hotel, certainly did not count.
I had nothing