She left almost an hour ago, but I haven’t moved from this bench. I’m stuck frozen, replaying everything that happened tonight. For a moment, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. With my lack of sleep and all the stress I’m under, it wouldn’t have surprised me if I had been hallucinating. It wouldn’t have been the first time I imagined her so vividly or that I tricked myself into thinking the image was real. But the moment she dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around me, I knew it was her by the warmth of her touch and the smell of her perfume.
I held her longer than what I should have, but I was scared to let her go. I’ve never been much of a believer in religion and all that, but Adaline always was. She holds God so close to her heart that I swear it had to have been Him who brought her to me tonight. Her touch was exactly what I needed—the comfort of someone who knows me so well.
And then she spoke. Fuck if I didn’t feel like breaking apart entirely from the sound of her sweet voice that used to visit me in my dreams after she left town and disappeared. Those dreams faded a long time ago, along with the hope I was hanging on to that she’d come back. That it wasn’t over between us. But it is over. It has been for a long time, and now she’s moving to California. For what? I have no idea. Truth is, I know nothing about who she is now.
All I do know is who she was. I stare across the water over to the park, and I can see her so clearly. We were both seventeen and a bunch of us from school had come down to the bay to catch The Cheesery food truck for lunch. She was with Micah while I sat on the wall that looked over the very water I’m looking at right now. God that girl was all I could think about. I kept peeking over my shoulder just to get another fill of how pretty she was. I never thought I’d have a chance in hell with a girl like that. She proved me wrong, though. I never knew what love was until her, and I haven’t felt it since her.
Honestly, after I accepted that she was really gone, I haven’t felt much of anything. For the past few years, my world has been nothing more than me free falling into every single craving that crashes over me. I’m almost twenty-three years old. I’m no longer a confused kid wondering what the hell is wrong with him.
I know what’s wrong.
She was right all along.
I’m an addict.
I know this very well. Sex controls every aspect of my life. When she left, I no longer had a reason to even attempt to curb the ravenous hunger inside me. Adaline had always been my only reason to try to control myself.
I’m uncontrollable, though.
My body is its own machine, and I gave up on it a long time ago. It calls the shots, not me. It drives me from one high to the next. When I’m not high, I’m consumed with shame. And when that happens, I drink to become numb. And it’s somewhere between those three emotions that I bury myself in work and school.
I’m not sure how I managed to graduate last month with my bachelor’s degree, but I did. Hell, I even passed my LSAT and was accepted into law school. I should be happy, but I no longer feel things I know I should.
I’m lost and it kills me.
I live in a world of ataxic sexual mania.
Fitness is the other thing I’m able to fixate on. It’s one thing I do have power over. I hit the gym, and I run. I run a lot. I run when my body aches. I run when my hands shake. I run when my bones hunger far beyond my capacity of relief.
And in this moment, I need relief so badly it’s painful. Especially after all the emotions Adaline just brought back to life. I pull out my phone and call my first go-to, a girl I met at USF last year who’s an easy fuck. When her voice mail picks up, I move on to the next girl, who I met online that I often meet up with, but she doesn’t answer, either.
It’s nearing one in the morning, but I keep going down my contact list of girls I use over and over again. I know their names. I know what kind of lay they are. Beyond that, I know nothing else. Each of them serves as my drug of choice and nothing more. There’s no question I’m a sick fuck. Trust me, I hate myself a little more every day that passes.
I reach yet another voice mail, only wishing to call Adaline. She’d be the perfect narcotic, but I shake that thought aside as quickly as it creeps in. I refuse to look at her the same way I do all the others. She’s nothing like them. She’s so much more than an object for me to use just to get off.
Getting up from the bench, I rush to my car as my intensity multiplies. There are so many feelings exposing themselves right now, which only makes me want to find my high. Unwilling to waste any time, I speed over to Westshore where I sometimes find myself when I can’t get ahold of any of my contacts and jerking off won’t be enough to paralyze me.
I pull into the back lot of a seedy strip club where I have come to know a couple of the low rent girls. I slip in, giving the doorman an indifferent nod, and go straight to the bar.
“Kason,” the regular bartender greets seductively. She wears a tiny cutoff top, which reveals the bottom of her tits. “Haven’t seen you in a while. You want a drink?”
“A shot of whatever,” I tell her. I look over my shoulder and scan the dimly lit club. There are a few girls giving lap dances toward the back, and when I look at the ones dancing on stage, I come up empty. “Hey, is Bridgett working tonight?”
She slides the shot glass of brown liquor my way. “Yeah. I think she’s on a break.”
“Would you let her know I’m here?”
She bats her fake eyelashes, and my gut cringes as she saunters away to find what I came for. I fucking hate coming here. It only reminds me of the dirty, decrepit man I’ve become.
I shoot back the liquor, but quickly get distracted from the heat burning through my chest when a hand slides over my shoulder.
“Hey, Kason.” I turn in my seat to find Bridgett, who’s wearing a pair of over the knee boots with a thong and a slutty corset.
“You got ten minutes?” I whisper in her ear.
The corner of her lips curve up as she slips her hand down into my pants, grabs the band, and gives me a tug. I follow her through the club filled with cigarette smoke and men who don’t want to go home to their wives.
“Where do you think you’re going?” an older lady questions, stopping Bridgett in her tracks just a few steps shy the room where the girls who aren’t on the clock hang out.
“Relax. He’s my boyfriend,” she lies.
The lady eyes me up and down, and I shoot her a smile. “You know Randy doesn’t like it when boyfriends come here.”
“So let him fuck me, and he’ll leave.”
“Make it quick.”
Bridgett giggles, and I lose patience, so the moment we hit the dressing room where the other girls are, I drag her ass into the private bathroom.
“Take that fucking thing off,” I bite, pointing to the corset. She unfastens the hooks while I shove my pants down and slide a condom onto my dick that’s already hard and screaming to go.
As soon as my head begins to blur in dopamine black, I turn her around, bend her over the sink, and pull her panties down. My skin trills from the inside out the moment I barrel into her, and my vision fades into specks of darkness. In an instant, I’m lost in a tidal wave of pleasure where nothing exists but utter euphoria.
I fuck her hard and fast, her high-pitched moans echoing off the walls of this run-down bathroom. Before I know it, my hips buck, and I come. With a few more thrusts, I drain myself into the condom before tossing it into the waste can. Winded, I lean my back against the wall and catch my breath. I wipe the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand as she shimmies her panties back on.
“I get off at three if you wanna go for a second time. I can stop by your place if you want.”
She picks up her corset from the floor, and after I shove my dick back into my pants, I throw her a casual, “Yeah. Just give me a call,” as I open my wallet and hand her a few twenties before walking out. Several girls stare at me as I walk through the room, well aware of what just happened, but I no longer give a shit. That is, until I reach my car. That’s when it hits me like a three-ton boulder. The shame strangles me as I drive away from the sleazy gentlemen’s club. The feeling is worse today than any other day.
Maybe it’s because I saw Adaline, and all she seemed to do was serve as a reminder to how far I’ve fallen since losing her. How I’m a million times worse than what she ever knew me to be. I’m dirty and sick, and I don’t even want to know what she’d think if she were to find out just how vile I have become.
It disgusts me to have her purity reflect my monstrosity so sharply it nearly blinds me. The defilement I live in churns in my stomach, and I jerk the car off onto the shoulder of the road, open my door, and heave painfully. I hurl, and my throat singes in a fiery burn as the alcohol I swallowed a little bit ago comes back up. Grabbing a bottle of water from my cup holder, I give a quick swish and spit before closing my door and taking a deep breath. My skin is cold and clammy, and when I shift the car into drive, I head back to the hospital because I refuse to waste what little time I have left with my mom while waiting for Bridgett to get off work. But it’s only a couple hours later that she calls.
“I’m at Tampa General. Park in the garage,” I tell her.
“What are you doing at the hospital?”
“We don’t talk, remember? Text me when you’re here, and I’ll come down to you.”
Twenty minutes later, I’m fucking her in the back seat of her car.
A loud knock on my door wakes me out of a deep sleep. Sun pierces through my large bedroom window, and when the knocking continues, I toss the sheets off me and drag myself out of my bed and across the condo to the front door and open it.
Cheryl stands in front of me, dressed for work with her hair pinned up.
“What are you doing here?” I mumble groggily as I open the door wider for her to come in. I’m used to Cheryl stopping by. Since she helped me get into this condo a few years back, she’s done it at least once a week. It’s her way of reminding me that she’s here for me more than just a boss. Hell, sometimes she even brings groceries, so I never complain.
“You mind throwing some pants on?”
I look down to see I’m in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. I go to my room to throw on gym shorts, and when I return to the living room, she’s busying herself by straightening the pillows on the couch she bought me. She insisted that she help me furnish the place when two weeks after I moved in, she saw I had nothing more than a mattress on the floor.
“You don’t have to pick up after me,” I tell her.
“I know I don’t.” She straightens a couple of other items before turning to me with a somber, “How are you doing?”
“You know how I’m doing.”
I fall back onto the couch, and she takes a seat on the chair next to me. “I wanted to come check on you after seeing Ady last night.”
“She said you called her. Why now and not then?”
“You know why,” she says softly, but it doesn’t make it easier.
“She’s at your house?”
“Yes.”
I lean forward and brace my arms on my knees. “It wasn’t easy seeing her,” I admit. “Did she say how she’s feeling?”
“It was a little hard on her.”
“Why did you have her come?”
She reaches out and takes my hand. “Because I’m worried about you, Kason.”
“You still think I’m on drugs?” I ask.
A few weeks ago when things took a turn for the worse with my mom, Cheryl pulled me aside and asked me point blank. I had become so depressed that my craving amplified, and it has been that way ever since. I haven’t been able to eat much or sleep much. I’m constantly anxious and jittery. It’s no wonder she thinks the culprit is drugs. I told her I wasn’t using, but at least she assumes it’s drugs I’m addicted to rather than getting off.
“I don’t know what’s going on. And you aren’t talking to me,” she says as she straightens her posture so I’ll take her more seriously. “I love you like a son, Kason.” Her meaningful eyes bore into me. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. But there’s something going on. Something in my gut is telling me it’s more than just your mother. I didn’t know what else to do. I figured if there were anyone in this world you would open up to, it would be Ady.”
“There was a time I tried to convince myself to hate her. I thought it would feel better than missing her. But as much as I tried to paint her as the bad guy, I just couldn’t.” I take my hand from hers. “She said she’s moving to California.”
She gives me a subtle nod and avoids that topic, simply saying, “First loves always die hard.”
“I guess so.”
She takes a moment before asking, “Can we talk about your mom?”
My eyes slowly make their way to hers.
“It’s been four days since they hooked her up to the machines,” she says gently. “You and I both know she didn’t want to be on life support, Kason. This wasn’t her wish.”
Heat radiates up my neck to my ears and pricks in the backs of my eyes.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I snap. “I know what she wanted, I just . . . I’m not ready.”
“No one is ever ready to lose someone they love. But we can’t be selfish with other people’s lives.”
I push off the couch and pace across the room with my palms pressed against my eyes, because I’m so sick of crying.
“I know this is hard.”
“It fucking sucks.” I turn to face her as she stands. “I let her go, and I have nothing left. Nothing but you. But you’re tied to the one person who doesn’t want anything to do with me. And as much as I love you, that one fact alone has always left me with the fear that one day, you’ll be gone, too.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Oh come on. You know just as well as I do that the only thing that bound us together was her.”
She takes two steps toward me. “You’re right. At one point, it was her. Was, Kason. Past tense. She isn’t the reason anymore.”
“And so how is this going to work? My mom is dying, and you claim I won’t be alone, but at least my mother didn’t have to hide me from anyone like you hide me from Adaline.”
“I’m not hiding you now, am I?” she defends. “She didn’t have to come here, Kason. I might have asked her to, but she made that choice on her own.”
“She’s here for now, but how long until she shuts me out again?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t see her doing that.” She walks over to where I stand next to the window that grants me a water view of the port. “Ady isn’t that fragile girl she once was. Her heart is still very compassionate, but she’s stronger and more tenacious.”
I clench my jaw down to keep my emotions at bay. Seeing her last night . . . it was as if a bomb went off. And even though the constants still remain in place, everything feels different.
“Whatever happens, we’ll work it out, okay?”
Shifting away from the window, I look at the woman who stepped up to the plate when I needed her the most. “Tell me what to do here, because I’m stuck.”
She runs her hands down my arms and presses her lips together before saying. “One thing at a time, okay?”
My muscles tense in an effort to brace myself against the words I know are coming next.
With her most tender voice, she speaks. “You need to say goodbye to your mother. I know it’s going to be hard, but you’re only making it worse on yourself the longer you hang on to her. And if there is anything I can do to make this easier on you, I’ll do it. You know I will.”
I nod, because if I dare open my mouth, I won’t be able to control the pain of my heart ripping apart.
Cheryl doesn’t say anything else, only hugs me and stays a while longer as I stare out the window, wondering how different the world is going to feel with one less person in it.