Bess
Back then . . .
“Ugh, shit. God damn,” I mumbled to myself as I stood up, holding my hand to my forehead while I stumbled toward the kitchen.
I’d woken up curled in a ball on the floor, my cheek resting in a tiny puddle of drool on the rug immediately inside my front door. Nipples peeking through my tiny white crop top, skinny jeans stuck to my body, and knee-high black leather boots completed my look.
I know, not a very glamorous situation for a twenty-one-year-old coed. But pretty much my daily ritual.
Standing, I held my palm to my forehead, running it over my cheek as I tugged cobwebs of hair out of my mouth. Memories of the night before flooded my brain as my feet tried to remain steady on the floor.
“Ouch,” I said to myself.
If I concentrated hard, I could remember being high last night, dancing on the makeshift bar until a guy lifted me off and took me somewhere else for another hit of something even better. Things were hazy after that.
Finally reaching my destination, I gently leaned my clammy forehead against the cool vibrations of the fridge/freezer combo, willing its chilled touch to drag the pain and awful thoughts away.
It didn’t.
Oh well, I’d come to prefer my current state of pain to the one I’d lived in as a little girl, and later as a misguided teenager left alone to her own devices. Yes, I would take dry mouth, a wicked hangover, and incessant jonesing for my next hit over watching my mom walk out or being left with an emotionally absent father.
Any day, hands down.
Speaking of hands, my fingers drifted back to the rat’s nest that was currently in my hair, my thick long waves twisted in a million different clumps only a bottle of conditioner and a tearful comb-out would solve. That was what I got for sleeping on the floor, resting my head on a burlap mat instead of a fluffy down-filled pillow in my bed.
After taking a small step backward, I opened the fridge door and grabbed the bottle of orange juice, then poured some into the dirty mug sitting next to where my bony hip was resting against the counter. I sipped it slowly, trying to avoid it sloshing in my stomach, and willed it not to come back up, which was no easy feat.
Take a tiny sip, Bess, then a big breath in through your nose and out.
I repeated this mantra until my eyes no longer watered. The natural sugar eased only the smallest pinch of pain, but just enough to make it so I could move.
When I turned a little too fast, the juice became a brutal rolling storm in my belly, threatening to come back up. Slowing my pace, I made my way to the bathroom for some useless ibuprofen and to pee.
With my butt on the ice-cold toilet seat, I looked at my watch. One o’clock in the afternoon. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly morning, but it was Friday, the one day I didn’t have any classes. Nothing missed, nothing lost.
I’d wiped and moved on wobbly legs to wash my hands and get the pills when I heard my phone beeping. Geez, that fucker was so loud. Where the hell was it? I leaned down, resting my hands on the vanity and thought hard, then felt it vibrate in my back pocket.
Bingo. Score one for Bess. I found my phone without running upstairs to use the Find My iPhone app on my neighbor’s phone, which might have happened more times than I cared to admit.
I cupped some water in my hands and brought them up to my face, although most of it dribbled down my chin before I swallowed the tiny iridescent blue over-the-counter capsules that would bring little to no relief.
But who really wanted that?
Actual relief meant covering up the real pain that burned in the pit of my stomach, the empty ache I desperately tried to fill with boys or pills or booze. Or all of the above.
Turning and resting my butt on the sink to check out my text message, I rolled my eyes.
CAMPER: Yoga with hot DJ & blacklight. 5:30 p.m.
With stiff fingers, I typed out a response that turned into a conversation.
ME: Seriously? Happy hour instead?
CAMPER: Nope. Yoga, then margs at Texi Mexi in our sweaty yoga gear.
ME: Say pretty please.
CAMPER: Pretty please! Be ready at 5.
I didn’t respond; I knew there was no talking Camper out of it. Besides, she lived one floor up, and she and her long legs and big curly head would show up at five o’clock whether I said yes or no.
Whipping around sixty-five miles an hour too fast for my current state, I faced the medicine cabinet again and pulled out the tiny first aid kit covered in pink and purple kitty stickers, opening the stupidly concealed container with caution. That box, proof of my stunted childhood, held everything that was precious and sacred to me. Carefully, I took stock of its contents: two extra-lush joints, five tabs of Molly, and a few oxy.
Shit, I was low on pharmaceuticals. I made a mental note to call my “guy” before plucking a pretty little Molly or two out of the box. I needed to dim the pain slowly seeping from my heart, and while I was at it, enhance the upcoming yoga experience a touch.
I wasn’t sure how Camper did it; that girl raged as hard as I did. Didn’t she?
We’d been friends since freshman year, immediately bonding when we’d found ourselves in a nearby tattoo parlor during orientation week. We were both taking the first bold move of our college lives, establishing our independence with a permanent reminder on our fresh and creamy young skin.
Despite her bubbly nature and peppy white smile that often clashed with my somber demeanor, we’d been inseparable ever since. Living the last two years in the same apartment building, taking identical courses, covering for each other, and most importantly, avoiding Friday classes so we could live it up Thursday through Sunday.
Setting my magic pills on the dresser, I stripped out of my smelly clothes from the night before. As they fluttered to the floor, I watched their descent, remembering moments of my own extremely real downward spiral.
Then I crawled naked between my cool sheets, shutting my eyes for a moment or three hours.